Forum:Updating Universe templates to link to pages detailing sources of elements in Smash

Forums: Index → Proposals → Updating Universe templates to link to pages detailing sources of elements in Smash

This is a closed discussion about a failed proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes. The closing administrator adds: "No support in nearly two months, and no compelling argument put forward by the proposer. Omega Tyrant 13:19, June 29, 2023 (EDT)"

Sorry for the long-winded title. Basically, I’ve noticed that for many of the universe articles, the list of games/media from that universe is sufficiently large that it has been broken off into its own page. By my count, this is the case now for 12 universe articles.

Those new pages detailing the referenced media fittingly include the navigation template for their respective universe, but what I see as a shortcoming is that those pages are themselves not linked in the infobox, requiring one to first visit the universe’s main article and then access the page about the referenced media elements from there.

I saw this as a rather clear and simple problem to be fixed and thought it would be fine to simply add those in myself, but another editor reverted those additions and pointed out that such a change should be discussed first, so I am making this a proposal.

Specifically, I propose the addition to universe navigation templates, of, when applicable, a direct link to the pages listing the material from those series featured in Smash and the particular games/media from which those hail (That is, pages of the format: <x> (universe)/Elements appearing in the Super Smash Bros. series).

I believe these are important pages pertaining to those universes as they exist in Smash and are thus warranting of a direct link in the universe template. I admit that deciding what to call this new field on the template, as well as formatting it to look nice, may take a bit of work, but I believe the change of adding this field to the nav template would only be beneficial for the purpose of navigating this site, and thus should be implemented for all universes for which such a page exists. Pk62001 (talk) 05:59, May 6, 2023 (EDT)

Oppose. As the person who reverted those edits, I think it looks ugly the way that it was. I might be more accepting if the linking was simplified, but overall I don't think it's necessary to have such a thing in the universe template that links everywhere else, especially when only 12 of the 39 universes with a playable character (note that that's just barely under a third of them) were expanded in this format. Aidan the Gamer 11:09, May 6, 2023 (EDT)

I grant you that the way I formatted them before did not look that nice, but I don’t think that means it is necessary something that would look out-of-place. I assume that if instead of the full page name being in the template, it was a shorter name with the link to that page inserted into it, that would already look much better.

I really don’t see how the fact that only 12/39 fighter-featuring universes have that to be an argument against it; many of the fields that template can have, only appear on a relatively small number of them, such as Bosses (only 10 templates use this field) or Masterpieces (18 out of all universe templates, as Balloon Fight, Wrecking Crew, and Pilotwings have them), and I see this as no different.

I hope no one would object to the fact that these are now important pages for the 12 universes that do have them, and so assuming the linking to them on the template would be made to look nice, I don’t see what objection there could be to the links/that new template field being added.

Pk62001 (talk) 16:05, May 6, 2023 (EDT)

The difference between having a section for a link to a subpage of the universe page and having a section for bosses or masterpieces (or items, or Assist Trophies, etc.) is because the latter are all specific to the content within Smash, and are also not guaranteed for a universe—this is only a hypothetical, but it would be unwise to suggest having sections for such in universe templates that don't have it, because that would be a waste of space. The detailing of stuff referenced in Smash games is our job, and therefore the subpages that we create are an extension of the content that we are detailing as an encyclopedia, and, in my opinion, has no place in a navigation template for all the stuff pertaining to a given universe. This is also why I brought up the fact that only 12 of the 39 universes with playable characters have this subpage, because not every universe has a wealth of history to pull references from; to that end, I'm also going to say ahead of discussion that I'm against the idea of making each universe page split its "list of references to the games in this franchise" onto a subpage for that very same reason (especially when so many franchises in Smash have so few games to reference, with at least three of which only having one game to pull from). Aidan the Gamer 18:44, May 6, 2023 (EDT)

I can say that if we didn’t have them split off for those 12, this wouldn’t be an issue to begin with. As it stands though, with this being a separate page from the main universe page, I see it as no different from any of those other pages in that it is our wiki’s description of content featured in Smash, which happens to come from a particular universe represented in Smash.

Just as a boss field would appear on a universe template when that universe has at least one boss in Smash (as, contrary to what I assume you were saying in that hypothetical, each template already does not have fields that are not relevant to that particular universe, such as no Boss, Assist Trophy, or item field for Yoshi), this new section would only be there for universes that need it due to having this sub-page.

This sub-page is a bit different from other pages on that template, I grant, in that it is not describing a specific entity in Smash, but rather a list of media from that universe and what they contribute to Smash, but it is fundamentally the same in that is a page about content from a given universe that appears in Smash. Thus, it should belong on the template for that universe just as much. I would rather these not be shunted off on to separate pages, but as long as they are, I see that they stand as worthy elements of the navigation template in their own right.

In any event, I realize this will go nowhere in building consensus without input from other editors, but I do wonder whether a new proposal on re-integrating those sub-pages into the main universe pages would be more fruitful. I would be willing to support that as an alternative measure. But until that, I stand by it being quite evident that these sub-pages are as worthy of being on the navigation template as any other article describing content from a given universe that appears in Smash.Pk62001 (talk) 00:49, May 7, 2023 (EDT)

I think that splitting off those pages was necessary, because having giant pages to navigate through is not something admirable for the wiki—I'm not actually sure if that was a move that gained consensus, however, but I digress.

You misunderstood my argument. I'm aware that the universe templates don't have that as it stands, my point was that it would be a terrible move if they did. If we take the Yoshi template from your bringing up, it would look outright terrible if there was a continuous "N/A" applied to an Assist Trophy, boss, or item list, and would, again, be a waste of space. As I mentioned, having giant pages to navigate through is not something admirable for the wiki, though pages can also have their character size reduced by simplification of things (which is the exact reason why we have templates).

I disagree with the notion that it is "fundamentally the same", as it is, at its core, an extension of the universe page, which details the franchise of origin in question; while it does list all of the stuff implemented in Smash from said franchise, it's decidedly one big "origin" section, much like those that you would find on a page for a character, move, Assist Trophy, item, etc., because that's its job. Putting a page like that lumped together with the stuff within said universe makes it look separated and unorganized.

A new proposal isn't necessary, as this page works just fine—it just needs more people to read it. I think reimplementing the subpages into the main pages is also a bad idea, for the above listed reasons. Aidan the Gamer 01:43, May 7, 2023 (EDT)

Fair enough on the point of having them as sub-pages when necessary. I won’t keep bring that point up further. However, on the first point you addressed, I think you are misunderstanding me. I wasn’t suggesting having that on templates where such a sub-page doesn’t exist anyway, which is why in my initial edits I only added it for the 12 for which it would apply. I don’t want the templates bloated either, I just think this is something that belongs there when it is a field that applies for the given universe.

I think your comparison of that sub-page to the “origin” section on the article for something like a fighter, boss, item, etc has a modicum of merit, but it is not quite the same, as it is not describing the origin of a particular entity as it exists in Smash and how its appearance in Smash reflects or represents its original appearance, but rather goes game by game (or other type of media sometimes) and listing the elements in Smash of each type that have a basis in that media. This is a unique structure for universe pages/these sub-pages of them (or nearly unique, as articles for Masterpiece games have basically the same thing as well), and it is a critical part of our wiki’s description of what the representation in Smash of each universe is. My view is that any article dedicated to any element of a given universe that appears in Smash belongs on that universe’s navigation template, as it is an article one may want to access in relation to that given universe.

I still see it as a fundamental problem that a page would contain a template and not be itself linked by that template. That to me was the initial indication that these pages warrant a place on the templates for their respective universes. I feel like that on its own should have been reason enough to warrant this, but on the merits of the page’s nature itself it evidently qualifies as a relevant element of the universe template for any universe where it exists. Just as a universe’s overview article in linked at the top of the template, these sub-pages are critical elements of that universe’s coverage on the SmashWiki that have a place on that template.

I don’t know whether this would require a separate proposal, but I think the most elegant way of including these pages on the templates may actually be to include it linked in the name/header of the template itself, just as how, say the “Masterpieces in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U” template includes links to both the Masterpieces page and the page for Smash for Wii U. Fundamentally, this page is too important to leave off of the template. As an extension of the main universe article, it warrants linking just as the main article does. If having it as its own field would look too inelegant, I see this as likely the best approach.

I really just believe the template for a given universe should link directly to all the pages focusing on content from that universe that appears in Smash, and I see it as a problem that universes without a sub-page directly link ( by their header) to a page detailing this sort of information, while any universe where that section got split off does not have that information directly linked from the template. I view it this a matter of consistency, and of completeness in the sort of information these templates should directly link, to include a direct link to these sub-pages somewhere on the relevant templates. I would gladly defer to others about how best to arrange the link to maintain the aesthetic consistency of the template, as my concern if of getting it to be there, where it eminently belongs, at all. Pk62001 (talk) 02:40, May 7, 2023 (EDT)

(Reset indent) When I said it was a hypothetical, I was indicating that me bringing it up wasn't because you had suggested it, just that I was bringing it up as a ridiculous idea that never would have come to light.
The templates contain plenty of pages that aren't linked to already by itself (mainly the special move pages), but I also don't think that those necessarily belong there.
The difference there is the fact that it's linking to two different places: one link to the page for masterpieces, and one link to the page for Smash for Wii U. One is not an extension of the other.
I again point out that special move pages are nowhere on the universe templates, and to be frank, I think that should stay that way, especially when there's a metric ton of special moves created specifically for Smash itself, and have next to zero actual correlation to anything within the series that the character that uses it is from. Aidan the Gamer 12:10, May 7, 2023 (EDT)