Forum:Removal of Origin Game/Artwork from List of spirits pages

After attempting a proposal on this topic on the general proposals page, and after it was touched upon on an earlier proposal, I've decided to promote this into its own page.

The Origin Game/Artwork section originated as a way for sorting Spirits prior to how they were sorted in Ultimate was extensively known—in other words, speculation. Despite Origin Game/Artwork becoming obsolete by "Series" after launch, the earlier were kept while the latter was relegated to its own "Series Order" section in the "List of spirits (_ series)" pages. However, every other page that lists spirits, including character pages and Spirit Board events, sorts Spirits solely by their Series, with Origin Game/Artwork nowhere to be found. Even the Origin Game section itself is used inconsistently, with some lists like List of spirits (Pokémon series) and List of spirits (F-Zero series) relying on prose due to the superfluous and repetitive nature of listing artwork for these Spirits.

In short, removing the Origin Game sections on these pages would give us some benefits, including:  Nokii  — 17:31, March 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * Making the "List of spirits" pages consistent with other pages that list spirits;
 * Removing the need of prose for pages with repetitive information;
 * Leaving the separate "Series Order" section obsolete, since all information can be merged into the other tables where "Origin Game" currently is.

Support

 * 1) Support NokiiSig.png  Nokii  — 17:31, March 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * 2) Support. Granted, I'm a numbers guy; if it doesn't affect gameplay then I don't care about it. I think re-purposing the "Series Order" section would be a good idea.--CanvasK (talk) 22:06, March 21, 2020 (EDT)
 * 3) By that I mean moving the game origin and artwork stuff to the "Series Order", if that wasn't clear. Meant to say this but didn't for some reason.--CanvasK (talk) 22:11, March 21, 2020 (EDT)

Oppose

 * 1) The section's harmless; I don't see a real need for removal. Cookies CnC Signature.png Creme  17:49, March 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * My dumbass hit submit before finishing my thought. I don't think it's that harmful leaving the section in, especially since we don't have to follow what Smash does. Plus, it also helps identify where the image originates, so if you ask me removing it would probably do more harm than good. Cookies CnC Signature.png Creme  17:54, March 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * SW:OFFICIAL doesn't really apply here; we still list both official and unofficial information in these pages besides Series and Origin Games/Artworks, and it not being official was never an argument made in favor for its removal. In the case of artwork, I believe it's only necessary to specify its origin should it be sufficiently noteworthy for trivia, and I don't believe an image's origin is of large enough interest for the majority of the community that its removal could be considered detrimental, unlike something like the Inspiration column. NokiiSig.png  Nokii  — 18:40, March 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * 1) As Cookies said, it's harmless enough, and provides some interesting info for curious readers. In contrast, the Series Order not only provides less info, but in some cases it's absolutely redundant; several long-running series such as Zelda, Yoshi, Metal Gear, Sonic, and Animal Crossing each list only a single "origin series" for all spirits; surely, that's no less redundant than specifying that all Punch-Out artwork is from the Wii title. In other cases, SmashWiki does go directly against what the games actually say in the interest of providing more precise information; for example, SSBU merely says that the theme is from Star Fox 64 (where the theme originated), but SmashWiki says this track comes from Star Fox Assault instead (where this specific remix is directly ported from). I don't see why we can't do the same for spirits, as we already have been doing. I certainly wouldn't be against combining "game/artwork origins" and "series" into a single table, but I do feel we'd be losing something if we cut the former out entirely. --PeabodySam (talk) 15:57, March 23, 2020 (EDT)
 * While my previous Star Wolf example was incorrect, here is a better example: Ultimate does not provide the sources of the Dragon Quest music, most egregiously claiming that the Dragon Quest XI music is from the Definitive Edition, while SmashWiki does correctly provide the sources of the sequenced music tracks used in Ultimate. Furthermore, SmashWiki in general is full of "origin game" information that isn't present in Smash (for example, character infoboxes include trivial facts such as debut game, debut console, species, creator, designer, etc.), so I don't see why providing a little bit of extra information should be held against spirits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeabodySam (talk • contribs) 15:58, April 24, 2020 (EDT)
 * 1) Even though some fighters dont have origin artwork, that also doesnt mean we need to remove origin artwork from the list of spirits page. I agree to what both PeabodySam, and Cookies and Creme in this discussion mainly. S3AHAWK (talk) 15:11, April 24, 2020 (EDT)
 * 2) I mean, we are an encyclopedia of information. We cover tons of origin-based information the mainline games don't bother to cover. Aidan,  the Rurouni  17:40, April 24, 2020 (EDT)
 * 3) I feel like I would have agreed with deletion had the artwork all been from their origin game, but in many cases, especially the Pokemon spirits, the artwork doesn't come from their origin games but rather from other games. I feel like we should instead be focusing on narrowing down what the true origins of these artworks are. For starters, Bulbapedia has already identified all of the Pokemon spirits. Pokebub (talk) 05:57, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * 4) So from what I can see the main reasons for the removal is because of speculation, redundancy and because it's unofficial. But there are problems with that. Exactly what part of it is speculation? If saying Ninten originated from EarthBound Beginnings as seen in the origin game column List of spirits (EarthBound series) is speculation, then that makes absolutely no sense. If you say the way we listed them is speculation then I can see that. But SPEC does not apply here: speculation that should be avoided is if us editors or other people add their theories or assumptions to articles that could potentially spread false information. The origin game/artwork section lists the game the character originated from and where the artwork originated. That is in no way speculation or false information. Redundancy makes no sense. As mentioned above many long running series all list only one origin series for all spirits, which is no less redundant than saying all Punch Out spirits artwork came from the Wii title.  Listing unofficially is no reason to remove it. We are not official. We don't need to list things the way Nintendo does, in fact there are times we don't because the way we list it is better than the official way.  And that brings my last point: by removing the column you're also removing interesting information on where the artwork originated. As someone who has such little knowledge of the Pokemon series (Get off my lawn you pesky kids! There are only 251 Pokemon as far as I'm concerned! *waves double cane*), I never knew the spirit artwork was from the global link I never heard of, and I thought they were Smash- original artwork until I read the article then I learned. So my thoughts are the saying "If it's not broken then don't fix it": keep things the way they are as removing it will probably do more harm than good. [[Image:001Toad.jpg|20px]]  OmegαToαd64  •  the Best Kαrter  07:48, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * 5) Listing the origin game makes sense, as hardly anyone is going to be familiar with the histories of every single character/object portrayed as a spirit, and thus it is useful for us to provide that information, and there is really no other sensible place to do so. As for the artwork section, it's essentially a form of trivia, however it once again cannot be put anywhere else (putting it in the trivia section for the articles would clog them up, so short of creating a page for every single spirit in the game, there is no other way to convey the information conveniently), and I'd say that when it's clear what piece of artwork/portrayal inspired the spirit design, it's definitely worth mentioning, both for interest and informative purposes. That being said, you did show concern for some of them being speculative, and where that is the case, by all means remove that part from the column, but leave the origin game information intact (as it is objective).  Alex the  Weeb  08:10, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * 6) As per above, and I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said.  Voqéo T  10:57, April 29, 2020 (EDT)

Neutral

 * 1) I'm neutral on this, though I lean toward keeping it. I wouldn't be torn up if it were removed, but I don't see the need to remove it either. The "series" listing is vague and at times inaccurate, and it is still useful and interesting information to have, not necessarily superfluous. I do agree something needs to be done about the clunky "series order" sections, so if this is the solution I can see the case for it. ~ Serena Strawberry  (talk) 18:57, March 16, 2020 (EDT)

Comments
Just to clarify before I comment on this proposal, am I to understand that you wish to remove the image and origin game columns from the tables on the list of spirits articles?  Alex the  Weeb  07:57, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * The section to remove is the origin game column which also has a brief mention where the artwork originated. We're not removing the images themselves, that would be absurd. [[Image:001Toad.jpg|20px]]  OmegαToαd64 •  the Best Kαrter  07:59, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * I was under the impression that the origins and artwork would be relocated to the "Series Order" section instead of complete removal of them. --CanvasK (talk) 08:54, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
 * When the proposal itself is called "Removal of Origin Game/Artwork from List of spirits pages" and Nokii's opening statement says nothing about relocating that information, I think it's pretty clearly advocating for the outright removal. In fact, Nokii is even suggesting completely replacing the current origins column with the "Series Order" instead of leaving the latter as a separate table. --PeabodySam (talk) 10:14, April 29, 2020 (EDT)

Since there's been some question over the "speculation" argument (seen in OmegaToad64 and Alex's votes), my own understanding of Nokii's argument is: the fact that we include the game/artwork origins column is vestigial speculation originating from before SSBU's release, since we did not know at that time if the game would be listing this origin information for spirits, so we came up with our own method for presenting spirits' origins on this wiki. However, the actual information presented in the origin column is not speculative, since it's all objective info and based on proven facts.

In short: including the origins information in the table was "speculation" regarding what's presented in-game, but the origins information itself is not. --PeabodySam (talk) 10:14, April 29, 2020 (EDT)

Reading through the comments, should this proposal pass we will be removing a good amount of valid information for little gain. There are more pros to keeping it rather than removing it, plus the redundancy issue has been debunked by the opposes. One thing I should mention is the difference between "list of spirits (X series)" rather than the others is that they are specifically for the respective universes and thus the origin game/artwork column has more importance, while the others such as spirit board events lists spirits from various universes rather than just one, so on those pages there is no need to list the origin game/artwork. You don't need to mention that Jeff's origin game EarthBound in the Spectacled Spirits page because it's not specifically EarthBound, but in the EarthBound spirits list it works because it's specifically documenting EarthBound spirits. For this reason I believe the best option is just to leave things the way they are as removing it will not provide much benefit at all.  OmegαToαd64 •  the Best Kαrter  10:49, April 29, 2020 (EDT)