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Wikia Export

Don't forget the pics. We need the pics over at Wikia. Shrumster 22:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems most of the Cosmic Era mobile suit images http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cosmic_Era_images are going to be deleted on February 9, 2007, because they're orphaned/not used in any articles. Silver Edge 20:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Gundam X MS pages/Tallgeese

I randomly stumbled across a prod on the Esperanza (Gundam X) page. I gave it a look over, as well some of the other pages in the infobox at the bottom, and even though I'm a fan of the series, it just seems like too many pages on subjects that just aren't that notable; as much as I like the series, it's not very popular. So I've removed the prod and said I would bring a request for merging the page.

I'd like to help out, but I don't really know where to begin. I've only merged a stub once and it's been a few years since I saw the series, so I'm not sure I could add much outside of adding citations from MAHQ or gundamofficial or what have you. I'm willing to help out, though. Tiakalla 04:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Tallgeese up for AfD as well. Just letting y'all know.Tiakalla 06:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest making a Mecha in Mobile New Century Gundam X page and dumping every single Gundam X suit there. That'll make it easier to clean up. I chose the word "mecha" over "mobile suits" so you can also add in vehicles/battleships/etc. Also, the actual name of the show should be used (I assume it's that one?). I'm currently in the process of planning a Mecha in Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (it's my favorite series) page as a starter for our WP:WAF cleanup of Gundam articles. Might also go for Mecha in Mobile Suit Gundam F91 and Mecha in Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. Starting with the short series, so there isn't a huge amount of suits to deal with. (I wonder how big the Zeta page will be... :) ) Shrumster 20:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone have any objections to my choice of name for the subpages? I'm a bit confused about how I deal with the suits that appear in more than one series though, but I'll probably have the main article in the series where the suit first appeared? Shrumster 16:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Works for me. :) I'll go ahead and do a dump then on GX, probably tonight. It occurs to me that also having them all in one place allows for adding in content applicable to all, such as their use in the series (as I recall, contrary to UC, most of them are used by civilians, not military groups) and their design/designers if I can find any good sourcing on that. As for the name, I usually see it as 'After War Gundam X', but Mobile New Century is a direct translation of the Japanese, so I'll stick with that. There's already a After War Mobile Units page, why not use that?
The only suit I think might be worth leaving out of the merge is the title suit, so I'll leave that be for now. Does anyone have any good sources for referecing the episodes? Tiakalla 03:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
So, how do we deal with the suits that appear in multiple series? Do we just reference them from the original series in which they appeared in? Shrumster 08:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Probably add them to th original series's page, yeah, and link on the other pages. Tiakalla 05:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

References

Guys, I just found a reference that may help in future debates about Gundam's notability.

  • Gilson, Mark (1998). "A Brief History of Japanese Robophilia". Leonardo. 31 (5). Sixth Annual New York Digital Salon: 367–369. doi:10.2307/1576597. Retrieved 2007-02-05.

Gundam (the original series) is mentioned.

Shrumster 19:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Found another one. I'll just add here so that anyone who needs to reference the articles can easily copy-paste the templates.

Oh, and if we ever need to cite the official site, here it is.

  • "Main Page". GundamOfficial.com. Bandai America Inc. Retrieved 2007-02-05.

Shrumster 20:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has ever said that the whole Gundam concept is non-notable, it's just those pesky weapons. Moreschi Deletion! 20:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
You'd be surprised. :) I've encountered quite a lot of people who don't believe that stuff like this aren't important to non-fans because they're "just a robot cartoon". Shrumster 13:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
What you and other "deletionists" fail to understand is the nature of the Gundam franchise. The "pesky weapons" are elevated to a status near that of characters; the bewildering array of merchandise based off of the more popular ones, and the model kits and resin figures of the intermediate variety, should be testament enough to that. The Wiki litmus test for "notability" is, in this situation, not serving the community as well as it should, giving the rather unique circumstances of this scenario. I keep trying to mention this, and it keeps falling on deaf ears. MalikCarr 03:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Um, I'm an inclusionist. Shrumster 08:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Whoops. That was targeted at Moreschi. My apologies. MalikCarr 18:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
At any rate, I've dug up some relevant sources and references to contest the AfD of this article, owing to it being "unsourced fancruft" as the deletion critera, and would appreciate a few keep votes. Despite what they say with "AfDs are not a vote" that's typically how it comes down, no matter how well the dissenting minority clarifies the problems originally raised with the AfD. Please note that this only applies to the Dijeh and Hi-Zack articles; those Gundam X mecha are effectively boned since they really don't have much (or practically anything, to be honest) in the way of notability outside the series they appeared in. MalikCarr 18:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Need some help please

I realize people are focused on the Gundam vehicles pages, but a dispute has come up on one of the character pages, and I'm hoping to get some neutral third party input.

I first encountered user Freedom Justice whem they made a pair of nonsensical edits on 1/23 to the template info of the Cagalli Yula Athha page. [1][2]. To me this looked like the typical driveby fan promoting their favorite matches and I reverted it.

The same editor did something similar to the Lacus Clyne page [3], which was sourced (albeit poorly) in the article itself, so I also reverted that, and briefly explained why. Three days later an anonymous user duplicated Freedom Justice's edit and removed the sourcing in the body of the article.[4] When I reverted that, Freedom Justice repeated the deletion, changing the source to say something else.[5]

I should requested other people to comment at that time, but instead I continued to revert what I saw fan-favoritism vandalism. Anonymous editors repeated the previous anonymous edit on 1/27 [6] and 1/28 [7] and 1/30 [8].

At this point their comments claimed the drama CD said something completely different than the article had originally said and chastised me for changing the article without any proof. (I believe the pot and kettle analogy fits rather well.) Since I had no proof either way, I stated that I believed poster of the old version was more credible than Freedom Justice. [9]

Freedom Justice again posted what I saw as opinion, not fact on 1/31 [10] as did an anonymous poster [11] Freedom Justice on 2/2 [12] and 2/3 [13] and again on 2/3 [14].

In the second to last Freedom Justice complained about my not giving reasons (though I had in several previous reverts). In the last he engaged in personal insults towards myself.

Now possibly Freedom Justice is right, but they haven't acted in a way that I find credible. I should have asked for outside help much sooner, but I'm hoping someone else will be willing to step in and help with this whole sorry mess. [15]. Edward321 03:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This should fix part of the problem. That part of the infobox really wasn't important, and is just a magnet for these kinds of fan arguments and speculations (WP:OR, etc). As for the edits outside of the infobox, this is just speculation of my own, but when people start to cite a "drama CD" that no one has heard of before.. it's usually bull :) -- Ned Scott 05:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't know the detail, but I asked one of my friend who has such CD, he stated that the drama CD referred may be the 8th GSD CD. He will check it for me later to make sure, though may be someone needed to confirm it. Draconins 15:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I and my friend have not found anything related in the 8th CD, the drama is about Lacus who try to sing the same way as Meer helped by Andrew Waltfeld, I and my friend will continue to 3rd GS CD. Draconins 06:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Now, that I have heard the 3rd CD, I am sure the one thing refered to is the 3rd Suit CD. Okay this cd has a track with a title "Haro". It takes story during Athrun's visit to Lacus's house. There, Athrun thinks that Lacus is pretty, Lacus even talk about what will their children become which make Athrun panic. Later, Athrun also fixed some kind of machinary and build Haro for Lacus. They also talk many more. So I guess this is kind of first love. Anyone can put this to deal with the fan-matching? I want to provide the track, if only it is not illegal, sigh... =_= Draconins 05:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Ned. While I found the line useful shorthand, it is such a target for driveby fan-favoritism that we're better off without it. Such people usually don't delve into article itself. Edward321 06:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:GUNDAM members may have votes ignored

Section title says it all. Admin Blnguyen has argued, in closing this AfD, that votes from WP:GUNDAM members, or alleged members (as if this has become a crime now...) may be discounted from AfD debates. I am presently attempting to have this precedent overturned because it is DANGEROUS. Would -you- like a say in whether or not an article written by this project should be deleted, or should outsiders only be allowed to vote for that? I am not a member of this project, but I can see an injustice as big as this one for miles. MalikCarr 03:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I tried. The current "concensus" is that nothing I have cited in any of these articles is a "reliable source," including but not limited to Entertainment Bibles, model kit listings and Bandai America's Gundam website. With this in mind, nothing Gundam-related beyond the most general things (such as the RX-78, if you remember that fiasco) are "sourced" on Wikipedia, no matter what might be claimed. This was the brass ring, gentlemen, and it is a failure. MalikCarr 12:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Let's just improve the Wikia stuff. Seems like a big portion of Wikipedia is anti-Gundam (and anime in general), which I find unfair, seeing as Star Wars and Simpsons have very favourable treatment. Shrumster 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Gundam X mecha pages/possible source/archive?

Okay, I went through all the Gundam X mecha pages to see what all needs to be done. And, uh...wow. This is going to take a lot longer than I thought. What with the cleanup needed and all the redundant links and redirect pages, I think it might not be worth fighting any AfDs over these pages and just start fresh instead. I've gone ahead and copypasted all the current info on their pages into an offline file to work on (which I could put on a user subpage or upload to my own site if anyone else wanted to work on it), so nothing will be lost (save some uploaded images, which can be reuploaded easily and I think is probably not worth it except for the essential mecha of the series).

I have to confess that it's been at least three years, probably more, since I saw this series, so there really isn't much I know about these suits. So I'm going to need a little help. There's also a few questions I'm wondering about....

  1. Does anyone have any good resources for summaries of the series episodes? Does gundamofficial have those? Not only would it help refresh my memory, it'll dispel OR claims.
  2. A few pages got AfD'd before I did the mad copypasting: Bertigo, Dautap, Daughseat, Crouda, Febral, Estardoth, and Pyron. Any sources for these besides what I would find on gundamofficial and MAHQ?
  3. Satyricon. Has the name of this organization been actually romanized that way in any official publications? I recall seeing it as 'Satellicon' in fansub, which makes a bit more sense as I don't recall any saytr references in GX. If nothing's found, I would suggest romanizing it directly as 'Saterikon'.
  4. In order to help add real-world signifigance to the mecha article, I was thinking of adding in a short part on the designers: any possible influences and so on. Any good sources for this?
  5. I have some ability to translate Japanese (although I'm terribly slow); are there any pages on the japanese wiki that would be worth translating?
  6. (uh wow this list got long) The model lines count as real-world meaning and should be included, right? Anyone got a good list? I only know the three main suits (GX, Leopard and Airmaster) and their variants got 1/100 and 1/144s and that Double X, Leopard Destroy and Airmaster Burst got SD treatment as well. Didn't something in the GX line get a bigger model?

Okay, onto the next part. I haven't gone to check the pages yet, but is anyone using Mark Simmons's essays (from the Del Rey print of the Seed manga) as sourcing? Would anyone like a copy? I've got the ones in 3 and 4 (and possibly 1/2; it's a two-in-one book, so I'm not sure if the essays were included).

Finally, Wiki is yelling at me about the size of this page; should someone make a talk page archive? (I am a n00b, I do not know how. :( ) Tiakalla 05:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The Gundam X articles were indeed a mess; you'll note I was not arguing for salvaging the GX articles in this latest AfD boondoggle. Gundam X hasn't gotten much exposure in the United States, and contrary to Wikipedia's stated goals of maintaining a "worldwide view" of things, this is a huge hinderance to articles of such topics. Anyway, the three title Gundams, as well as the Frost Brothers' Ashtaron and Virsago Gundams all had 1/144th scale models made of them, as well as their subsequent upgrades (e.g. the X-Divider and Double X). I believe X, Airmaster, Leopard, and Double X recieved High Grade 1/100 scale kits, but I do not know about the others. You may wish to check Hobby Link Japan's shop pages for them. With regards to Mark Simmons' essays, I wouldn't hold them in much regard. The deletionists will discount anything that isn't a "published, reliable, third-party source" when it suits their purposes. You can observe this fiasco of deletionism in the AfD I have linked above. MalikCarr 05:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
They are published (admittedly within the manga itself, but I thought that original sources were okay for fictional subjects. Although I suppose it's not the "original" source, as the essays weren't part of the original Japanese publication.). As for reliable, he's an employee of Bandai as I recall; ANN says he's done script work on several Gundam series, and these particular essays are published within the manga itself. FWIW, his site has a few more. I seriously don't see how a deletionist could discount them as unreliable. Hm, I should have thought of HLJ; guess I've been out of the fandom longer than I thought >_>;; Tiakalla 06:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and he wrote "Gundam: The Official Guide", which I imagine says a lot in itself. Tiakalla 06:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
See my above post about that AfD. All of those are not considered "reliable sources" by the deletionists. MalikCarr 12:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Non-notability in US is not important if it is notable enough in other part of the world. Many deletionist seems to forget about this. Another problem is that to see the notability many should understand other languages in Asian, at least Japanese (the series' language), Korean (where Gundam even coined as legal term), and Chinese (many non-original toys come from China). Additional knowledge of southeast-asian language may help too. Draconins 06:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It is no use, as I have said, some deletionist are just too fond of their own world, and regard anything out of it as not notable. Some even say that anime magazines are not reliable sources of anime. Disregard them, they can live in their world happily ever after, it is none of our concern. Reliable source by wiki's definition should only need a primary source when describing something fictional, and a published secondary source. Most modeled mecha is very easy to have secondary sources, Hobby Japan and Dengeki Hobby have tons of modeling example that quote the original primary sources. However, I assume what they want are inline citations, quoting page numbers and section titles of the sources, date of publish and such. This is what we are missing in most of the pages, and instead we do have a lot of badly written page without any real sources and only fan written statements. On the other hand of this massive AfDs that had occured, I would be apprciated that they have just provided a very good means of getting my hands on a source search and they will regret what they have done later. A wiki article does not have to be well written, but needs to be sourced and notable(i.e. with secondary source) is what they want. Well, from my source search, we can have a seperate article for "every single mecha" that shows up on a "different issue" of "any" model magazine, as long as the model magazine is quoting the primary source. Meaning we can have tons of "stub" class articles with virtually only official data(sourced from both official means and model magazines or anime magazines) and still can claim its notablity. Of course this is not what we want, and we should only keep Lists of each series for now. MythSearchertalk 14:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Err, perhaps you were not reviewing the Dijeh/Hi-Zack AfD. DENGENKI HOBBY WAS CITED and brushed off as either (A) not a source at all, or (B) not a "reliable source." Honestly, if they applied this hogwash about "multiple publised reliable third-party sources" anywhere else in Wikipedia, 70-90% of its articles would fail. Perhaps more. Oh, and don't forget that anyone who edits an article being nominated for deletion has no say in the matter either. MalikCarr 21:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Addendum: I have cited the following in these deletion debates as sources, and, according to the deletionist camp, they are "not reliable": 1. MS Encyclopedia, 2. Model Graphix, 3. Dengenki Hobby, 4. Super Robot Wars, 5. HLJ, Hobby Search, etc, for model kit listings, 6. Gundam Perfect Web, 7. Bandai America's GundamOfficial.com, and 8. UltimateMark.com and Gundam: The Official Guide. According to the current discussion (read: lynching), none of these are reliable sources as far as Wikipedia is concerned. It is my belief that there has been a systematic effort to make Gundam "unsourceable" by Wikipedia's standards. Even that appearance of the Mk. II on the Conan O'Brien show is considered to be "pointless trivia" by this crowd. I am convinced that this fight is unwinnable unless we resort to the tactics the Star Wars fans use, e.g. bombard AfD pages with meaningless votes. Sorta like what the deletionists do, actually... MalikCarr 22:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Malik, I like your enthusiasm for this, but I think you're taking this just a bit too personally. I think it might better benefit things to let the manner drop for now. If there's evidence of further anti-WP:GUNDAM bias where it's not warranted, it would probably make a stronger case.
To me, it looks like the closing admin chose a poor choice of words, to be sure, but that the intent was not to exclude people based on project, but rather those interested in keeping the page regardless of WP policies. (Not that I'm saying y'all were like that, mind.) I didn't see the article myself, so I don't know about sourcing or lack thereof, but I do think the argument is slightly better on the delete side, and that the keeps do sound a bit like ILIKEIT. Going by WP:FICT, those articles need merged anyway. (I wasn't involved in the AfD and can't check the page in question, so I've abstained from the deletion review.)
I don't think this is going to cause problems for reliable sourcing in the future; to me, it sounds like the issue with "reliable" sourcing is that they don't establish notability (which they don't, really, except perhaps SRW.) And most of the articles ARE going to fail notability checks, because a lot of these suits as individuals just aren't important even in the context of the shows themselves, which is why I've been working on merging in line with WP:FICT. Honestly, as hard as some fan worked to make all those pages and infoboxes, I don't think they did Wikipedia or the project any favors. :/
The only concrete evidence of anti WP:Gundam bias I can source, right now, is from --ElaragirlTalk|Count, who has participated in just about every Gundam AfD so far, and also endorses Moreschi's administrative nomination, has gone on record saying that the project should be dissassembled. At any rate, the fact that links to the Gundam Wiki have been removed as "linkspam" from some relevant articles further inclines me to believe there is some kind of institutionalized effort at foot here. MalikCarr 03:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Elaragirl is a declared deletionist according to her userpage; given that these all went in about the same time, it's not surprising that she would have commented on all of them. And one person doesn't make a bias (see also: WP:CABAL). On the link removals, I haven't seen the removals in question, so I can't make a judgement on that.
I do think that you're letting this get to you a bit too personally, to the point where you've been giving out personal attacks. While I do think you have some basis for being annoyed or even angry, it's not productive to those articles or this project, and it makes it harder to take your opinion seriously. So take a deep breath, and chill a bit. :) All that energy is better spent bringing these articles up to WP standards. Tiakalla 03:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I had thought that as well, until I brought up a pair of AfD articles to standards and addressed concerns raised by the nominator, and they were deleted anyway, simultaneously establishing a dangerous precedent that affects all editors whose articles are facing deletion. This was an epiphany to me that deletionists cannot be reasoned with, and once they have targeted an article for deletion, they will fight tooth and nail to see it burn. So yes, I respectfully disagree that my energy would be better spent elsewhere. As Burke (allegedly) said, "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" or some variation thereof. I'd like to think I'm at least doing -something-. MalikCarr 05:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Then you seriously are taking this too personally, as it was your work that was deleted. Again, I didn't see the articles in question, but (assuming you have them saved; if not, I think you can ask an admin to help you retrieve the contents) if you'd like to recreate them on a userpage or send it to me by email or whatnot, I'll take a look at it and see if it can meet notability standards. With my passing taste of UC, the names don't ring any bells at all, so I'm not sure they could stand on their own. But, you've mentioned SRW and Amuro Ray piloting the one, so maybe it can. Tiakalla 05:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
All the articles nominated were crap at the time the AfD was created. I believe the Dijeh and Hi-Zack had some real-world notability, so I went out to systematically rectify the concerns set up by the AfD's nominator, thinking that those who partook in it could be reasonable. The quality of the article's contents itself was not being debated; indeed, I was going to blank the whole thing and rewrite it once the AfD was over. What was being debated was that (A) the article was unsourced, (B) the item in question was non-notable, and (C) it was "fancruft." I sourced the article (these were dismissed as being unreliable), I provided evidence of notability (these were ignored or discounted), and regardless of "cruft"'s status as an essay, not policy, had pledged to deep six the parts of it that could not be sourced directly (e.g. "but because the Karaba had little resources the Dijeh used many existing weapons"). Trying to have a rational, reasonable discussion with a deletionist is like trying to convince an alligator to stop eating your legs. MalikCarr 06:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
And most likely, the delete votes being counted were from when they were crap; you didn't really draw enough attention to the revisions, I think, for people to know to take another look. But what's done is done; as I see it, the choices are as follows: 1. bring the article up to snuff in userspace or off Wikipedia and recreate it when it's done, 2. conclude that it can't pass WP:FICT on its own and merge it into a relevant list of mecha article, or 3. complain about how the deletionists have wronged the project and get nothing done. I've offered to give you a hand, but if you'd rather look for the cabal, then I should be working on the Gundam X mecha pages. Tiakalla 07:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Per WP:N, a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself. Dengeki Hobby and Hobby Japan is 2 independent magazine published by 2 different companies not under or funded by Bandai or any related companies. They make their own money and produces their own goods(other than Gundam related stuff). How reliatble they are? well, Hobby Japan's first published magazine is before the First Gundam anime(1969), and mainly focuses on military and real life models even in latest releases. The Hobby Japan company also publishes Arms Japan and Game Japan, which is not Gundam related.[16] Dengeki Hobby is from the company Media works, they publish some Gundam related books but mainly publishes magazines and all forms of books, with 9 magazines published each month, Dengeki Hobby does not even uses Gundam mecha as their cover every time. (Mar, 2007 uses NGE instead)2. If they do not take these as reliable and notable sources, then I have no idea how anything can be reliable. (Maybe they cannot read it and thus it is unreliable?) Any how, remember to place them into the articles as inline citations quoting page number and issue date, we do our job, let them do theirs, the project is not going to get dissembled any time soon, whoever even mentioned saying it should be is just being unreasonable and making themselves look bad. MythSearchertalk 06:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
That's the gist of the argument offered; "a magazine about toys is not reliable" and some have gone insofar as to say that, because these items are Japanese, they are unverifiable as well. What happened to that whole "conform to a worldwide view" thing they keep trumpeting? MalikCarr 06:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, in addition to MythSearcher saying, there are lots of local anime and hobby magazines in East and Sourthern Asia which are independents from Bandai. Draconins 06:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll agree that that's independant. Notable, I'm not quite sure on, but it's a printed and (non-self) published work, although HJ's long history says something. I don't know what in particular was being referenced, so I can't say for sure on that. I didn't see any mention of it on the AfD though; clarification there would have made a stronger case, methinks. Given proper background like this, I don't see why they would fail WP:RS in another AfD.Tiakalla 07:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A question regarding notability

There seems to be an issue involving a number of Gundam articles and Articles For Deletion.

WP:N defines notability as follows:

"If it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and of each other. All topics must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia. This requirement ensures that there exists enough source material to write a verifiable, encyclopedic article about the topic.

Notable here means "worthy of being noted"[1][2] or "attracting notice"[3]. It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". It is not measured by Wikipedia editors' own subjective judgements. It is not "newsworthiness". "

A subnote to this is : "Self-promotion, autobiography, and product placement are not the routes to an encyclopaedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the subject. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material. Also see Wikipedia:Independent sources.) The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, author, inventor, or vendor) have actually considered the subject notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it.".

Wikipedia:Independent sources is an essay, Notability and Reliable Sources are guidelines. The relevant portions of WP:RS says this about primary sources:

"Wikipedia articles may use primary sources, so long as they have been published by a reputable publisher, but only to make descriptive points about the topic. Any interpretive claims require secondary sources."

I'm aware these aren't firm policy, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people kill whatever doesn't meet them. With that out of the way, the problem with many Gundam articles is as follows:

  1. An article is created by an anon, and is nothing more than stats and a blurb.
  2. WP:GUNDAM expands the article out to a full length article. No sources are included. Where these stats come from isn't ever said. (I'm presuming from books...somewhere.)
  3. A wild-eyed, drooling deletionist, fresh from assaulting our other favorite kickball, Star Trek articles, comes by and sees this. With insane screams of "Cruft" they spit forth 549 AfD's.
  4. There is an attempt (understandibly hurried) to get some kind of sourcing in the article before it's deleted.
  5. Deletionist Wikideathsquad arrives en masse, votes 45939 times with our army of sockpuppets, article is slain.

I'm engaging in a bit of gentle sarcasm and hyperbole above but you get the idea. The problem is, I think, how we interpret WP:N, WP:RS, and WP:OR. It is all well and good to link to an Amazon.com listing of some book and say "This is the source I got this information from." But what information?

I am here to fix your conundrum of dealing with us evil deletionist nutjobbers. :)

How to defend yourself against "no cited sources"

It is helpful if you set your cites properly. For example:

<ref name="GundamRef1">Book name, by Book Author. Date Published. ISBN or ISBX Code.</ref> Put this after the claim made. For example, if you see have a set of stats, put this at the end of the stat block. If you claim the Gundam was piloted by a person, put this ref at the end of that (and obviously replace my filler with the right book.)


How to defend against lack of notability

Notability depends on both subjective notability and mainstream notability. I'll be the first one to admit I didn't do my homework on the RX-78 AfD, and boy do I feel fucking stupid. That is a good example of how articles should be sourced.

There is plenty of subjective and mainstream notability. However, the sourcing you use to establish this cannot be suspect. GundamOfficial.com is not reliable in this regard. It has the most accurate information, perhaps, but it's also tightly tied to the subject at hand.

This source below: The Science of Anime: Mecha-Noids and AI-Super-Bots By Lois H. Gresh, Robert E. Weinberg. Published 2005 Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1560257687

Has a 40 page section on Gundam and most of the culture. Another one.

  1. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation By Susan Jolliffe Napier. Published 2001 Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312238630. Mentions several mecha and their histories and influence by name.

Reliable Sourcing

The best reliable sources have no direct connections at all to the subject. Don't rely on companies like HobbyJapan and Dengeki for your notability, since they only work on things of this nature. Find mainstream news stories, or mentions in books or collections like the two above. There is a critical difference between "independant entities" and independant sourcing.

If you must rely on things like HobbyJapan clearly cite AND list out what the source says. If you use a model kit, then point that out in the article. "These stats taken from model kit number XX33-xY, at thislink.com" or whatever.

The best thing to do, of course, is as a Wikiproject, make up some kind of template to put on the article that says "This article is in the process of being sourced. Please don't be a cad and delete it".

Other things:

  • Once things are properly sourced, you COULD expand the articles from those sources since you referred to them. (I'm assuming good faith that you have the sources listed. If you need excerpts from the two books above, I can provide them.) The addition of such information is how many Pokemon articles got to FA.
  • Try to minimize the number of armor suits that you can't source reliably. If you must, put several on one page and have at least a couple of solid sources for the page. It's better to do it that way than make multiple articles, because they'll just get deleted.
  • If a page goes to AfD make a copy in your user space when it does. There isn't any problem with this sort of thing if you are working on sourcing it.
  • WP:Pokemon and (grimaces) the Star Wars Wikipeoples probably have guidance about tricks of sourcing from primary sources and finding good secondary sources.

I assume some people here will accept this advice in the spirit in which it was offered. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 07:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"Don't rely on companies like HobbyJapan and Dengeki for your notability, since they only work on things of this nature." Irrational reasoning. If this was truly a criteria, we couldn't look at scientific journals about meteorology for articles on weather related topics because they focus solely on weather issues. This is amazingly faulty logic. The place to look for information on specialized topics is precisely places like HobbylinkJapan, to suggest otherwise is ludicrous, these are truly reliable and verifiable sources. Kyaa the Catlord 07:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
If a large majority of Wikipedians disagree, which seems to be the case since those sources haven't prevented the articles from being deleted, then what is the point. I'm not saying don't use them. I'm saying don't depend on them to establish notability. It would seem to me that you would want to use approaches that work and that end up in producing quality articles that don't get nominated for deletion. And I disagree -- I look at scientific journals for information on meteriology rather than meteorological almanacs to determine notability, even though the latter is where I would find hard data and specialied information. Just my thoughts, given in the interest of helping. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that people seem to think notability is subjective. It is not. There is no subjectivity in the notability guidelines, if we show a number of independent, reliable sources commenting on these topics we have met the requirements. Period. There is no room for argument in the notability guidelines. A topic is either notable or it is not, regardless of attempts to sweep our sources under the rug. Kyaa the Catlord 08:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that defining independant reliable sources is a major issue, and most people, you must admit, don't see those sources as indpendant. Since WP runs by consensus, if the consensus is the sources aren't reliable, will you suggest it's better for the articles to be deleted than to try to do things in a manner that keeps them around? --ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
In cases like that, I give up. Sometimes it is better to throw your hands up when you're faced with a consensus that is obviously incorrect. I've pretty much stopped editting Gundam articles due to these AfDs which, in my view, show more of the ignorance of the topic by the majority of those involved in the AfD debates than any real policy issues. Wikipedia is supposed to strive to avoid a western worldview, but based on the history of Gundam-related AfDs this is not the case in practice. Kyaa the Catlord 08:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
And Elaragirl's argument do have problem. As Kyaa the Catlord said, lets' assume your argument is right, we couldn't look at scientific journals about meteorology for articles on weather related topics because they focus solely on weather issues. Even if we don't depend on them to establish notability, then we still can not depend on science journal for establish notability on some subject, lets say Roche Limit. =_=; I believe only a few mainstream source can explain notability of Roche Limit. Do not forget, there isn't any consensus yet about independant issue of the source and if you say most people, with good faith assumed, can I know who are you referring? I hate to repeat myself, please search for my argument in [RX-78 AfD]. Did you know story of American Civil War if you are not American? Most will not are or barely hear it. Richard H. Anderson? I also know most American does not care about Football (soccer), is that means Football (soccer) is not notable? Hell, no, ask most European men or Asian men. Do you know Roche limit? Now go to fiction side, anyone who never see Babylon 5 know Spoo?Draconins 09:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Hey, don't tread on ole Fighting Dick. :P (Gods, what a nickname!) It's civil war cruft! Kyaa the Catlord 09:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

--ElaragirlTalk|Count 09:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a shame. You can't change bias by simply telling people they are biased. You have to work within the limits and then slowly change things over time. It seems to me that you would like having articles on this series, so to me (and if I'm being wrong or stupid or naive you can tell me why) working to improve the articles to a point where everyone is happy is a good thing.--ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that certain people are not interested in improving articles, they'd prefer to just delete. And, well, the Gundam articles are an easy target, but when similar problems are pointed out with similar western sci-fi articles, the problems are brushed aside. (For example, X-Wing and Starfury.) Kyaa the Catlord 08:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Please don't get me started on how fucked Star Wars is. If there is a way to improve the articles, they should be improved. Only if they can't should they be deleted. I actually reversed myself in a DRV for that reason, so I'm not being hypocritical here. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 09:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • grin* I just don't like the seeming double standard. Our articles are at least as well sourced as theirs, but we have to fight to keep ours when they are given an immediate pass. Kyaa the Catlord 09:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I nominated one that was particularly offensive in terms of lack of sourcing and spades of OR for deletion. I didn't do it to prove a WP:POINT but because it didn't belong. *shrugs* I think -- and I believe -- that if things CAN be improved, they should be. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 09:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Elaragirl, this advice is useful for -any- article and the two books you list could be very helpful. Since you seem to own them both, would you be willing to provide information from them for citations? Edward321 15:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, as follows : --ElaragirlTalk|Count 18:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing

The Science of Anime: Mecha-Noids and AI-Super-Bots By Lois H. Gresh, Robert E. Weinberg. Published 2005 Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1560257687

Pg 33 lays out the background of mecha in general, conflating the importance of Gundam with Metropolis and Gigantor.

Pg: 39 starts off with a review of Gundam franchise history. Notable quote:

(emphasis mine)

Pg 55 talks about mobile suits, including the RX-78 and the MSK-008_Dijeh by name (which is why I reversed my vote at DRV). Useful cite :


Pg 63 has a very disgustingly long list of a large number of mobile suits / robots that introduced new elements into the design of mecha.

Pg 66 compares Gundam to later things, such as Battletech and Macross, and how it's unlikely anime or mecha would have evolved as much as it did without the confluence of Gundam's influence.


Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation By Susan Jolliffe Napier. Published 2001 Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312238630.

Mentions several mecha and their histories and influence by name, including the RX-78, the RGM-79 GM, the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki (with about a bajillion images of that), and some more.

I'll provide anything I can on these, although I'm fairly certain that the Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke book has had at least one reprint since my copy was published. Those are the only two books I own on Anime, so I may wander out to the bookstore to pick up something else later on today, if it would be useful. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 18:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The Hyaku Shiki is damn sexy, for a robot... Um... :P Kyaa the Catlord 18:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing Problems

Example of what I'm talking about.

GAT-X105 Strike Gundam.

In one part the following statement is made: "The GAT-X105 Strike is one of the most extensively modeled Cosmic Era mobile suits, with 24 model kits and 13 action figures. It has also appeared in many video games, including those of the Super Robot Wars franchise.".

I've just gone through and added [citation needed] tags to show how widespread the problem can be. And this article hasn't a source at all! Just a bunch of stuff from a website. Please fix. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I am one of people here working on CE articles but it will be slow... We have life. See User:Draconins/ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam and ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam. I still did not touch the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, and I expect the article will be wide because of it has lots of variants. However you claimed that article doesn't have any source? See the bottom references. It is part of source, though in academic article is not complete ones. Don't forget we may not just copy pasted from other site as it is copyright infringement. Well, anyway don't forget to add your sign. Draconins 08:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
No it's not a copyvio, I'll take your word for that, but it could use some other sources. I know people have lives...and maybe, since I work on technical and scientific , or business articles where I usually have reference books at hand and facts are indisputable, I'm a bit biased. The articles you are working on should never be nominated for deletion unless someone is being .. mmm. Difficult. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't always copyvio but It may become. See text "Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted" every time you edit an article, below save page button? Anyway as intermezzo, facts are indisputable? Are you sure ^^ ? I have worked on many scientific articles before, especially before I register to Wikipedia, and I even found many facts actually disputable and even said so by the "PDF", book or articles....(^^) Draconins 09:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Emm... I do not know about other unsourced stuff in that page, but the one you posted here, wouldn't that be a simple head count on the official product site? Isn't is simple enough that you can just count it and not fall into the OR pitfall? Or do we really need foolproof sources on every number (like sourcing a medical book in order to be able to say human usually have 1 head, 2 hands and 10 fingers?).
And the model magazines issue, those are basically the equivalant of a science magazine on the view point of science related topics, they serve pefectly well in the field as expertise and is definitely better than any newspaper you can find. (Which further my point on an AfD having some deletionist quoting the WP:N saying being on newspaper is also not notable, It is not "newsworthiness"). I hope you can understand why most of the people in this project(which was just found less than 2 months ago not counting the inactive period that none of us know its existence and was not named as Gundam but one of the timeline in a pretty new series) feel offended. There are deletionist in every AfD saying the articles are junk, rubbish and everything, that's fine, I know most of those articles are not well written. However, what angers people is that there are people keep poping up making up rules that do not exist, or twisting rules to fit their own interest. We have someone saying having a news article in a mainstream newspaper is not a reliable source, because it is written by someone within the community. Basically if you sum up what deletionists have said, it concludes as Anything that mentions about Gundam is not a reliable source and thus does not show any notablity in the subject.
Here is my summary on the WP:RS page on why hobby magazines are reliable sources by definition.
Attributability: I have provided links above of the companies, one found 10 years before Gundam's debute. The other is a company publishing books even for American companies, and is obviously not an anime based company(It publishes novels as well). They also quote how they obtain information, in what official books, instead of making up information themselves.
Expertise: Just like the Science Journal in the Science community, Model and Anime magazines are the experts in this area.
Editorial oversight: If the material appeared in 2 competing magazines, they obviously have peer review on the subject.
Recognition by other reliable sources: Followed by above point, they did not attack on the opposing magazine on related sources, while it is almost impossible to have reconition by other sources(because it will always be viewed as advertisement), there are local newspaper complimenting on the articles in these magazines as good informative sources for modeling and related information. (Hong Kong newspapers)
It is just so plain obvious that most people voting for delete in those AfDs are just ignoring everything as a source and making it impossible to source anything(including mainstream newspaper). It is also so obvious that the recent AfD noms having a lot of deletionists ignoring the improvements on the article during the deletion process.
MythSearchertalk 10:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Mythsearcher, the one I linked to makes a statement that it's one of the most extensively modeled suits. I would think a statement like that is more than "simple head count on the official product site" could verify, so I'd rewrite it something like :
"With over 24 model kits and 13 action figures, the GAT-X105 is one of many widely distributed and modeled figures, along side such models as the RX-78. It's appearances in many video games, including those of the Super Robot Wars franchise (cite goes here) , illustrates it's importance to the series as a whole."
Heck, a link to the offical product site is something no one can claim is either out of place or unreliable. "I state that it has this many kits, etc, so here is my proof".
Most newspapers are notable, but what I'm trying to get across to you is simple. We're not discussing if people's interpretation of WP:N and WP:RS is accurate or not. The problem with that is the community decides. The number of people who think, as you so eloquently put it, that anything with Gundam in it is crap, is probably very small. I don't think the sources from Gundam writers or even fansites are crap, but I do think they don't serve to show notability fully independant of the industry. To illustrate what I mean, take the idea of using a modeling magazine as a reliable source. If you're using the modeling magazine to show "Hey, this has 5 model types" , then yes, it's reliable. If you're using it to say "This model has these stats in the movie" then yes, it's reliable. If you're saying "this model appeared in this modelling magazine and so it's notable", then it's not reliable because all the modeling magazine does is list product (unless there is a big difference in how magazines covering Warhammer minis list things and how Gundam is listed). The magazine is a primary source. A book written about anime and mecha in general has no specific link to Gundam and can be used to determine NOTABILITY.
The key thing here is horses for courses. A lot of things are getting deleted because writers are trying to make good articles and some people are focusing on following rules. Of course it's frustrating. Why do you think I'm here, or dug out two anime books I had in my closet, or am going to all the trouble of typing this mess out? I would certainly like to see less Gundam AfD, because it splits the community and wastes time we could be using to remove articles that really don't belong here. There are enough sources in mainstream media to safely source almost all the notable Gundam articles. Some , like the RX-78, are clearly notable and are mentioned in tons and tons of places. Some others, like some of the Mobile Suit Variations (ahem, such as Flydart) would probably work best merged into a larger article. If you include a mainstream source such as a Japanese newspaper and it's called unrelable, then that is bullshit. If you use a modeling magazine with a distribution of 50,000 to claim that SP-W03 Mobile Pod is notable, people are going to go "WTF?" with good reason. Using the same magazine to provide DETAILS about the pod is just fine, in my view.
I'm not sure where to stand on what makes individual suits notable. Appearance in one of the movies? I would suggest the following might work.
  • Everything in any of the books (The Origin, Blue Destiny,etc) is notable. FFS.
  • Every model that has appeared in multiple anime (Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED destiny for example) is probably notable.
  • Anything a main character uses should have an article or at the very least be merged in with that character.
  • Anything that can be referenced from multiple modeling magazines and hobby kits, as long as it appears in at least one anime, should probably be notable.
It seems to me that a suit that appears for a minute in one anime and has one model is rather minor. One that 4 or 5 characters use, seen in books, hobby kits, and the animes, should have an article. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 18:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I see your point, and it is not opposing mine. In fact the way you define notable is even easier than what I would, and had proposed. The problem here is that if a model magazine, taught how to build the specific model, while stating how it is notable in the series and how the modeling of the specific modeling of that mecha improved the modeling technology of the manufacturing company, then it is what I call notable. For example, the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki(don't know if it still exist or not) Master Grade model is classified as a turning point of the modeling technology in Dengeki Hobby saying the Gold plated surface was damage in older models when cut out from the injection molding gateways but the new hidden gateway was designed for Hyaku Shiki in order to keep the plated metal intact. Another issue cover story Gundam military have in depth analysis on how Gundam Plastic models affected the modeling community and (here is the main point) how the Zakus fit so well in military modeling scenes. These are a few of why I think these magazine is a reliable source saying how these mecha (specific ones) are notable. They provide analysis and is definitely the experts in the field(editors write about modeling 10 years before Gundam show is on air and 11 years before the first Gundam model?)
I never said everything is notable, as I have said in previous discussion, I have no wish in keeping most of the pages we have right now. I did not go merge the pages myself is because that takes a lot of time and a lot of people can do that, I'd rather find sources and improve articles that I think should probably have their own page. (check Z Gundam and ZZ Gundam recent edits) I am just offended by what I have seen in the AfD noms, with actully some deletionist stating anything quoted about Gundam is not notable(and no, he/she does not have the same argument than you do) and a bunch coming up later saying Delete per X, and tell you why the atmosphere around here feels the same way I do.
I am not an inclusionist, in fact, I feel probably the same way most of the reasonable deletionists feel like, the old articles are just too badly written and most of them must go. I just do not have the time to go start AfD noms on articles like Horses of Middle Earth with my hands full of real-life work and articles that probably should stay but are in very bad condition. However, I cannot tolerate there are people in those AfDs noms just blacklist everything and do not listen to reasoning. MythSearchertalk 19:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Stats template

I've created an infobox template for mobile suits at Template:Infobox Mobile Suit. Instructions for use of the template, along with an example are at Template talk:Infobox Mobile Suit.

Have a look and see if its of any use to your Wikiproject. I've updated a couple of After Colony Gundams with this... see Gundam Heavyarms for an example. -- saberwyn 10:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

My Reconstruction Bid

I've been working on making a mass-dump of mobile suits for proper WP-ness. Right now, I'm working on my favorite series, so just mobile suits from the 08th MS team. Here's what it looks like right now, and still needs a lot of work. [17] Just a heads up to the people who are trying for suit articles. We have a better chance if they're grouped together via a grouping of real-world significance, like the series they appeared in, versus what "family" of suit they are, etc. Shrumster 19:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

... that is FA worthy. Anyone going after that for sourcing or notability is stark raving insane. I know sourcing is an issue, and currently I'm trying to figure out ways to improve the sourcing for these articles. If you need any help let me know. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 22:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Now, that is what I have proposed earlier, but there is 1 glitch. There are suits that appeared in more than 1 series, like the MS-05, MS-06, MS-09 and MS-14 series. A link to the first page might be better than having a short description on where it appeared. (Okay, the Zakus should probably at least have its own page, it is the only mecha that is not a Gundam type that got its own book published, still finding the copy I was reading). Another problem I am seeing is that most of the sources are Bandai, that's no secondary sources at all. I will be doing something similar with the first Gundam series, I have some sales figures of that series and maybe the 08th MS team suits can link to the original one. MythSearchertalk 05:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Yup, that's what I'm planning. For suits that appeared in more than one series (that don't have their own article), we have a short blurb about its role in the article's series subject, and then have a "main article" redirect to the first series that the suit appeared in. For the 08th MS team page, I'm planning on dumping the info for mecha like the Magella, the non-ground type Zakus, etc. into the future lists of the series they first appeared in (I'm guessing it's MSG original for most of them, especially the capital ships). Shrumster 10:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and no problem with lack of secondary sourcing at all. WP:FICTION rules say that daughter pages in support of a particular article need not have their own, independent notability as long as the parent article (in this case, the parent series) passes WP:N. Here's a non-Gundam example of an article I've been working on for a while [18] working on those principles. Shrumster 10:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
But of course, the real-world sales figures would be a great help. More interesting info to bulk up the articles' notability and interest. Hell, if we could find newsletters of some modeling clubs detailing suits used as winning entries, that'd rock too. Shrumster 10:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(sigh) Sourcing.

MalikCarr, who appears to not get the whole point of sourcing an article, deprodded (properly) MSN-03 Jagd Doga. Well and good. Provided a collection of links that , while not independant, are decent enough to start with. Well and good.

However, much of the article was NOT found at any of those sources (and yes, I checked every one). Thus, what I've done is removed the unsourced stuff to the talk page. Once a proper source is found, it can be put right back. This allows for :

  1. Hard work not to be merely deleted or destroyed but available for everyone to see
  2. Sourcing of unsourced things to avoid ugly [citation needed] tags.

If anyone has a problem with this, please scream at me on my talk page or here. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 12:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Huzzah for Precedent

In choosing to make a headcount, rather than concensus (why do they put that "this is not a vote" template on somethng that obviously is?) in this mess, GRBerry has now added his endorsement to the "editors' votes are not important" status quo shared by the deletionist camp. Which is strange, really, because when you look at his past history, GRBerry really -isn't- that much of a deletionist. Seems they come in all flavors, shapes and sizes these days... As Farix said, the evidence of a systemic bias in favor of deletion is mounting. With a norm like this, I wonder why anyone would bother trying to improve an article, since your say in whether or not it should be kept, or that of those who work on similar things, is irrelevant.

Additionally, it would seem to me that, based on some remarks added to the deletion review, Wikipedia is for Wikipedians, not your average person looking for information on a subject, since apparently anyone who doesn't have an account and doesn't make many edits is a "single purpose account" whose opinion doesn't matter for beans. Suddenly my argument about good faith with inclusion vs. deletion makes so much more sense... MalikCarr 19:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I tried to improve some (non-Gundam-related) articles up for AfD before. Nothing, they got deleted as well. One problem with the AfD system is that a bunch of people will come along, say "delete", and never come back even if the article is improved substantially. Then, when the admin just comes along and counts their "vote", he sees more delete "votes" and deletes the article. Sigh. Shrumster 20:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
While I've normally been supportive of cutting down on some of the Gundam articles, that was.. well.. a fucked up AfD closing. I mean, really, what the fuck. Even if the reason to delete was more than that comment that was left, it was really in bad taste. -- Ned Scott 21:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

For those who are discouraged

This little test speaks volumes http://www.halfpixel.com/2007/02/15/delete-wikipedia/ --HellCat86 12:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Amen to that. Shrumster 17:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh exploitable. This could be quite a potent resource in the future. MalikCarr 01:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
This only says that we have flaws, and no one disputes that. Not every single AfD is going to be perfect. We do try to have a little faith in our fellow editors to have good reasons to give deletion arguments, and we do try to not assume they're just performing a test (that doesn't actually prove it's point). Instead of bitching and moaning about all this, how about we get back to editing articles? We've got so much to do and have so much potential with this subject that it's insane to be crying over such trivial things. Don't sell yourself short, we can do better than the articles that were deleted. Does it matter that XX354 JJ Y Gundam was red and had green feet? No, get over it. Meanwhile, more core Gundam topics desperately need your help. -- Ned Scott 08:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Bah, being so optimistic about this whole affair is just asking to get kicked by the powers that be. If you recall, expert deletionist Moreschi even stated a truce in that he was done nominating Gundam articles for deletion; true to his word, MER-C nominated them from then on and Moreschi endorsed. That's the kind of environment we work in on Wikipedia; give an inch and they take a yard. At any rate, my Zeong article got a B-ranking from WP:Anime and Manga, so I suppose I could have some faith for a while longer that the system does work. MalikCarr 05:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


This page could use some cleanup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_V

I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to do it, unfortunately. You might wanna improve or merge it. Jtrainor 21:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this a Gundam quote?

"What I lack is the courage to accept myself for who I am." Sasahara says it in the Genshiken manga, and while he could be quoting anything, I rather get the feeling he's quoting something from Gundam. Sound familiar to anyone? Keep in mind that it might have been translated differently for Gundam. He also says "God, my own father never even hit me." earlier in the manga, and it is confirmed that he's quoting Gundam there. Anyone know which series and episode though?--SeizureDog 11:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Another mass-delete

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MS-05A_Zaku_1_Early_Type

Mobile Armour's of the universal century (gundam universe)

This article is essentially a fanpage. I don't know if there's anything salvagable. If not, I'll take it to AfD. --Wafulz 04:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Also RMS-099 Rick Dias, which was previously deleted. --Wafulz 04:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it is not that bad, it seem like a list with description. Maybe the problem it is not an fan page but rather in-universe style? 202.154.30.27 13:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Moving seperate MA info to specific series mecha description would be better. MythSearchertalk 15:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It would be possible since there is a huge number of Universal Century of Gundam series and it would help with the sorting also after taking a look at that page I would express that the descriptions to the Mobile Armors require a rewrite and some of the descriptions can be reduced and not loaded as much with information.-Adv193 00:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Uh, just a note, notability aside, the correct name for this page should be Mobile Armour of the Universal Century. Armour's is possessive. I moved it there now, just so you know. David Fuchs (talk / frog blast the vent core!) 01:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

spoiler tags

From the WP:Spoiler page, I see that under When not to use spoiler warnings, it has mentioned not to use spoilers in fictional characters and sections titled plot. I'd say we stop using spoiler tags in all character pages, plot summaries in story articles and mobile weapon pages and make it a guideling of the Gundam wikiproject. Anyone oppose to the idea? MythSearchertalk 17:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

some help here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MS-06_Zaku_II Gundam x105 05:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Major revamp on the MS-06 Zaku II, from what I am seeing in the AfD discussion, there is no way it will be deleted since the consensus there is to keep instead of delete(even the Man In Black shows promising arguement that he is turning from delete to keep or at least indifferent) The only opposer is the nom, who is ignoring facts and assuming bad faith and TTN, who did not comment on the article after it was modified and improved(since it was just done and I doubt he got time :) MythSearchertalk 08:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I did add a comment on the Zaku II Kai it was from a board post i read by Mark Simmons who does the research for Bandai us on the gundam Franchise. I just don't know how to source it.Gundam x105 13:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt it is the most commonly depicted variation, the Ground type would have more grounds because the MG Ver. 2.0 is MS-06J. (The original if MS-06F since it is the only type appearing in the first Gundam) I will see if I can find some source on the R-1, it did got its own MG model. MythSearchertalk 16:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Gundam Development Project proposed for deletion

Again an article about mobile suits was nominated for deletion, this time the Gundam Development Project from 0083. If someone has real world informations or knows something to improve the article, well, help is required. I don't know much about this suits so I can't do much. Diabound 11:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This one I am not really keen on fighting for. I like the suits, but it really does not have any real world impact. It would be fine if other 0083 suits are merged into this one, since it would be way to long for including into the 0083 article no matter how little info we have on each mecha. However, the problem would be most of the other suits in 0083 are already included into either the Zaku article or GM article, hmmm... I guess the Neue Ziel and Gerbera Tetra could be merged. MythSearchertalk 13:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I really don't have time tonight to do anything more on the topic, guess it will have to settle like that for now. It will need some clean up, some ref, and main article links to 0083 article and from 0083 article, and hopefully a bot fixing the double redirects. MythSearchertalk 13:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the only tags on it are for cleanup and sources. Edward321 13:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

New infobox - Template:Infobox MS Gundam

The old infobox in use on some articles was really huge and composed entirely of in-universe trivia, so I've created a leaner, real-world-focused template. It's {{Infobox MS Gundam}}, and it's already in use at MSN-04 Sazabi.

It's based largely on the video game character template, albeit without the slick trickery for specific game series. It doesn't include stuff like specific armament and speed and weight and suchlike by design, but if there are any fields people feel are missing, I can always add more.

Don't say I never did anything nice for you. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me if I don't find removing some of the most easily sourceable material from an article to be "nice." MalikCarr 19:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
It's also blatantly unencyclopedic. The specific speed or weight of a fictional mecha is not the business of an encyclopedia, and it's certainly not the business of an infobox in a general purpose encyclopedia. Infoboxes need to cover the salient real-world facts, not in-universe trivia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't really know how to edit it, but I will say remove the faction part, it is just pure fictional and I think it will be better to cover it in the article if it is worth mentioning, since most of the articles that will use this box is probably the lists of suits that list every suit in one particular series, and the series and faction of this info box will seems pretty redundant. (The series part could be kept since it will occationally be used in some notable ones.) And the notable suits normally are factionless(mass production types MS that are used after a faction defeated another, for example?) MythSearchertalk 14:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Will the faction always be redundant? All of the fields will automatically disappear when they're not in use. I know that it won't be useful in every article, but most of the generic suits are more or less faction-specific. If it truly won't be useful, it can easily be removed.
The series is a basic fact to be mentioning. If it's implicit from the article title (say, "Mobile Suits of Gundam Foo"), then the field can easily be left blank. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
It will not always be redundant, but most of the time I can think of in UC notable suits usually it is not necessary, I can think of ones that could use the info, like the RX-78 series. Yet the Zaku is used pretty much by both factions, the Zeta Gundam is used by AEUG and EFSF, Zeta plus and GP series is AEUG, EFSF and AE testers, Even the GM is used by EFSF, AEUG, Titans and Rick Dias is AEUG, Axis/Neo Zeon, Titans, EFSF...These seems to be those that are quite notable, or at least I can think of more real world influences. The faction field might be a lot better if it could list multiple factions there, I don't know if it will work or not or how it works, but I see a lot of tank articles having multiple items in one field. MythSearchertalk 14:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's no reason it can't have multiple factions; it just starts to look ugly when you cram too much into one field. Hm. I'm gonna leave it for now and ditch the only-mention-one-faction thing; if it is ugly or useless it's much easier to remove it from the template than to add it after the fact. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe adding the height parameter is a good idea, people have no idea what kind of size it is right now, it is human height? or is it like 300 metres tall? I think it is necessary to let people have at least the slightest idea to the size of the suit. Then come to think of it, some of the MAs will need length instead of height, any good idea in making it selectable? MythSearchertalk 05:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
It would be easy to make a signle flexible field, although as a different solution to the same problem I was considering some sort of "type" field which would link to appropriate sections in Mobile weapons. That article would explain the size, as well as offer other useful context. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea, but not a good alternative, since a person who never saw any of the Gundam series, would have no idea about the size, and might not click to the type section. MythSearchertalk 07:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Without saying that I'm necessarily opposed to a size field, how far do we go in stating the obvious? Someone unfamiliar with Gundam isn't necessarily going to know that mobile suits have a single pilot, that they aren't typically capable of flight but are often adapted to spaceflight or hostile/unusual environments, that they're weapons of war, and so on. I was operating on the assumption that Mobile weapons was required reading for understanding of these articles, and size isn't terribly important within a class (most mobile suits are roughly the same size and mobile weapons are all the same size: bigger than anything else). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that the Mobile weapons page will eventually undergo AfD some day if it cannot be sourced and I am pretty sure that it is very hard to get a reliable secondary source for that article. MythSearchertalk 09:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
There's always going to be someplace that explains the difference between a mobile armor and mobile suit, that's all I mean. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
There should be, yet I'm just afraid that some deletionist will not think the same way. You have your point there, let it stay this way and see if there are anything we could add later. MythSearchertalk 13:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any way mobile weapons could be deleted. It's not at all unreasonable to have an article for mobile suit, considering there's 20-some years of toy history and critical commentary and design discussion and such. If Wikipedia suddenly enacted a hypothetical new policy where each Wikiproject could only have one article on a fictional subject, that would be in the running for the one for this project to keep. The article could be a hundred times better, but I would say that it's inviolable. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Parallel train of thought.

I was thinking that I could implement a "Dimensions" field, with "Size" as the default label name. The label name would be customizable, though, and could be replaced with "Height" or "Length" as necessary. Is this essentially what you were considering, Mythsearcher? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, something like that. The only part I don't understand is the each Wikiproject could only have one article on a fictional subject. MythSearchertalk 10:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Just a silly hypothetical situation. My point is that Mobile weapons is practically the flagship fictional subject article for this project, that's all. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like it, but we still have the Technology pages and the CE super weapon page to deal with some day, some time... MythSearchertalk 10:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The statistics, by and large, are gone and need to stay gone. It isn't necessary for an encyclopedia of the real world to be focusing on the weight and specific weaponry of fictional weapons, both because it's a copyright violation (in particular, it's competing directly with licensed guides that are paying for the right to republish such fictional information), and also because they're arbitrary numbers ignored whenever dramatic license calls for it. WP:WAF#Infoboxes and succession boxes, in particular, calls for us to omit such in-universe trivia for real-world facts. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

A New Friend

Isn't it nice to be known that you have friends in the administration?

It would seem that the new tactic of the deletionist camp is not to outright vote articles off the project with a few friends and compatriots, but to reduce their quality down to a meaningless level, then letting the "mediocrity police" handle the rest.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying... is maintaining a few articles really worth all this drama? MalikCarr 21:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

This is sad. This is the weakest example of the "Don't touch our shit" Wikiproject mentality that I've seen in a long time.
There is no deletionist conspiracy. Instead, there's a project desperately trying to protect low-quality and inappropriate content from any sort of improvement or cleanup, harassing and driving off anyone who tries to clean up the mess.
This wouldn't be nearly so pathetic if someone of the articles didn't genuinely have potential for improvement. This project is supposedly working to maintain a series of articles on one of the most genuinely influential and popular anime series ever. It's not like there isn't the potential to make high-quality articles, based on the great amounts of critical commentary, insight into development, and popular influence.
Now, you can edit war and bloc vote keep and be obstructionist, and keep some really crappy articles, while continuing to be the laughing stock of Wikipedia. (Hell, even the Pokemon Wikiproject does a better job than this, and they have even less reference material to work with.) Alternately, you can follow the excellent examples set by the Final Fantasy and Doctor Who projects and work on writing well-referenced, high-quality articles.
Either way, I'm going to continue to try and clean up these articles. I don't think I can do it alone, because there's so much to do and I can't read Japanese. Despite this, I plan, insofar as I can, to improve what I can, either with the help of or, at worst, despite this Wikiproject. I invite collaboration instead of obstruction. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Please keep your personal attacks, such as the one made in the edit summary of this comment to yourself and off of wikipedia. Please remain civil. Kyaa the Catlord 01:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
This is pathetic trolling. It's trolling for sympathy. "Oh, please, pity us poor oppressed being persecuted by the deletionist cabal!" People are trying to fix these articles because they're broken, not because they're part of some deletionist cabal.
The sooner you stop trying to drive off anyone who tries to turn these "articles" from fanpages to part of an encyclopedia, the sooner this project isn't a laughingstock. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I've accurately described your "improvements" as what they are. Edit warring is not acceptable behaviour, despite your false belief that you're improving the encyclopedia. If you do not like that other editors have reverted your edits, maybe you're the one in the wrong. Kyaa the Catlord 02:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Have you yet read WP:WAF?
All I've met with is unexplained bloc reversion, with no explanation other than that I'm on a crusade or my edits are "fuckage" or vandalism.
Seeing as I know for a fact I'm not vandalising any articles, my crusade is to make well-referenced, accurate encyclopedia articles, and I can't very well have sex with an encyclopedia or a fanpage, I've yet to see any helpful or useful reasons for a revert.
Now, if you'd like to question a specific edit, I'd be happy to explain it in detail. I note a distinct lack of such questions on this talk page, on any article talk pages (with the possible exception of the charmingly-titled Talk:MSN-02 Zeong#Go away A Man In Black), or on my talk page. You do not revert someone's edits without explanation and then accuse them of edit warring. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Now if you'd like to try building some consensus for your "blanking" of huge portions of the fields in infoboxes, I'd have some hope for you. I don't since you seem to be playing the victim card and engaging in edit wars when your preferred changes are not accepted. Rather, you start speaking condenscendingly and from an assumed position of superiority. Your fellow editors do not appreciate that and I kindly have asked you to stop. Your unilateral campaign against the infoxes on Gundam articles should stop until you build consensus for your changes. You have made no effort to do so, rather you "war" on and on. Kyaa the Catlord 02:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, have you read WP:WAF? I will add the relevant section, if you'd like. Emphasis is my own.

As with all infoboxes, trivial details should be avoided. An infobox for a real-life actor would not contain items such as favorite food and hobbies; these details do not aid the reader in understanding the important characteristics of the subject. In the same way, infoboxes about fictional entities should avoid delving into minutiae, such as information only mentioned in supplementary backstory. For this reason, infoboxes meant for real-world entities should not be applied to their fictional counterparts, since, for example, information important to a description of a real-world company may be tangential to a fictional one. It is important to identify the revenue of Microsoft, whereas the fact that fictional MegaAcmeCorp makes 300 billion GalactiBucks in the year 2463 is probably unimportant.

These infoboxes are huge and ugly (which isn't really disallowed by any policy or guideline, got me there) and crammed with minor statistics never mentioned anywhere but in fan-oriented guides made just to publish these statistics. (Plus, it's copyvio; real-life statistics are uncopyrightable facts, fictional statistics are copyrightable fiction.)

I replaced it with a new infobox, based on other infoboxes (indeed, {{General CVG character}}, one of several templates that set the example later followed in the writing of WP:WAF). Now, it may be missing some fields, but bear in mind that it's for a general-audience encyclopedia of the real world. With that in mind, there may be some more work that needs to be done, but the template will not, cannot, swell to encompass the copyvio specific stats of fictional objects. It's just not the business of this project. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The inclusion of details in an article is what seperates a stub from a full article. The inclusion of details in a template provides a level of detail someone seeking information would be looking for and the removal of data from the encyclopedia makes it LESS usuable rather than your stated purpose. Copyvio? What are you smoking? The inclusion of data, not the copying of text, into an info box is not a copywrite violation. Attacking, repeatedly I point out, this wikiproject for Idon'tlikeit rationalizations is sad. Kyaa the Catlord 02:26, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
The length of an article is what separates a stub from a full article, and you shouldn't cram inappropriate details, like copyvio or unencyclopedic in-universe detail, into an article just to meet some arbitrary standard of completeness is foolishness. Better a well-referenced, encyclopedic stub which can easily be merged somewhere appropriate (once a list or something is prepared) than a lengthy, badly-referenced in-universe fanpage..
Fictional statistics aren't data. Data is the result of observation and/or experimentation. Fictional statistics are fiction, and when you copy fiction verbatim it's copyvio. There's no possible fair-use claim, because, should someone want to sell a guide to the mecha of Gundam and pay for the licensing rights, they'd be paying to use the exact same fictional material in the exact same way. It's the same reason we can't have galleries of non-free images.
The fact that someone might be looking for the exact weight of Neo-Zeon's underwater variant of the Zaku II is not a reason for us to include inappropriate material. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and we include statistics only where they are needed for proper understanding of a subject.
I'd be fascinated to see what you think I don't like. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, your opinion is that this information is trivial. The consensus is that it is not. Edit warring over it remains inappropriate, using the rollback function in your content dispute is probably even worse. Kyaa the Catlord 02:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
It is trivial. It's never mentioned in the fictional works themselves, only in "supplementary guides" made specifically for stat-obsessed fans. Don't get me wrong; I like this sort of trivia. But it is trivial and it isn't part of this project to make an encyclopedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Supplemental guides which, whoah, meet WP:RS. Removing sourcable content cause you don't like it. Check. Kyaa the Catlord 03:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Are the weapons on a f-15 trivia? Or how about something less... in service, the weapon arsenal on a Spitfire? Keeping these details in the infobox makes it friendly to those who are looking up data on the mecha and avoids having it in the body of the article. Encyclopedias are supposed to provide information to the readers, would a reader want this sort of information when they look up a mobile suit? Yes, the weapons are inherently part of what defines the machine. Kyaa the Catlord 03:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
They aren't independent reliable sources. They are, themselves, part of the subject. (Nevermind that copying those guides verbatim is still copyvio.) A licensed guide to the universe of Gundam is, most of the time, a fictional work, not a reference work.
It's a reference work only insofar as it talks about the real world. It's a perfectly good source to use for references for claims about the real world (with the caveat that it's going to be subject to licensor approval, and thus probably not too hot as a source for claims of popularity), but we can't use it to justify treating a given fictional subject as a real one and filling the article with in-universe statistics. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Comparing, say, the GM or Zaku to an F-15 or Spitfire is a mistake. They're not historical weapons of war; they're elements of a fictional story. The most important facts are their role in the story, the story of their conception, and how they influenced fans, critics, and later fictional works. Statistics are important for real-world weapons because it places them in context with other real-world weapons. Statistics are not important for fictional weapons, partially because they're copyvio and partially because they're arbitrary numbers ignored whenever dramatic license calls for it. (Plus, they're often not even published or concieved until long after the fictional work itself is completed.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

They're copyvio now, are they? Are there any stints the deletionist camp won't pull to see its agenda fulfilled? Incidentally (not that it especially matters; deletionists never compromise or concede any points), the "copyvio" trivia you so loathe is a substantially reduced version that only includes important figures; it's not copypasted from anywhere, as I was the sole interpreter of what was and was not worthy of inclusion into the generalist Wikipedia. Weight, weapons, pilot and anything special or unusal seemed like a spartan and utilitarian set of information to me (as opposed to less useful info, such as sensor range [which has, as far as I know, NEVER been a factor in animation...] or construction materials). Of course, what do I know, I'm just an ignorant and disruptive troll. MalikCarr 05:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, in addition to the fact that they're not appropriate for this project, they're also copyvio. This isn't some effort to ram through deletion by hook or by crook; the paired problems are why I've taken on this particular systemic problem first, that's all.
There are no camps. This isn't a battlefield. We both want to improve these articles, and disagree on how. (Consider the fact that, so far, I've had support from members of this project both times I've brought an article to AFD. We don't differ so much as you think on what articles we both think we should have.) Ideally, I would like to help you to understand WP:WAF and WP:FICT, both very useful guides on writing articles about fiction, then discuss the best form for these articles to take.
You say that weight, weaponry, and other in-universe statistics are utilitarian? What, then, are they used for? In most series, battles aren't about the specific technical details of each mobile suit but instead analogues for personal battles. Improvements in technology are largely abstract; there are the cutting-edge, prototype models in the hands of the main characters, which blow away the mass-produced line models piloted by faceless soldiers. Am I the only one who has heard the infamous Ball Custom jokes?
Now, I don't think you're a troll, Malik. I think trolling like the first post in this thread is beneath you; your history is full of constructive, good-faith edits. Let's move past divisive and entirely imaginary "camps" and "cabals" and discuss how we might improve this encyclopedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Alright, can this arguement stop now? This is just getting nowhere. I think first we must all face the fact that if the articles are left as they are, most of them only contain in-universe stuff that is not going to get them go too far, and possibly almost impossible to survive the notability check. Secondly, another fact is that we are not working very efficiently here, and it will be extremely hard to catch up with the AfDs like the one started by user like Mer-C and others that asked for like a few tens of them to be deleted. AMIB is actually forcing us to work (although if I am still the only one who can source stuff, it is still too fast) in a much more reasonable way, not the pile everything in our door step way. MythSearchertalk 12:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Just when things were beginning to look like cooler heads would prevail, Jtrainor informs me that he's been blocked for his participation in this most recent deletion/notability/cruft conflict. Are we next, I wonder? MalikCarr 04:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Jtrainor was blocked for stating that he was completely uninterested in discussing further, but continuing to revert. Don't waste your time trying to make him out as some sort of martyr. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have no objection to discussing the matter with other people, but at least in your case, you have not been talking about this. You have been dictating what you want to happen and then lambasting people when they do not agree with you.

Let me remind the population here that you, not I, started this whole mess by going against established consensus. Jtrainor 04:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:MSN-02 Zeong, your talk page, here. It's a little silly to tell me to my face that I haven't been trying to talk to anyone.
Guys, the established consensus in general is that Wikipedia has certain standards on how fictional subjects are handled. Not only does consensus support these standards, but they're good ideas to boot. I am planning to help raise these articles to these standards, and part of that is fixing up the infobox and cleaning up the non-free images. Cleaning up doesn't usually mean deleting, in this case, and when I want something deleted, I will prod it or AFD it.
Bearing in mind WP:WAF#Infoboxes and succession boxes, does anyone have any advice on what needs to be added to {{Infobox MS Gundam}}? Such infoboxes don't need to be devoid of in-universe detail, it just needs to not be overwhelmed by it, particularly by fictional statistics. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm beginning to revise my initial thesis on the matter. The deletionist camp isn't necessarily anti-content; more correctly, they're anti-fiction. Your "fictional statistics" can, by extrapolation, be applied to anything pertinent to this fictional topic. The mecha in question are all fictional, and if you want to get technical, they're statistics of the show itself... should we delete all of them, then? MalikCarr 21:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Let me know when you're done deluding yourself. At that point, I'll be happy to discuss with you how we can best improve this encyclopedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL. Jtrainor 05:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
For MalikCarr to say that shadowy conspiracies are scheming to destroy his articles is a delusion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
There's nothing shadowy about them. There has been a concerted effort in the past to remove -all- Gundam material from Wikipedia. Jtrainor 11:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said above, I will be working on bringing these articles in line with WP:FICT and WP:WAF, as well as bringing its many non-free images in line with WP:FU. I would like for this to be in cooperation with this Wikiproject, but it will be in spite of it if necessary. I suggest getting past paranoid fanasies and dealing with reality. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps if you did not approach the matter with such a hostile attitude, you would not be recieving so much resistance. Jtrainor 00:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently we're not the only WikiProject that has its hands full dealing with AMIB's hostile, uncivil and unilateral edits. Wikiproject Final Fantasy has taken him to mediation over this sort of shit. Kyaa the Catlord 01:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:WPFF is currently dealing with a user who has gone on tilt because he isn't going to be allowed to use 30+ non-free images, and he's currently venting his anger at me because I stepped in when he was verbally abusing another user. WP:WPFF does a great job in sourcing and structuring articles in general, and I follow their example rather than wanting to change it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the main problem is that English Wikipedia is too focused on the western culture, and not to others. See User talk:OhanaUnited/Archive 1#In-universe vs. out of universe, sometimes admins delete/remove/stubify (whichever term you want to call it) things that aren't in their culture. And most of those items, you really have to live there or get into that culture to understand its importence. For example, I could delete an article of a popular artist in, say, Africa even though I never been there because I would view it as non-notable and doesn't have much cultural impact. Of course I could be wrong because I never went there, or talked to anyone asking if that artist is popular or not. Star Wars and Simpson looks like they got special treatment, but they're not. They are symbols of western culture and sources are easily vertifiable because it's written in English. If you bring some oriental culture, in this case, Gundam, editors don't wish to vertify it because it's mostly written in Japanese and they don't understand this language. It creates too much of a hassle for them to vertify if such info are true or not. This dilema needs to be addressed, for Wikipedia is supposed to gather editors around the world and contribute what they know (especially local cultures and places). But if this movement keeps rolling, sooner or later, regional Wikipedias will have a lot of information about its region, and very little info on others (e.g. Japan will have lots of info about Japan's culture and places but very little in other languages, China will have their own info on Chinese philosophy and little at others, Africa will have info slavery history and the road to independence, etc.).

These are just my personal opinions, it's not meant to target a specific individual or group of people. Any geographical names that I mentioned are merely random. And if I hurt anyone's feelings, sorry about that. OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not arguing that any given article subjects aren't notable. I'm a Gundam fan myself, and I'm quite aware of the series' popularity in Japan. I just don't want to see the flagrant excesses of the Star Wars and Simpsons articles repeated, especially given that this project can do so much better.
What I can do proactively is a bit limited, unfortunately, because I don't read Japanese. So, all I can do for most of these articles is restructure them for appropriate content to slide right in. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Another template problem - {{Early Universal Century Mobile weapons}}

{{Early Universal Century Mobile weapons}} is a mess. It is described and organized in an entirely in-universe way, and has many, many, many redundant images. Zaku II, for example, is linked seven times, not counting the many, many redirects.

So how can we reorganize this? It don't think by faction is a good idea, since that's a in-universe way or organizing things and because so many suits are used by so many different factions (particulary the Zaku and its variants).

What would be a good alternate header? Preferably, one we can link; "Early Universal Century mobile weapons ( - U.C.0110)" is entirely mystifying to someone not already steeped in Gundam mythos. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have an opposite opinion, arrange them into series base articles, only having a link to each of the series like List of Mobile Weapons in Mobile Suit Gundam, List of Mobile Weapons in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Each of the lists will have links to separate links to notable suits anyway. This way, the template will not be extremely large. MythSearchertalk 07:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
So you're suggesting just leaving this alone until the list merges have been done, then retooling it just to link to the lists? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Since there are a lot of articles using this template right now, it would be easier to just change the template than to go into each article and changing the template name. So yes, that is what I suggest. MythSearchertalk 07:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

possible resolution?

I took a look at a random selection of military articles, and many of them include detailed specifications in an article section, rather than one of those boxes. I would be ok with the box being shortened if the statistics could still be included in a section of their own. Jtrainor 18:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, I don't really think they are necessary here. Although I personally use them a lot in discussions, they are really seldom used in guide books and the main story. Let's just link to MAHQ instead... Separate data could really be added into the article to show how it reflects some of the traits of the unit, like the supposedly high acceleration MA-05 Bigro only got a poor 0.59G while the RB-79 Ball got a staggering 0.96G(and RX-78-2 Gundam only got 0.93G). MythSearchertalk 18:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
There's a reason why I've cut the infoboxes on the articles I edit regularly down to a few bare minimums (height, weight, guns and anything unique about them, e.g. psycommu system). Some of the figures are downright worthless - sensor range comes to mind. When did they ever pick up anything on sensors, anyway? I thought it was always from Minovsky particle interference...
Anyway, AMIB refuses to compromise on a shortened infobox, so it looks like the war will go on for the time being. Though he's now threatening to block me if I continue to disagree with his view on the second Jagd Doga image being "redundant", so if I disappear, you'll know why. MalikCarr 18:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
And that reason will be disregard for WP:FUC. Don't play games with the copyright rules; doing so doesn't make you a martyr, it makes you an example. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, sensor ranges are range under the minovsky particle interference. Think about it, it is space, how an a mobile suit have an optical sensing range of only a few kilometers, you can technically see that far with bare human eyes... BTW, sensor ranges are probably the one not followed by plots extensively type, the FAZZ was said to have sensor range of less than 20km, yet in the story, they aimed at and fired shots in a range of a few ten thousands kilometers. They did not hit and that is where the length came from At the current state of art, Mobile Suits do not have the ability to accurately hit targets a few ten thousands kilometers away, and thus it is just betting on luck.(Sentinel) So, the Minovsky Particle is not as powerful as it was mentioned, at least it is only blocking radars, but the beam weaponry that was developed to fire under radar lock on techonology is still deadly in a few kilometers where most sensors can detect before the use of Minovsky particles. However, without the radars, probably the MSs rely heavily on their motherships long range telescope for enemy location. MythSearchertalk 03:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
As for the statistics, it reflects a misunderstanding of the issue. Statistics measure or dictate the performance of real military weapons. Authors dictate the performance of fictional weapons.
These aren't military weapons; they're parts of a fictional story. The priority is describing their role in the fictional story, and statistics that are so little used in that story that they often blatantly contradict the story (and are copyvio, to boot) just don't belong here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I guess if it was specifically used in the story, like the above FAZZ case, and contradict with the stats, then it shouldbe mentioned in the article somehow. (another case I can think of now is the 10km sniping of the RX-79[G] by shiro in 08th MS team.) If not, at least the sensor range should not go into the articles. MythSearchertalk 03:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
If someone has taken note of this incongruity in some sort of reliable source. Otherwise we degenerate into fannish nitpicking of "This is a contradiction, and so is this, and so is this" and then the endless warring over over whether it's REALLY an incongruity and so on. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, only when actual numbers occured like the 2 examples I gave up there should be in the article. We do not need to add sentences saying it is a contradiction. We only have to mention it in the article since those long range sniping is a special plot device, it contributes to how the unit was modeled. Like the FAZZ is a long range support fire unit, and RX-79[G] took its limits to a 50/50 chance of hitting the target for a tactical assault. MythSearchertalk 04:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I get what you're saying. Yeah, talking about the thinking of the creators is a good idea. Just don't fall into the trap of describing the intent of the fictional creators in lieu of describing the intent of the real-world creators. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The images

I've sent an email to Bandai asking if they care about people using images of MS on Wikipedia. Assuming they don't care, I will be expecting AMIB to restore every single deleted Gundam image that he tagged. Naturally, I would be supplying the email upon request. Jtrainor 23:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not how things work, though. It isn't sufficient to merely ask for permission; instead, the images need to be released under a free license, like the GFDL. If you want to ask for images to be released under the GFDL, you can try WP:RFP, but I wouldn't expect to have much luck. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
If the company has given permission for them to be used, you really have no reason to remove them, as the reason to do so (avoiding potential lawsuits) does not exist.
Wikipedia rejects copyright licenses exclusively for use on Wikipedia, or exclusively for non-commercial usage (Wikipedia:Non-free content#Downstream use). Even if permission is given, depending on its scope and limitation, they may still need to be removed. --Kusunose

Though the lawsuit reasoning is stupid anyways as many sites have used Gundam images for years and none of them have been sued. Jtrainor 01:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Sueing a fan website is very hard, the most you can do is stop them from using the images, but sueing wikipedia, you can be almost sure that you can get something out of it since wikipedia actually got some money. MythSearchertalk 03:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
See, this is why I want to use Mr. Simmons' images whenever possible... they were created for the express purpose of avoiding copyright issues as much as possible, and ought to be a boon to Wikipedia's efforts to be as free as possible. Unless Bandai suddenly gives us free license to use their work, which I doubt, these are the best options available to us. Of course, certain people happen to believe that, being a "derivative" work, they're equally unfree to the originals, and that any claims otherwise are blockable offenses, but I digress. MalikCarr 23:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
If Simmon agreed that the pictures could be used, then others can use it since it is released as public domain or whatever that law is called. The problem here is that wikipedia should have the most accurate source possible, images as well, so fan created pictures should not be used for that purpose if official images can be used. Although I doubt that we can actually get any reply from Bandai America, since on their website terms of use, they listed that they have no authority in authorizing anyone to use the contents in their website since the licenses are of the Bandai main company's other sub branch like Sunrise. MythSearchertalk 08:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
That's not true. Fan-created pictures of copyrighted designs are derivative works. The fans don't wholly own the copyrights in order to release the images into the public domain or under a free license. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
The work itself is released for secondary derivative in Japan, that is, anyone can draw their own Gundam, and release it. The company release that much right and this is why it could be used. Also, I am pretty sure that various official promotional art could be used anyway, we do not need to go into this too deep. MythSearchertalk 14:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
No no, please do go on. Anything we can get our hands on to quell the non-free image hysteria would be greatly beneficial to the cause. MalikCarr 18:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It would be helpful to have a better-informed opinion on the subject, before assuming that the copyright owned by Bandai or its subsidiaries doesn't apply. Additionally, most of these images are informally released under the premise that they cannot be used in commercial projects and that they won't be modified, which is insufficiently free for Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Another idea for resolving the infobox dispute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallgeese has nifty collapsible infoboxes. I propose we just turn all infoboxes in Gundam articles into ones like that. This solves the space complaint handily. Jtrainor 20:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't really solve the problem that the infobox is still all in-universe and copyvio, plus collapsable templates don't work very well in many browsers, don't work at all in printed versions, and mess up the page layout. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd say if the information is very easily obtainable on official sources without any purchasing of goods(like info printed on top of the model boxes) we'll just place it in as some type of out-of-universe info. I can kinda reason the dimensions for now, it could be given to give people hints about how big the scale models are. MythSearchertalk

Striker Pack page moved

I just reorganised the Striker pack page since the page contains 2/3 of non-striker pack stuff and at least 1/3 of out of CE similarities. It is simply in-universe and fan speculation and OR in any sense if it is remained as the Striker Pack page. So I moved it and maybe will give it more attention in modifying it to a less in-universe style. If anyone got time in their hands, feel free to cut down the lengthy striker pack stuff that is just plot summary. I feel that this is a page that we might be able to keep because I have some sources saying these addons back packs makes it more realistic and was used in quite some stories of Gundam series, and seeing how they continuously designing these units for newer series, it is probably the second popular idea other than the transformation systems. MythSearchertalk 02:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Edits by Funkeymonk88

User:Funkeymonk88 [19] has created the articles Phase 1: Angry Eyes, Sword Impulse Gundam, Strike Dagger, and M1 Astrays.
This user copied the synopsis from [20] and pasted it into Phase 1: Angry Eyes. This article should be deleted per WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:FICTION, and WP:EPISODE.
He basically did the same thing in the three articles he created about the mobile suits, where the text and images in the articles are taken from MAHQ.net. (Sword Impulse Gundam [21], Strike Dagger [22], M1 Astrays [23].) --Silver Edge 09:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

  • I redirect Strike Dagger and M1 to already exist articles. Weird enough, I think it would be better if I just copy content from exist articles and paste in new ones (just because I hate model number in article's name) then redirect old ones instead. But I don't want to encourage this guy to creat copyvio article. Speak of it, someone should nominate Sword Impulse article for delete for copyvio.

Off topic, but I remember someone mention about merge all three Astray Gundams and M1 into single srticle AGE ago... L-Zwei 16:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest requesting a move after things cool down a bit. This way, we can also keep the history on the new place. MythSearchertalk 16:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Any time you see an article that is clearly a copyvio, place the {{db-copyvio|url}} at the top of the page replacing the url with the link to the original text. If the copyvio is just a section, then simply delete the section. --Farix (Talk) 12:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Gundam is unreferenced

This project's flagship article Gundam has no references and this WikiProject not only endorses such an article but also is used to generate more unreferenced articles. I do not see how that is a Wikiproject to "collaborate on encyclopedic work" as stated at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject. -- Jreferee (Talk) 17:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like AMIB has started up again

I wish I could say I'm suprised, but after his repeated absolute refusal to compromise, I'm not. Jtrainor 12:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this road goes both ways... AMIB might be unwilling to compromise, but you all are just as unwilling to budge. You and (to a much greater extent) MalikCarr act like you're the victims. You can't have it that way when you're resorting to schoolyard insults, i.e. "Never underestimate the ignorance of a deletionist." There is a serious failure to communicate in any way that doesn't devolve into petty name-calling on your side, even after other, more reasonable third parties pleaded for tact and etiquette here. So, having said that, maybe you guys need to at least try and be civil? Half of this talk page is a legacy to your total stubbornness clashing with his stubbornness, with nothing good coming of it.
Just my two cents. Maikeru 18:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I certainly didn't start this mess, AMIB did. And I've said nothing about deletionists. Jtrainor 20:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
You have not been as rash as Malik, no, and I'm sorry, I should have attributed that to him and not you, since he's been the one who's been going on about the vast deletionist cabal. But I dunno, I feel like there have been no real attempts at civility or compromise on either side, and this discussion page in particular is a sign of just how little has been accomplished by both AMIB and you guys. The fight on the Zeong, Jagd Doga, etc. pages seems to have been about, of all things, a couple of pieces of line art. You guys got yourselves blocked for 24 hours over an editing dispute related to a couple of images. I just find that nonsenscial.
And then, AMIB comes up with a new infobox idea which is rejected because... it doesn't show the height and weight of a Mobile Suit, nor does it have a laundry list of weapons? I can understand the height ... somewhat, just because it gives a sense of scale (is this bigger/smaller than the RX-78 Gundam?), but weight in particular is a totally arbitrary number, because rarely do Mobile Suits -- even in Universal Century -- display some sense of weight, and those that do are obviously extremely heavy. The annoying part of that is that AMIB's infobox includes relevant information that should be in the current infobox, but isn't, particularly what series first uses the design, and most importantly (IMO), who came up with the design in real life. Maikeru 22:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
On the subject of height, the discussion above with MythSearcher kind of stalled. What did you think if height versus type (Mobile suit, mobile armor, etc.) for giving an impression of size? Height is more precise, but class adds a link to a helpful article and the actual side-by-size comparison isn't always consistent due to the many different artists working on different series. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I agreed on size and linking(although MAs really no real standard). I see no point in the weight spec, although some mentioning of the extremely unreasonable light weight after F91 anime to Crossbone, V, than crossing over to G, W, X could be mentioned, there is really no point in having each weight spec on the infobox. MythSearchertalk 03:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think you guys get it. The statistics are very important to Gundam fans-- this is why on every site that profiles mobile suits on the Internet, they are included. They're also included on model kits and in official guides and artbooks on the subject. Jtrainor 07:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I know this and I OWN MOST OF THOSE! They are important, but are they important for understanding the matter for non-fans? Think of it on the other side of the table, if you are a person with no knowledge about Gundam or any military common sense what so ever and came to wikipedia, click on the random article buttom on the upper left hand corner, and happen to load any of the mobile suit pages, and see tons of information. Does it help him/her in understanding the mobile suit and its importance in our world? Not quite. Wikipedia is not here for fans, but for the general public, if we have a perfect page for the public, I would not be against having those specs since they will probably only take like 5% of the page, but now most of them take like more than 50% of the pages and is simply overwhelmingly making the pages look bad. Also, other than fans like me who actually uses those weight, output power and thrust spec in calculating how much time the MS or MA can be on full thrust or can it be launched to space with no addons, etc. Who would need that much spec on every single fictional weapon? Say, what do you use the specs for anyway? MythSearchertalk 08:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I've got half an RX-78 built in my garage. :P AMIB is completely overreacting on this IMHO, its a few lines in an infobox and he's treating it like the end of the world. If he's got WAF problems with infobox entries, I'd like to see the convulsions he'd get if he stumbled upon some of the Harry Potter character pages. (Check out Neville Longbottom's page for example) Kyaa the Catlord 09:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Someone jumping off the cliff does not mean we should follow. BTW, I am building a Gundam hill, kinda like the Mount Rushmore :P But I still see no notability in a full blown spec here when MAHQ did an excellent job over there. MythSearchertalk 10:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Myth has the problem quite clearly. These articles are overwhelmed with content that fansites can do much better. Wikipedia has a goal of being a general-purpose encyclopedia, not a fanpage. A pile of stats not even once mentioned in any of the many anime and manga series doesn't help us do that. (On top of this, Jtrainor, it feels kind of silly to have you preaching to me about what's important to Gundam fans; you're not going to find many other people who have a 1/100 scale Gog model sitting on their computer desk. It's neat, because each of the centipede joints in the arms and each of the claws is individually articulated.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I like these general wiki-philosophy questions. From what I've read from the fundamental principles, we have elements of both general-purpose and specialist encyclopedias. Where does it say that we are to be a general-purpose one? --Kizor 20:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Being a special-purpose encyclopedia does not make us an originally-researched guide to fiction, nor does it make us an officially licensed guide. These stats are copyvio and don't meet our standards for handling fictional subjects. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Whoa, whoa, I was taking no stand on the stats. --Kizor 22:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Consider this: Who has even complained about the stats being in the articles other than just you, AMIB? No one else cares that they are there, so obviously they are not affecting the quality of the article. Jtrainor 22:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Makieru and Myth both question the need for the stats right up there., right up the page there. Plus, lots of people have complained about the presence of these articles because of the in-universe nature, gobs of original research and plot summary, and crust of original research; the stats are just a part of that problem. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Jtrainor, what AMIB is trying to address is also a problem across many articles on fiction. Don't be disillusioned into thinking that no one other than him has a problem simply because he is the only one active on this talk page. -- Ned Scott 00:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Based on the evidence that he is edit warring against multiple editors who WANT to include these stats and is the only one involved on his side of the debate, and that noone else has taken his side in any discussion other than to propose compromises which AMIB has blanketly discounted, I can't see any evidence showing he has wide support for his opinions on these articles, rather he's unilaterally edit warring against consensus on the pages in question. But thanks for your opinion, Ned. Kyaa the Catlord 05:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I can understand some information in these articles, so the reader understands how tall the Gundam is supposed to be interrupted as, but these stats easily get out of hand. It's fancruft. The attitude many of you are taking reflects very poorly on this project. Here he is making logical argument after logical argument, and you guys all sound like a bunch of pissy fanboys.
To be clear, which stats exactly are being discussed here? -- Ned Scott 05:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Mecha dimensions, armament, sometimes the pilot of the mech. Rather basic, easily verifiable data. I like the inclusion of the character designer in AMIB's version which should be added to the original infobox. It isn't something unique to Gundam that these simple details are included in the infoboxes, the same data could be found in the infoboxes for the x-wing fighter, the tie fighter, the starfury, the vf-1 valkyrie (which goes MUCH MORE in depth than say the Sazabi). AMIB keeps claiming that he's got the weight of consensus behind his edits, but based on looking at similar articles from other fandoms, I do not believe that this is the case at all. Consensus is that basic details like the armament and the rough dimensions of these devices can and should be placed in this sort of infobox. A minority of editors feel the way AMIB does, based on the weight of evidence. Kyaa the Catlord 07:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
What I must say is that we should get enough attention from these projects and try to make is a consensus in the WP:WAF page. Like I said, if they overwhelmed the page, cut them. If they are of a minority portion, say under 10% of the page length, keep them. MythSearchertalk 10:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the point would be. Why would someone who ignores WAF care what WAF says enough to go there and build consensus? Consensus already exists. It exists in practice, not a silly guideline page or a bunch of arguments. The consensus is that WAF doesn't exist and can bugger off. (Just my honest opinion on how WAF is viewed by the majority of those who write fiction articles.) Kyaa the Catlord 11:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Not if the page helps them fight off deletionists. The reason why them hate the page is because the page is against them, and if it is the other way around, the other side will be against the page and tends to ignore it. This have been well proven by the WP:Spoiler page, where a lot of the spoiler lovers use it for their arguement, and at some point of time it made the others so mad that it was changed gradually to what it is now, against the spoiler tags so meaninglessly tagged on plot or story sections which will obviously contain spoilers. MythSearchertalk 14:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been removing the pilot of the mech? Where? That's come out of the infobox when there are multiple pilots, because lists in infoboxes rarely work well.

WP:WAF became a guideline with overwhelming consensus, after it was advertised all over the place. If you have a problem with it, go over to its talk page and bring it up there, instead of presenting a wall of reverts to anyone who tries to clean up articles. "It's a guideline so I don't have to follow it if I don't want to" isn't avery convincing argument. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

WAF's become a failure of a guideline cause the true consensus is that noone follows it except when it suits their purpose in an effort to try to claim some sort of advantage in a content dispute. There is no hope to change it on its talk page cause the overwhelming number of people who would respond on that page believe, falsely, that there is no problem and are not welcome to any change to their pet guideline despite WP:OWN. Kyaa the Catlord 22:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
What? It's not a guideline because the only time anyone cites it is when they're trying to rewrite an article to real-world style? By that logic, WP:NPOV isn't policy because it's only cited when someone is trying to fix a biased article.
Do you have a reason to ignore WP:WAF other than "I wanna" or "There are other articles that also need cleanup?" - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing me to arguments to avoid in deletions, if we were discussing a deletion I'd keep that in mind. I see you continue to avoid the issue. The problem with WAF is real and simply because you close your eyes and bury your head in the sand to it doesn't make it go away. Noone, other than you, feel that these infoboxes have the WAF problem you perceive. Noone believes that this is a problem that we should be blindly following a "guideline" upon, but you. Even when you went canvassing for friends to jump in and support you, noone came and supported you. Ever feel like maybe, since noone else agrees with you, you might be WRONG? Kyaa the Catlord 01:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
They are applicable here, as well. You keep saying that there's a problem with WP:WAF, and giving no elaboration other than "I don't like it." What is this supposed problem with WP:WAF? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I do feel some problem in the infobox I must say. They are simply too long in most of the short pages, some were even longer than the article itself.
Like I pointed out in the above, guidelines are all like that, most people only use them when it suits their need, actually, the consensus of fictional material is well beyond what the WAF can say. Think about it with some logic, a lot of pages simply ignore the WAF, and a lot of people argue over the WAF on AfDs and most fictional projects with a larger scale background got quite some in-universe info. It is not simply a matter of other crap exists like most of the people using the WAF page as their arguement say. Since this much crap existed, maybe the consensus of these fictional pages are having these crap in it? It is not easy to change a guideline, and most people who work on their own is not going to see good results and most faced unhappy situations because a bunch of guideline freaks who seldom work on other stuff overwhelms the guideline pages. Which makes it harder to work in changing the guidelines to more like the consensus of all the fictional pages since people are simply not going to want to get through the unhappy process again.
Does guidelines like WAF really follow the few set-in-stone policies of wikipedia? Limiting the number of pages of work, limiting the style of writing and maybe even limiting the sources that could be used, some of the guidelines are simply unrealistic and is questioned in most of the arguements, and when faced with this much questioning, the guidleine pages still ignores them and look at them as separate cases since wikipedia works in a way where each person get out to do their own work. Say, the person who supports the WAF went through tons of resistance on the starwars project, and thinks that it is just a bunch of geeks going against him, while another can face a similar sad situation in the pokemon project, a third can face something in this project, a fourth can face something in the Vitual on project, fifth in Armoured Core, sixth in Final Fantasy, etc. most of them can still go back to WAF and hid in the comfort zone in the WAF talk page, since most of the people there supprted them, and no one tried to link all the instances together and figure out they are not the majority in wikipedia, but only majority in the WAF page. On each one of the projects, yes, there are less people than the WAF, but what about 10 of these projects? 100 of these projects?
I personally see some good things in the WAF page, the Wikipedia articles should describe fiction and fictional elements from the perspective of the real world, not from the perspective of the fiction itself. is correct, yet a more compromising page could be created. Like the Harry Potter (character) page, it is recommended as an example in the WP:FICT, scroll down to the Family and heritage in the novels which contains tons of in-universe info, family tree? How is that out-of-universe? Yes, most of the time this is where others jump in to say other crap existed but this is a page used as an example in the WP:FICT, along with Horses of Middle-earth (totally fictional page with no real world significance nor notability even in the eyes of a Middle Earth fan like I am), for more please look at the Examples.
My point is, we should follow the spirit of the policies and guidelines, but not creep it and only follow the words. A list of spec is simply too much, but maybe we can mix some of the specs into the article, and not list them out and get the infobox longer than the article itself. MythSearchertalk 02:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying to discard the specs entirely when they're useful for writing the article. I am saying that a block of fictional statistics copied directly from a licensed guide or off of packaging is inappropriate, either in an infobox or as a universal addition to every article and every entry in a list.

The reason there are so many articles that don't show any regard for WP:WAF is because anyone can edit without having to read the rules or respect our goals or do anything other than click the "edit this page" link. There are many articles that are full of typos, or biased, or personal essays, or just plain false. When we come to them, we clean them up. The idea that "there are so many articles in in-universe style, so all of them should be" would make any sort of cleanup impossible.

Look at featured articles. Not a one of them is written in an in-universe style. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, I am not saying the WAF is entirely wrong, but it did not take into account that most fictional pages' consensus of the project members as a whole, and that is why a lot of arguing existed. Horses of Middle-earth page is an example on WP:FICT, it might not be of FA status(it was at least GA when the FICT page got its entry) but I see a entirely in-universe style page being an example on a guideline page with no hint of being deleted. It is very much like the MS and MA pages we got here, and we can take it as a sample as to what information is needed, and what is not. MythSearchertalk 04:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Horses of Middle-earth is used on WP:FICT as an example of how to structure an article, not how to write the article content. (WP:FICT predates WP:WAF by about a year, and has been written in kind of a slap-dash way. Deckiller is currently working on a rewrite that makes this distinction a bit clearer.) It's used as an example because individual articles on the horses were put on AFD, and the compromise reached there was to merge them instead of deleting them, in the hopes a full article could be written. It isn't a good example; it's a merge that was made to save some articles from being deleted.
Horses of Middle-earth is completely lacking in references, as well. Does that means that WP:V is invalid?
The fact that there are articles that have not yet been brought into compliance with WP:WAF doesn't mean WP:WAF is invalid, any more than unfinished articles make WP:V, WP:NPOV, or WP:MOS invalid. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
You're forgetting the five pillars, AMIB. You should be finding consensus and avoiding edit wars (pillar four) and recognizing that Wikipedia has no set of firm rules (pillar five). Maybe it is time for you to realize that consensus (at least on the pages which you are a party to the edit war on) is against you and move on to somewhere where your edits have a chance of not being mercilessly changed (pillar three). Kyaa the Catlord 04:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
"Wikipedia has no firm rules" doesn't mean "Ignore guidelines because you don't like them." And the rest of your comment is disgusting and pathetic; you just threatened to edit war until I left your articles alone. :P - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me? Where am I edit warring? Please observe AGF and CIVIL. Thanks. Kyaa the Catlord 04:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

WAF is a strong Wikipedia-wide consensus. Meaning, it is a consensus among all editors, not just those focused on fictional articles. WAF was written to clean up the mass of poorly written and fancrufty articles we had, so the fact that you find other stuff that doesn't follow WAF is illrelevant, it simply means there is stuff yet to be fixed. Default behavior, such as many of our poorly written articles, is not considered a consensus. Nor is common practice what a guideline always recommends.

What disturbs me is that so many of you feel threatened by WAF. You guys must not think very highly of Gundam if you think some of these articles are the best you can do. Gundam has a long history, and a huge fan following, and the real world information needed is out there. But if all you guys want to do is recap plot, well, sorry, that's not what we're here for (and that's policy). -- Ned Scott 05:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Keyword is solely in NOT:PLOT. AMIB, Malik and JTrainor's edit war isn't about articles that are solely plot summaries, nor are they the best possible work. But they aren't solely plot summaries either. To be honest, do you know what these edit wars are over, Ned, or are you simply coming to the defense of WAF cause you're active there? I'm not threatened by WAF, I'm pointing out the failure of WAF and the misuse of it to try to rationalize and forgive edit warring. Kyaa the Catlord 05:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, another key POLICY is WP:EP. We strive for the best article possible, but not perfection. Are these the best articles they can be? Of course not, everything is a work in progress. This does not justify the edit wars, but it makes the argument for warring in the name of some sort of crusade for perfection even less justifiable. Kyaa the Catlord 05:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know what they're edit warring about. My message was in response to you guys trying to attack WAF in order to counter AMIB's arguments.
I think you guys should take AMIB's infobox design and add height and weight. Lose the "Armaments" section, and mention the model number next to the name at the top. I'm not sure if that info could be considered copyrightable or not, nor am I sure if it's even important info. That is what you guys should be discussing. -- Ned Scott 06:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
No, I am not trying to attack WAF, I am trying to say that WAF was sometimes used incorrectly in some arguements. BTW, the model number is copyrightable, but probably will not get anyone into trouble simply by using them as it is just helping them advertise their product.(And that is why I hate model numbers in the page name) MythSearchertalk 06:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Nor am I seriously attacking WAF, I'm attacking using WAF to justify his side of the edit war and the problems with his arguments based on it. His interpretation of WAF is not one that has consensus to support it. Kyaa the Catlord 07:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
So, where's the argument or discussion of how to interpret WP:WAF? There are a lot of discussions above that get sidetracked into personal issues, turn into namecalling messes, or just trail off because I stopped reverting.
Some examples of unrebutted arguments from trailed-off discussions above:
  • "Such infoboxes don't need to be devoid of in-universe detail, it just needs to not be overwhelmed by it, particularly by fictional statistics."
  • "These aren't military weapons; they're parts of a fictional story. The priority is describing their role in the fictional story, and statistics that are so little used in that story that they often blatantly contradict the story (and are copyvio, to boot) just don't belong here."
  • "Think of it on the other side of the table, if you are a person with no knowledge about Gundam or any military common sense what so ever and came to wikipedia, click on the random article buttom on the upper left hand corner, and happen to load any of the mobile suit pages, and see tons of information. Does it help him/her in understanding the mobile suit and its importance in our world? Not quite. Wikipedia is not here for fans, but for the general public, if we have a perfect page for the public, I would not be against having those specs since they will probably only take like 5% of the page, but now most of them take like more than 50% of the pages and is simply overwhelmingly making the pages look bad. Also, other than fans like me who actually uses those weight, output power and thrust spec in calculating how much time the MS or MA can be on full thrust or can it be launched to space with no addons, etc. Who would need that much spec on every single fictional weapon? Say, what do you use the specs for anyway?"
Consensus isn't about who can scrape together more users to revert, it's about discussion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 1. Three or four lines of text does not overwhelm these articles.
  • 2. You keep claiming they are copyvio. How? Provide some evidence of where "plasma cannon" is copywritten by anyone related to these mecha.
  • 3. I don't buy into the argument that people are so stupid that a few lines in an infobox overwhelms them with information. The argument that the few lines you are removing from the articles you have been edit warring over is 50% of the article is groundless.
Based on in-practice use, you do not seem to have consensus for your belief even if we look at articles where you have not been edit warring, the overly strict interpretation of WAF you are trying to push is not what is being followed. You are easily in the minority opinion despite having a fancy guideline crafted by like-minded editors. Kyaa the Catlord 07:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
A titanic, wholly in-universe infobox DOES overwhelm these articles, and copying a block of fictional data verbatim from licensed guides is copyvio. People aren't "so stupid" that a "few lines" in an infobox overwhelms them with information; the data is of so little value because it is generally written by people other than the actual authors well after the fact, and often does not reflect that actual work in question.
Take, for example, weight. I admit it's been a while since I saw Char's Counterattack, but where in that did they make mention of the Jagd Doga's weight, even in passing? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
You claim its copyvio, but I still do not see any evidence that this information is directly a copywrite violation. Evidence is normally provided when someone makes this type of claim, I'm simply asking for you to provide evidence that this has been lifted from another source. You seem to have a problem with the size of the infobox, but do not discuss altering its dimensions instead you remove large chunks of it until it meets you asthetic taste. Just for full disclosure, some of the information in the fields you have removed NEEDS to be rewritten or removed. But the fields themselves are not necessarily bad. I'm more against the blanket removal of the fields than I am of improving the information contained within them. (And yes, I'll agree to compromise. Some of these fields are unnecessary.) Kyaa the Catlord 07:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
And to be perfectly honest about this, I'd much rather jtrainor and malik be providing sources for the material they want to include in these infoboxes than simply reverting. Kyaa the Catlord 07:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
It's copyvio of whereever it came from, which is unhelpfully unspecified.
I'm not removing this in-universe because of some sort of aesthetic objection (although the old template was awfully ugly, largely but not wholly because of its size), but because it overwhelms the article with in-universe content that isn't even important in a fictional context, let alone a real-world context.
Now, I'm not ignoring criticism; in fact, I'm desperate for some kind of input that isn't blank reverts. What fields need to be kept and why? For what articles? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Jtrainor and Malik aren't the only ones making blank reverts. I disagree with your argument that the infobox overwhelms a reasonably sized article, such as that of the Sazabi. The articles I suggested above have as large or larger infoboxes, but I don't see anyone making any sort of claim that they break WAF or should be removed to the degree that you are removing the data from these. I've stated above the information that I believe is useful to a reader who is looking up these mobile suits. The weapons, the crude dimensions, the pilot, any special features. Infoboxes are useful for having a quick place to find data without having to resort to, ugh, in-universe prose descriptions. (Which some of these suits include! Ugh!) And I'm completely with you when you suggest that the included data needs to be verifiable. I'd argue that your suggestion the because this data is found from secondary sources it is somehow less valid is counter to the verifiability guidelines. Kyaa the Catlord 08:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if Jtrainor or MalikCarr have some sort of problem with my italics corrections, adding cleanup tags, renaming sections to be more specific, rewriting of conversational tone, or moving spin-off info out of the lead into a relevant section, they haven't yet explained it to me.

Okay. Something to work with. Why are the weapons or crude dimensions necessary, bearing in mind the arguments MythSearcher has made against weight? What special features should be mentioned in the infobox and why? (We don't disagree about pilots; there's already a pilot and faction field in the infobox.)

Licensed guides that have this sort of description aren't secondary sources. They're not analysis or commentary; they're licensed primary works, set in the setting itself. They're useful for in-universe description (as long as the in-universe description is being used to supplement real-world info), but they aren't in any practical way secondary sources. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Some of the suits can use the thrust-mass-ratio(and for that, we need the thrust and mass/weight spec) Like S Gundam[Bst] was described as having exceptional acceleration in the story which way exceed the Z Pluses.(of course, with the 1.67G, the poor Z Plus are high spec units, but the S[Bst] is just way over-spec to a 9.72G acceleration that exceeds acceleration of even the F91 and V Gundam) If it is specifically talked about in the story, than I guess we will need to mention them. However, it is also the reason of why I am against of putting these info in the infobox. If they have to be mentioned since it is a part of the plot, do it in the article, not the infobox. MythSearchertalk 08:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the revert war is bad and must stop. But there are two sides involved. Continuing the edit "conflict" isn't the way to handle this....
All this data supplements real-world information which should be contained in the prose section of the article. These statistics should be secondary to the prose where the real world design and creation of the mecha is detailed. It is identifying material which would provide a user with some more flavorful information to help understand and identify the machine, in the same way that the images would provide visual references to the machine so one could pick it out in the actual viewing of the show. Some of the armaments, such as the laser axes (heat hawk) used by the Zaku family mechs, are visual keys which provide the viewer with an identifying difference between them and other mechs. As for special features, I believe things like the inclusion of the psycommu unit and a link to the article on it would be a good example of one of these. (In some cases, the different weapon packages, ie the striker pack, would be listed there.)
I disagree with your distaste of the liscensed guides. These aren't any less useful to our pages as the liscensed "Star Trek encyclopedia" or "Scotty's Guide to the Enterprise" would be to someone writing on Star Trek. Kyaa the Catlord 08:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, if anything needed to be secondary sources, the model magazines got them listed somehow for basically no useful reason other than making the page look cool. MythSearchertalk 09:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
When I stop reverting, I also stop getting replies on talk pages. I don't much like revert warring, but if it's the only way to bring people to the table (or the only way to get grammatical and factual fixes to stick), then I'm not offered much alternative.
Kyaa, I'm not opposed to mentioning much of the info in these stat blocks where it's actually relevant. It would be silly not to mention the heat hawk in an ideal version of Zaku II. But universal inclusion of exhaustive blocks only serves to obscure the important facts, like the signature weapons. If every article has an exhaustive block of every single weapon and system, how can anyone who doesn't already know what to look for know how to identify the signature weapon?
Particularly in the infobox...Infoboxes are for the most important facts, things that every reader needs to know about the subject. That the Sazabi has three missiles in its shield or that it weighs 71.2 tons fully loaded aren't examples of important facts that every reader needs to know about the subject.
Fictional guides come in a lot of styles.There are guides that are guides to how the show was made and the thought processes of the writers and the craft of making a fictional world. These are good secondary sources. Then there are guides that describe fictional histories, give dossiers on characters and weapons and places, and generally rearrange the story in a "history" style. These are not secondary sources. We should be using the former as sources whenever possible, as well as do our best to mimic their style. When we use the latter, we should keep in mind that they are usually little better than just citing the works of fiction themselves.
If a magazine or package or guide reprints the stats in toto without commentary, it doesn't suddenly make those stats commentary sourced to a secondary source. They're just an excerpt of primary source material. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I can also say some bad things about the weapons listed in the infobox. Technically, all of the Zeon mobile suits can use weapons of older models(like the MS-09 can use the 120mm machine gun of MS-06) and even the MA-05's hand can be used to equip the beam rifle of MS-14A. So, we have to list every single weapon they can use in the infobox? Of course not.
No, the magazines do use some commentary, like this is the spec, it shows that such and such is an average suit or acceleration specialist and such. Case by case bases though, not all of them have these commentary, and of course I am only talking about the ones with commentary. Yet, I still see no useful reason for a model magazine to use those specs since the model remains pretty much the same and they do not use the specs to build the models differently most of the time. (there are instances when they do, but they do not really list the full-specs at those moments) MythSearchertalk 09:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
That commentary would be great for the articles, especially if it reflects (or is contrasted with!) the authors'/character designers' intent. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, commentary in the article, the straightforward vanilla specs in the infobox. I'm definately not pushing to include every weapon known to Zeon that the Zaku can use, but there is a base set of weapons that they are equipped with, the same way a real world fighter plane could switch out munitions based on its mission but also have a "stock" set of armaments. Kyaa the Catlord 10:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
The point is that the "straightforward vanilla specs" are of little value in most cases, and obscure those facts that might be useful.
Remember that we are not dealing with real-world fighter planes; their performance is dictated by their statistics (well, by physics, but you know what I mean), whereas fictional weapons' performance is determined by author fiat. (Unless someone thinks Kunio Owakara had a slide rule on his drafting table to work out mass-thrust ratios...) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
These would obscure facts that would be useful in the prose. In an infobox, they would not distract from the commentary in the prose. In the infobox, these statistics would continue the statistical description of the mecha and further reinforce the fact that these are not vehicles, they are advanced weapon systems. Kyaa the Catlord 10:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Nonsense. If a stat is important enough to mention in the body of the article, we can introduce it with prose and explain it with prose. If it's not important to mention in the body of the article, we don't need it in the infobox.
We don't need a block of utterly meaningless numbers to establish that these are "advanced weapon systems." Firstly, a block of statistics neither establishes that these are advanced or not vehicles. Secondly, the stats usually don't reveal any important facts, and when they do, we can handle those facts in the prose. Thirdly, the stats don't dictate or measure the performance of the mecha (like the stats do with real weapons); it's all author fiat. (Again, am I the only one here who has heard the old Ball Custom jokes? Paint a Ball red and stick Char in it and suddenly it's the top of the line.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
And this is why we don't discuss this, you're deadset against having anything in these infoboxes beyond the two lines you've "allowed" and nothing I say will change your mind. You don't seem to have any intention of compromising. I certainly feel like everything I've said has fallen on deaf ears, especially when I have to repeat the same things I've said before.... (which, if you look at the thread here, I've had to do a couple of times.) Maybe we'd be willing to discuss this with you if you gave a little which it certainly feels like you're unwilling to do. I feel like I've just wasted five hours talking to a wall. No offense, just my honest reflection of what has occured here. Kyaa the Catlord 10:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not deadset against anything; I just don't find those particular arguments very convincing. (It's possible to examine an argument, consider it, and find it unmoving. That's very different from ignoring it.) Myth (and others, he was just the first to mention it) made a good point about size/class, and I was planning to add those fields when I wasn't massively sleep-deprived and prone to screwing up template markup.
Is there a particular field in the old template that you feel is useful in all or the vast majority of cases? Why? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I don't find your reasoning very convincing either. So we're at an impasse. And seriously, I'm tired of this discussion since I don't feel that ANY argument I make is going to sway you. Kyaa the Catlord 12:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd say, do not add in the weapon part in the infobox for now, there is no way we could say which weapon is the iconic one without some sort of OR unless it is as obvious as the Heat Hawk of Zaku or the Beam Rifle and Beam sabre of Gundam(where these three weapons are definitely been stated over and over and over in various sources) MythSearchertalk 13:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Point of contention, this is not a discussion on adding material to the articles, rather it is a discussion on what to remove from the articles. I do not ask for additional content, just to stop the removal of material Kyaa the Catlord 13:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
What I mean is do not include the weapon part in the infobox for now. MythSearchertalk 16:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Look, either include all of the stats or none of them. Having just partial stats such as just a weight figure makes things look really haphazard and crappy, especially if one compares it to, oh, say, GundamOfficial.com. Jtrainor 04:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
This is not the official website where they can use the specs freely with actual permission from the copyright owner. Also, if an encycolpedia of Gundam was to ever built, in wikipedia, I am aiming for something like Gundam Officials. It does not have a full spec unless the unit takes up 2 or 3 pages of newspaper length article. MythSearchertalk 06:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

{{Infobox MS Gundam}} again

Well, I implemented the class and height tables, then put them into effect in the articles where the template is in use. I made a snazzy switch table to link article sections of Mobile weapons, too. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I like it. -- Ned Scott 08:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Shortcut

Why does WP:CE redirect here? I'm admittedly biased, but I believe it should redirect to Wikipedia:WikiProject Civil engineering as Civil engineering is frequently abbreviated "CE". ZueJay (talk) 17:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a long story. CE stands for Cosmic Era and was the newest timeline of the Gundam metaseries in 2003~2006. Newest means it attracts most attention and a project called Wikiproject:Cosmic Era was started for the sole means of making pages for that timeline. Most of the pages got dumped because they follow no wiki rules of notability and a lot of them is just copy and paste from the internet. The project page was also having almost no active users since most of the CE lovers are rather newbies of wiki following google or something that came and put tons of speculation to make things worse, and of course most disregard the project page anyway. Anyway, a huge debate got on with deletionist trying to AfD all of the weapons pages and was called the AfD from hell or something along that line, and people noticed someone started up the WP:CE and it was then changed to WP:GUNDAM instead with the little notability Cosmic Era has(new stuff usually have not much real world impact). That is why WP:CE redirects here, it was the original project name before anyone is active on this project here now. I am sure that not much active user will be against you for redirecting it to civil engineering project since that is much more frequently used and I don't think there's much Cosmic Era fans(which mostly are kids in where I live and seldom get into anything that got rules) left here anyway. I will be happy to see it done that way, feel free to do so. MythSearchertalk 17:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree it should direct to Civ Eng., however as a legacy guard on that page you might want to point out that WP:CE used to redirect here and provide a link to this project out of courtesy. David Fuchs (talk) 19:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you guys for your courtesy on this. I didn't want to just up and change something without chatting about it first. The CE project will definitely display both the Gundam and Copyedit links. Thanks ZueJay (talk) 00:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Since it was only used 17 times (other than this talk page), and hasn't been used recently, I think it would be safe to give the redirect to WikiProject Civil engineering. I've left a small note that says ""WP:CE" redirects here. For the Cosmic Era project, see WikiProject Gundam." on the top of their page, just in case. -- Ned Scott 01:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll make sure the note stays there. ZueJay (talk) 01:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Another attempted mass-delete=

User:Oscarthecat is attempting to mass-nom a very large amount of Gundam-related material with a copy-pasted rationale that does not apply to the stuff he's nominating. Another attempt at mass-removal of Gundam material, without a cause. Also note his sidekick who is voting the same on every page.

Perhaps people will pay more attention to MalikCarr now. Also, I am hereby declaring my intent to take most of these to DRV if by some chance they're deleted-- it's as blatant a case of bad nomination as I've ever seen.

Jtrainor 20:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree, too many losses with Gundam related material and it will just keep getting worse at this point unless if either a completely new game plan is thought up or that stuff is transferred to Gundam Wiki. -Adv193 20:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Give Hyaku Shiki a chance

It got AfDed. Well, I agree that the article was quite poor written so I understand why it got that. But I believe that it should be keep and try to improve it. Unfortunely, I'm not resourceful as MythSearcher and after all I have done, it still not that great. Please improve it so we can go and vote keep heartfully. L-Zwei 05:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have a good idea, why don't you ask for what you need(I mean all of you here), and I will go find it, so you can make it an inline citation. It would be impossible to find sources and writting all of those articles at the same time. MythSearchertalk 06:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

It needs some references and all the usual noteability crap. I'm pretty sure there have been some articles about it as it's quite a popular model. Jtrainor 20:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, can you find some info on Gunpla release of Hyaku Shiki? L-Zwei 05:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe the Type 100 should be merged to a list of MS in Zeta Gundam? It doesn't seem that important to ensue its own article ~ Kind Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.84.122.85 (talk) 17:15, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

This is a hard call, very hard indeed. It is so not worth mentioning if we just look at the 2 shows it is in, yet the real life impact of it seems to exceed a lot of other stuff around. Some vandal actually went to the extreme in vandalising a statue to imitate Hyakushiki, which is like the most notable non-fan style occurance of any Gundam related display of an mobile suit... yet, nothing else is out of the normal, other mecha that I will route for having its own article normally got their own modelling competition or large scale fan projects going on, yet this one only got the vandalism notable. MythSearchertalk 17:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Music of Cosmic Era

Hello there.
I just wanted to inform everyone here I have started a new article, Music of Cosmic Era. I have noticed that not a single one of Gundam SEED soundtracks have an article here on wikipedia. I understand that most are not notable on their own, so I have created a "Music of" style page. Please look at the Music of Final Fantasy VII page to get an idea of what the finished article might look like.
I'm telling you this, because there are 40 plus CDs to cover, and I'm not sure I have the energy/resources to do it all on my own. Once this page is a bit more complete, I plan to have the Gundam seed pages have a "link to main article" link under the current audio sections.
If everybody here is too busy to help, that is totally fine, I'll just keep going, albeit a bit slow...
Thankyou! happypal (Talk | contribs) 16:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I added the article to the Cosmic Era section of the {{Gundam}} template. --Silver Edge 18:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Did some cleanup work

I went through several articles and added the UCMobileWeaponsRef template, and also categorized a few articles that didn't have their talk pages tagged as being part of WP:Gundam. Also, I've stubified the Adzam article, since there really isn't much there. Jtrainor 09:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I think we should remove spec for now, or at least use less-detail version. Check Japaneese version of each article, you will see that their infobox isn't crowd as ours. L-Zwei 14:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, I use them, but it really shouldn't be that long and detailed. Keep the series it first appeared in, height for size and appearance stuff and sides, then maybe the shortened version of weapons (instead of something like MMP-78 120mm machinegun MMP-80 90mm machinegun, use 120mm, 90mm machinegun instead) And that's it, at most we add the acceleration, that is as fictional as we will have. We could make use of something like year desgined in the real world and the real world designer, and maybe redesigned series and redesigners. MythSearchertalk 15:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
What's the Japanese version of the infobox contain? Jtrainor 16:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Basically what we have. Normally it got the name, the number, belongs to which nation, manufactured by whom, what type (mass-production, prototype, etc.), height, empty and full weight, generator output, sensor range, armour material, main pilots and list of weapons. The only thing is, it looks a lot shorter in kanji and Japanese characters (even shorter in Chinese :) MythSearchertalk 02:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
However, they don't include some stat if not available. Most AU MS has only "Weight = X tons" instead of "Empty weight = x tons, Full weight = unknown". The special equipment never include sensor (too common to be special, actually) though sensor range would include if available. And armaments list only the name (and number, if there are multi. They don't list powerplant type. They don't list number of missiles store in missile launcher or how many round bazooka has, no rate of fire or power output (pretty much not available in post-CCA series) nor weapon placement. Just name and number, they may has expand them in armaments section in article though. They also list "Armour" instead of "Construction" (PS armor list here instead of special equipments). L-Zwei 05:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Hrumph, I've been willing to settle for a small infobox only containing basic figures, such as dimensions, weight, armaments, and any special systems, but leave it to AMIB and the deletionists to continue this pointless edit war over the relevance of such items. Maybe I ought to point them in the direction of the Japanese-language Wikipedia - they might take their one-man concensus army there, perhaps? MalikCarr 08:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The other language wikis are much better in these kind of stuff, there are less or no people making up their own rules about notability. MythSearchertalk 10:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I imagine they would be. Moreover, there are "reliable sources" (the biggest farce Wikipedia has yet to produce) within easy reach. It's damn well near impossible to find reliable, third-party publications for Gundam related topics in English. There's no language bias on Wikipedia, no sir... MalikCarr 22:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, non-English sources are allowed, assuming useful English stuff can't be found. Jtrainor 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
That's why the project as a whole needs someone fluent enough in Japanese to add such information. What sucks is that there's actually a good amount of neat information about design concepts and pre-production information out there, but said info is sadly mainly found in the liner notes of the laser disc versions of various series (The LD edition of Zeta Gundam in particular had a plethora of this information as well as illustrations). There was a Japanese fansite that listed all this information with the original sources, but I think it only pertains to Mamoru Nagano's work (His versions of Mk. II, Zeta, and how the Zeta design he came up with became the Hyaku Shiki, which actually is mentioned in the article IIRC), and it'd be nice if someone out there was obsessive enough to actually own the LD's and scan in these notes so that they can be proven to be real.
For what it's worth, I'm not a deletionist and I even admit to creating pages about even less notable stuff than this (SRWOG units and pilots) that'll probably be put on the chopping block once someone starts rooting through the category. However I do think AMIB's infobox has more actually useful information, namely where it first appears (series and, when necessary, episode) and who designed the mobile suit originally. If someone could find a way to make a nice, compact infobox with other information, that'd be nice; the one you prefer takes up a good bit too much space on the page, IMO. Maikeru 23:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm using that infobox because it was agreed upon by WP:Gundam concensus last year, and is in use of most of the better articles, including the RX-78 article, which was the centerpoint of the entire article conflagration back in January. If that was good enough to survive, it's good enough for the humble articles I've created. Nevertheless, I'm willing to use the infobox setup you've put forth if it'll help end this months-long pointless edit war. Let it not be said I was never willing to compromise. MalikCarr 08:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment on infobox, while AMIB's infobox contain pretty much must-have stat. Lack of armaments does strip MS's character IMO, MS is fictional weapon and the method to destroy thing is possibly the most important aspect for weapon ^_^ . I think that we should use collapsable infobox use by Gundam Wing MS, it would solve layout problem and long weapons list. L-Zwei 14:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Nvm, it seems AMIB would prefer to continue the edit war than take the perfectly acceptable compromise Maikeru offered. Oh well, no rest for the wicked. MalikCarr 21:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I like your idea -- If there's going to be a long list of weapons in a modified infobox, I think it should be collapsible to preserve the article's layout. As for my compromise, I'm not entirely happy with it because it's way, way too large -- it spans the entire length of the article down to the References section. Ideally the infobox should normally take up just the length of the introductory paragraph, maybe the table of contents as well; it shouldn't bleed over into the most important content of the article. Maikeru 00:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I beg to differ - as it is, with the small text, it gives a nice flow to the article. More importantly, the article's main body and the infobox end on the same line, which minimizes wasted space and makes the article look more full and complete.
Moving right along, if you'd like to get a good idea of the level of hypocrisy among certain deletionists, our good friend has now alleged that I have made "no arguments" about the inclusion of armaments in an infobox for an article. Even if you ignore all the ones made on this page and the talk pages of other articles, the talk page of the article in question goes on at length about the value of those items. Ah well, I've come to expect this Ministry of Truth-grade litigating by this point. MalikCarr 05:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

We have rejected AMiB's infobox. Any infobox would be better than one created by that user. Kyaa the Catlord 07:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Three of you have outright rejected it (you, MalikCarr, Jtrainor), but this project consists of more than three people, doesn't it? Given the amount of time since the last consensus on an infobox, I think that one of two things need to be done soon (see below). Maikeru 07:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, there are more than three of us. But there's only one of you and guess who is pressing to change the infoboxen? Unilateral much? Kyaa the Catlord 07:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd rather be the lone jerkoff who tries to incite some kind of change than the person sitting on the sideline over the status quo when improvements can and should be made, whether agreeable to my point of view or not. Right now, AMIB is the only one with an infobox akin to that of most other articles (contained within a template for easier entry and editing, using a style like those of the FFVII character infoboxes and other fictional character/weapon article infoboxes). I don't think that maintaining the articles as they appear right now is the right thing to do, so I want change of any kind. It's just that AMIB is the only one working on said change. Maikeru 07:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Its very nice that you want change. Rather than comparing the infobox to those of a fictional character, why do you not compare it to one of a fictional fighter craft, such as the X-Wing, Primus class battlecruiser or vf-1 valkyrie? These all contain fields very similar to those in the existing infobox and are much more similar to our robots than a character infobox would be. Kyaa the Catlord 07:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. If anything, I'd say that an infobox for Gundam designs in general should be treated as both a character and a vehicle profile at once, really... I'm sort of waffling on the topic of a weapons list and whatnot, mainly because the weapons list as it is uses a lot of crufty stuff that should be snipped out of the lists (namely the calibers of the bullet rounds and the silly weapon brand/serial numbers established by the UC Gundam Online game) and because it really encourages MAHQ copypasta. Admittedly, though, the weapons -- especially the signature weapons like the beam rifle and beam saber of the Gundam, or the Zaku machinegun, Zaku bazooka, and heat hawk of... well, the Zaku -- are pretty important... it's just that I don't think it's necessary to list a caliber, since not even Sunrise or Bandai really pays close attention to them. Example: See the HGUC Guntank model -- according to the statistics I've seen pretty much everywhere (essentially the specs as translated and compiled in Burke's Mobile Weapons format, the stuff on MAHQ) the shoulder cannons are a larger caliber round (120mm I think) than its grenade launcher arms (80mm), but the arm cannon barrels are actually bigger than the shoulder cannon barrels. Oops...
But at the same time, I'm 100% sure on several things in AMIB's infobox that haven't been considered for the old-school infobox, like including the designer/designers in the infobox, as well as a field for listing the first appearance of the mobile suit or mobile armor in terms of episode (i.e. episode 1 "Gundam Rising" for the RX-78 or episode 1 "Black Gundam" for Mk-II). So let's say that, of the in-universe stuff, we can perhaps include height, length (for things that are longer than they are tall, i.e. the Core Fighter, Mobile Armors, etc.), perhaps weight (just one figure, the max gross weight), definitely what type of mobile weapon it is (a given), faction (or at least the faction who originally used it), pilot (also a given), perhaps all weapons, or maybe the most notable weapons for MS which have a humongous list of weapons they use (i.e. the Zaku, when you take all the variants into consideration). Real-life stuff... Designer, series in which it appears, first appearance on-screen, and I blank after that because I can't think of anything else pertaining to out-of-universe that can be listed in a short format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maikeru (talk • contribs) 08:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the infobox fields need more real world information. I think a compromise is workable, but I don't see anyone who has skills with this stepping up to do it, I just see AMiB's insufficiant infobox replacing a more functional one made by someone who actually did work on these articles. Kyaa the Catlord 08:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
You know, it would probably be easier to work on his template to add stuff you want up there. I mean, it is like only missing a little things here and there, and it is a template, it would be easier to modify and add into current articles. MythSearchertalk 14:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Proposal Yet Again

I'd like to request this, mainly because I'd like to make the not-really-a-consensus consensi (AMIB/myself, MalikCarr/Jtrainor/Kyaa the Catlord) a moot point.

a.) Can we have some sort of vote in favor of either Template:Infobox MS Gundam (AMIB's infobox) or the current, non-templated infobox used in Gundam (mobile suit), MSN-02 Zeong, et al.?

b.) Barring that, can someone make a competing infobox template so that we may have a consensus vote like the one proposed in a?

As I understand it, the current infobox was decided upon around a year ago, so I think that now is a good time to possibly consider options to better align these articles with other fictional character/mechanical articles on Wikipedia. Although it is partially a matter of cosmetics and a matter of deciding what information should go in the infobox and what information can be mentioned in the main body of the article (as evident by the conversations above this), it is still worth considering in order to improve the visual style of the articles. Maikeru 07:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm about to toss in the towel over the anal retentive edit fucking warring over infoboxes. Your crusade makes Wikipetan cry. Kyaa the Catlord 07:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I personally kinda like the compromise Maikeru came up with. That being said, I won't accept that thing AMIB made. Jtrainor 14:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Have you also seen the infoboxes used for the Gundam Wing mobile suits. Check out the one from the Gundam Deathscythe article. -Adv193 19:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I like the one you whipped up, Maikeru. It keeps a few important statistics (the ones I've been arguing for) while also including some out-of-universe information and having a nice format. I like the small text and coloration far more than the official infoboxes used elsewhere, such as in the RX-78 and the Gundam Wing articles. It just looks better - more professional, if you will.
Incidentally, I do hope this will quell allegations of "protectionism" from certain deletionists - even I know when someone's made a better product. MalikCarr 19:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

One aspect I liked from the Gundam Wing infobox is that it limited pilot information to avoid too much clutter in the infobox with it's main pilot slot and only listed major characters in the text summary outside the infobox for other pilots that piloted that suit in minor details. I hope that aspect can be considered for the new infobox since it doesn't need that much clutter or to reference minor character details unless if neccessary. -Adv193 20:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it'll have any impact on the ongoing months-old edit war, but I've moved the articles in question to Maikeru's infobox format. Such is my enjoyment of it. 1., 2.. MalikCarr 20:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
How about having the year of the series/OVA/movie after the "appears in" field? Might add some real-world weight to appease the deletion-minded people. And maybe we could list the games etc. that the mecha appears in in the same section, like release versions for software infoboxes. Shrumster 08:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a notice, AMiB has one-man vetoed the comprimise infobox at the Sazabi article. Ya'll might want to check that out and instruct him on consensus building. Kyaa the Catlord 07:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Just opinion, but I don't think it's good idea to put mecha designer and debut serie in infobox. Why? Simply because those info most likely note in first or second paragraph. Lets ignore all crappy old article that keep say they're fictional weapon from Gundam series, they suppose to say they're Mobile Suit from [[serie]], deisgn by [[mech designer]]. I think infobox is more useful as quick reference, something people (both fan and not) can get general info without search in mid of text (and again, MS is weapon and how weapon destroy things is important aspect). That being said, I don't like, almost hate, AMiB's infobox, NO with capital. So far I leave it be, but now he use those infobox in Gundam Wing's article, which already has hideable infobox, I guess he is too proud on his infobox. L-Zwei 02:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I believe we ought to keep the tab about "fictional" in the header when describing that it's a mobile suit created by <X> designer for <Y> Gundam media. It makes those troublesome types who go "ZOMG IN UNIVERSE, MUST DELETE" at reading the first few sentences either read the whole thing, or go bug another article. But I am pleased that you support the compromise infobox, at least in spirit. Question, though. Why not maintain the mechanical designer in said infobox? It seems like a good idea to me; helps put an OOU anchor in the rest of it, and that's always helpful. MalikCarr 02:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup stuff

I suggest we get a complete list of articles under our jurisdiction, go through them, find ones with problems, and mark them on the list. That way we know what needs to be done, and when something is fixed, it can be tagged on the list accordingly. Jtrainor 21:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, wake up people! There should be more activity here than just when someone is trying to delete articles. Jtrainor 22:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm gone. Ya'll keep fighting the good fight. Kyaa the Catlord 07:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

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