Template talk:Langtable

Meaning row

Should we formally disallow character specific etymologies from the Meaning row? Just my thought from what Rdrfc said in Charizard's page. Raffina H.-207 07:09, July 9, 2020 (EDT)

It's not that etymologies are not interesting, but I think that for SmashWiki they are a bit out of scope. I linken it to origin game specific trivia, as opposite to Smash related trivia; they might be neat to read about, but they still belong on [Game]Wiki and not on SmashWiki. They can also occasionally cause minor trouble when editors won't agree on what is the correct etymology, which is something that I would rather avoid here. In the sample tables that I put on this page I think I made a good example about what I am talking about: "Villager" and its variants are common nouns so it is useful to write the direct translation on its side, while "Rosalina" and its variants are proper nouns and therefore translating them is improper and giving their etimologies not useful for our scope. I do also think that we should aim to fill the template completely on every page, rather than only listing names that are different (this will give the reader the guarantee that the table is not incomplete), while I am not sure about how we should handle Asian names for NPCs (which wouldn't appear in a battle UI with an "official" romanization). There are a bunch of things to tackle there that I think should be addressed and codified early in the template's lifespan. --Rdrfc (talk) 09:36, July 9, 2020 (EDT)

Ah, those are my habits when posting foreign names in Mario Wiki, sorry. Anyways, I'll post that opinion, albeit it would be commented out until someone agrees.--Raffina H.-207 18:07, July 9, 2020 (EDT)

It seems to me that only the Pokémon will have this issue. Most, if not all, of them are combinations of two words. Whereas other characters are either proper nouns or are not portmanteaus (at least in non-Asian languages). Dark Samus has "Oscura"/"Sombra"/etc. translated. Pokémon take it a step further by merging the words together. If the information is taken from Bulbapedia then editors here shouldn't question it; I trust Bulbapedia editors with Pokémon stuff more than editors here.

There are a few things I would like to have talked about while the template is young. The first is nitpicky: on the character select screen Dark Samus is "Samus Obscura" in European Spanish but is "Samus obscura" in Latin American Spanish (note the capitalization). Similarly the French names for Second Anniversary of OCTOPATH TRAVELER differ by a space before the exclamation mark between the regions. Should these minor differences be noted?

The second thing is repetition. Again on the Spirit event I listed above, previously the first paragraph had NTSC English (Japanese) and then PAL English. After adding the langtable only NTSC English remained in the first paragraph (I did so because another editor did the same). Should the former style be used or the latter? Or should it be based on importance (such as Fighters/Stages with the former and events/items with the latter)? --CanvasK (talk) 20:16, July 9, 2020 (EDT)

On nitpicky formatting, I think every difference should be noted, while I am not sure about how to handle the latter case. I'd say that both names should be noted on more important things, although there is really only one case each(Duck Hunt and Find Mii). Another thing I was not sure about is what name we should use for the cases where the fighter has their complete name in the spirit list but only the first name on the CSS and other UI (for example, Simon Belmont). --Rdrfc (talk) 05:50, July 10, 2020 (EDT)

I'd say we go with their complete name since that is what the page names are. I'm sure people are smart enough to remove the word for "Princess" when talking about Princess Peach. Though this does bring into question what pages should use langtable. Does only "Princess Peach" need one or do we need "Princess Peach", "Peach (SSBM)", "Peach (SSBB)", etc.? If the CSS name really needs to be put somewhere, the latter would work but that is a lot of work, but if it is only the former then maybe put in parentheses or after a comma or semicolon (though it seems Raffina added another way on the template doc).

I forgot to mention my idea for the background characters. Many of them do have spirits (Like Pak E. Derm or Persona characters) which are translated, so those can be used. --CanvasK (talk) 07:21, July 10, 2020 (EDT)

Peach specifically has never been listed as "Princess Peach" in Smash even as a trophy or spirit, so it would be better to avoid it altogether; I think we should list only names as they have been used in Smash. For the actually relevant cases (such as Fox McCloud) I guess there is no harm, although it gets kinda finicky with the CSS name since the full name is not romanized in any UI. -Rdrfc (talk) 10:33, July 10, 2020 (EDT)