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Demographics

Since its inception, the Demographic field in the animanga infobox has been problematic:

• "Light novels don't have demographics".
• "Sure they do. If not, who reads them?"
• "How can Death Note be shounen? It's so violent."
• "Minami-ke is seinen? Where's the blood and gore?"

Now, there's a new one. Series like Cutie Honey and Escaflowne have shounen manga and shoujo manga. But putting down both demographics in the same field looks kinda silly. I think the demographic field should be moved from Template:Infobox animanga/Header to Template:Infobox animanga/Manga (where, apparently, it belongs).--Nohansen (talk) 04:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I would support this, but we'll need a bot to go through and fix the likely thousands of articles using it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd support either this or simply leaving out the demographic altogether where the manga isn't the primary work. Doceirias (talk) 04:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to support this. I don't see why demographics is used with anime, when in most cases animation studios, and TV channels do not mention such info (though I remember one time an adult animation was mentioned to be aimed at males). anyway, moving the demographic field from Template:Infobox animanga/Header to Template:Infobox animanga/Manga would be great, but it also should be moved from Template:Infobox animanga/Header to Template:Infobox animanga/Novel in case its a light novel series. --ChuChu (talk) 12:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Except these demographic terms aren't used with light novels, which is the entire point of this. Doceirias (talk) 20:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Except that many light novel labels have a target demographic. --ChuChu (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

They do, yes. But they do not use the manga demographic terms. In fact, the term light novel already indicates the target demographic - young adults. They are further divided into lines aimed at males and aimed at females, but using the terms shonen, seinen, shojo, and josei is absolutely incorrect. I'm of the opinion that rather than do another six rounds with you on this subject we should both do our blood pressure a favor and simply not include a totally unnecessary demographic line in the infobox. Doceirias (talk) 22:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I never said anything here about including these terms: shounen/shoujo/seinen/josei. demographic = male / demographic = female, works fine too, or is there a problem with that too? or do you think that demographic should only apply with these terms, and if its not used with these terms it shouldn't be used? --ChuChu (talk) 22:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with male/female, no. I don't think it's necessary, but if other people think it worth including, then by all means, include it. Anyone else have an opinion one way or the other? Is the male/female distinction worth adding to the light novel infobox? Doceirias (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there an objective way to determine if a light novel is for male or female readers? I bring this up because Category:Young adult novels for boys criteria for inclusion seems to be "any novel in which the main character is an adolescent boy". In the meantime, I've placed all light novels inside the Young adult literature category.--Nohansen (talk) 03:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. Yes, there is an objective way - each publishing line has a generalized target demographic. Dengeki Bunko, the largest one, is male oriented - which doesn't stop them from occasionally using a shojo art style and attempting to cross market a book (which is part of why I think the distinction is largely irrelevant.) But, in general, each publishing line does have a specific target gender. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doceirias (talk • contribs) 03:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Each light novel label has a target demographic, so light novels' target demographic is the same as the label they are published under. for example: Dengeki Bunko, Sneaker Bunko, Super Dash Bunko, and more... these are light novel labels aimed at males. Nohansen, in the infobox, how about going with "demographic = male" for light novels published under male oriented labels, and "demographic = female" for light novels published under female oriented labels. --ChuChu (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The Manual of Style better include an explanation on demographics, on the best language possible, to stop this type of arguments.--Nohansen (talk) 23:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I take it you volunteer? :-D —Quasirandom (talk) 23:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No, not really. But if I come up with something, I'll let you know.--Nohansen (talk) 23:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I also support this. It fixes a problem I was mulling over last night. Hella cleanup work, but I think worth it. —Quasirandom (talk) 15:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

One nice thing about moving it to the manga sub-infobox is that it will allow each manga series to be clearly marked for demographic. This will be very useful in cases where there are multiple series released for multiple demographics (such as the previously mentioned Escaflowne, as well as Ghost in the Shell, etc.). Is there anyone who objects to moving it to the manga sub-infobox? Everyone so far seems to think it's a good idea to do so. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:16, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I support the move. Having the demographic field on the manga sub-infobox will solve a lot of problems, specially on articles about works with multiple manga adaptations.Kazu-kun (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Support as well, as a change that would save editors a lot of head-scratching without making pages any less informative.

On a related note, you may be interested by the proposal to rename articles and categories related to demographic labels, as discussed WT:MANGA#Rename the Kodomo category?. Bikasuishin (talk) 17:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I found this article (What Shôjo Manga Are and Are Not: A Quick Guide for the Confused) in Matt Thorn's website. It's a pretty good (and simple) explanation on shounen, shoujo, seinen and josei manga. I thought it might be relevant to the discussion.--Nohansen (talk) 21:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, he doesn't really say anything we don't know. Target demographic has nothing to do with art style or suject matter; it's only defined by the intended audience of the magazine in which the manga is published. We already knew this, so now we need to move the demographic field to the manga sub-infobox where it belongs. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I support this move as well. It would clear up a lot of confusion, and be more accurate. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:13, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The change seems to be widely supported so far. I'm not sure when consensus on the general idea can be considered reached and when we can get to the nitty-gritty details, but since setting a bot up for the task and obtaining BAG approval seems to take some time, I thought we might as well give it a go now. I've got some tentative specs and sample code up at User:Bikasuishin/DemographicBot if you want to have a look. Bikasuishin (talk) 01:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I know nothing about bot code, so I can't offer much help here. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 06:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

So how are we doing on implimenting this? —Quasirandom (talk) 04:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I stumbled for a while on what seemed to be a strange bug, but it turned out to be nothing more than the bot account being too recent to commit certain changes to the encyclopedia; since that is cleared up, I think I should be able to deal with the technical aspect of writing this bot this week-end and have the code reviewed by experienced bot writers from WP:BAG. In the meantime, I'd be grateful to get input on the more important "non-technical" side, that is, deciding what the bot actually should be doing. For example, 日本穣 mentioned that, as a second pass, we should be adding empty "demographic=" tags to all existing Manga infoboxes that weren't covered in the first pass; I hadn't thought of that. Bikasuishin (talk) 07:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm completely inexperienced in what bots can and can't do (or should) and not much help in that part of the disucssion. Thanks, btw, for stepping up to do the botwork. —Quasirandom (talk) 15:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Status report: the "first pass" of this bot, which does the retagging per se, is pretty much complete. I launched a dry run (compute the result but don't commit) on the first 750 animanga pages earlier today, with a few randomly selected pages being actually committed to the bot's userspace. You can check the kind of logs the process produces, as well as the resulting pages, on User:Bikabot/Sandbox. Looks mostly fine to me. If it's OK with everyone, I'll add an entry at WP:RBA tomorrow.

Pass 2, by the way, is the change suggested my User:Nihonjoe that I was refering to above. Pass 3 is the more difficult one: it will deal with categories (ensure that the demographic tags and the stated categories match)—I'm not entirely sure what should be done there, though; I'll report back after investigating the matter further. Bikasuishin (talk) 23:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool. For pass 3, one step at a time, I think. For renaming categories, I believe there's a CfR (or some similarly named) process we have to go through. I think. Someone else here probably knows for sure. —Quasirandom (talk) 23:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

As the categories fall under this project, if we have the discussion here (which we've already basically done), then there's no reason to have a second, redundant discussion if we've already decided on a course of action (as long as it doesn't conflict with any policies or guidelines, anyway). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Status

So where are we on this? I spotted one of the passes going over some of my articles and it seemed to do well. So when will it go full? I'm looking forward to no more arguments over demographics on anime :P Also, will demographic be added to the novels box as well? AnmaFinotera (talk) 17:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I support to have one. As publishers of light novels are not ashamed to mention the target readership of their light novel labels. --ChuChu (talk) 17:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) The bot was granted permission to do a 100-edit test run, which seemed to proceed without problem. I'm waiting for formal approval to complete the task. As it stands, the program leaves the novel boxes untouched, but adding empty tags is certainly possible. Bikasuishin (talk) 17:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Then can you do that? adding empty tags as a first step would be great. --ChuChu (talk) 18:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Lets add a demographic field. Light novels as manga, target a certain demographic. --ChuChu (talk) 17:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The demographic field is being moved to the manga part of the infobox. Light novels, while having a target audience, are not considered as having a demographic which can be clearly stated. Manga receive a demographic by which magazine they appear in originally. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Light novels have a target demographic according to what light novel label they are published under. Its the same thing. --ChuChu (talk) 17:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You're breaking up the discussion. Please take this back over the WT:MOS-AM page. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem, though I don't see much enthusiasm in the discussion about this, nor much knowledge about this. --ChuChu (talk) 18:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...but quite a light novels appear to be serialized in magazines, right? So wouldn't those have a demographic? AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Not that many light novels are serialized in magazines, compared with the number of light novels that are directly published. but yeah these few light novel magazines also target a certain readership. --ChuChu (talk) 18:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I would not be opposed to having a demographic tag specifying male/female if there is support for this from more than one person. It is, technically, accurate. But I do not think it is notable. We have a field for which light novel label the book is published under, and the page on that label should, obviously, mention which gender it targets. Adding a demographic tag to every light novel infobox seems redundant and unnecessary. Doceirias (talk) 21:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The same argument could be made about having it in the manga box too...since we do link to which magazine it was serialized in :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 21:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the same could be said about having a demographic field for every manga infobox, and there are much more manga entires than light novel entries. --ChuChu (talk) 22:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the difference is one of interest; lots of people know and care about manga demographics, and there is enough misinformation and arguments about which demographic term applies that it is worth clarifying. I'm not sure how many people are confused about which gender a particular light novel is targeting, or indeed care. Doceirias (talk) 22:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

So because people don't care or don't know, that is supposed to be a reason not to add a demographic field for the light novel infobox? --ChuChu (talk) 22:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

People either do know or don't care. Therefore, not notable except on the page for the label in question. Unless people other than yourself think it is - I just want to get more opinions involved than yours and mine. We're both pretty biased, yeah? Doceirias (talk) 23:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The whole point of the demographic field was to keep it out of the genre field, which some edits insisted on it putting it there then not at all. --Farix (Talk) 21:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this is when having a light novel series that gets an anime, and then gets the demographic removed, because it got an anime. why should the target demographic be removed when that's the target readership of the light novel series? why not move it to the light novel infobox? --ChuChu (talk) 22:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This is why we're moving it to the works to which the terms actually apply, yeah. Doceirias (talk) 22:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Trinity Blood for example, why was the target demographic of the light novel series removed, and shoujo was added to the manga series? This is first a male oriented light novel series. --ChuChu (talk) 22:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Under the new system, there would be no demographic for the franchise as a whole, and shojo for the manga, assuming that's accurate. Yeah, I can see wanting to specify that the novels were male oriented in a case like that or Ballad of a Shinigami. How about making it an optional tag for cases where confusion might arise? Doceirias (talk) 23:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

ahh ok, like the title is optional Template:Infobox_animanga, I think this is better than nothing. --ChuChu (talk) 23:22, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

For Trinity Blood, I put seinen in the novel box, but it doesn't show because the demographic field doesn't work there. TB's novels are very much seinen, however the manga adaptation is decidedly shojo. AnmaFinotera (talk) 23:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah it doesn't work, if it did, I would have added it already (lol). --ChuChu (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with adding the demographic field to the light novel box. I work primarily with light novels under Dengeki Bunko, and it would be useful to include the demographic in series like Toradora! or Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (especially the latter since it has a manga serialized in a seinen magazine, and also an upcoming anime).--十八 00:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, I'm on board with an optional demographic field for light novels, as long as we only use Male and Female for the field. If a light novel has a manga adaption in a seinen magazine, that only means the manga is seinen; those terms aren't used with light novels. Doceirias (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I accept. I have no problem with male or female in the target demographic of light novels. --ChuChu (talk) 00:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree too. The light novel box definitely needs a demographic field. And using "male" and "female" for the field seems appropriate. Kazu-kun (talk) 03:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

So, when will the optioal field be added? --ChuChu (talk) 10:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I added an optional demographic field, it wasn't hard to add one... anyway someone please check it out just to be sure it's ok. --ChuChu (talk) 18:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Working fine on Trinity Blood. Thanks for being bold. :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Great, and no problem ;) --ChuChu (talk) 22:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

New project

There's a new project forming to help coordinate all the various MOS pages and help them become a cohesive whole. You can see more at Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style. Anyone is welcome to participate. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Article name for light novels

The MOS gives lots of naming suggestions for when we need to disambig, except in the case of Japanese light novels. Should they be title (light novel) or title (novel). For ones like Calling You where the novel is a collection of short stories, should we still use one of those two or title (anthology)? AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I think title (light novel) and title (anthology) would be good since the whole point of the disambiguation is to clarify. The clarifier should be very specific, I think. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree on anthology, but I would stick with just plain novel to be consistent with English language young adult novels. Doceirias (talk) 05:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, strike that, light novels is fine - my concern is for stuff like Nisio Isin's work; not published by a light novel label, not technically a light novel, but was chosen as the best light novel one year in a major guidebook; blurs the line, and makes categorization questionable. With his works and works like that, I'd probably call it novel and add it to the light novel category. Doceirias (talk) 10:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That's my initial thought as well, but with Calling You I'm finding myself right confused as it is a light novel anthology :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 07:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I myself have dealt with this by creating articles like Haruhi Suzumiya (light novels) and Shakugan no Shana (light novels); since there are more than one, it should be plural unless only one novel was published. For Calling You, I would use (anthology) for the disambiguation.--十八 08:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool...that's what its named as now, so I'll leave it there. I wish I could read Japanese...so far two live action films have been made from the first two stories, but I can only get the barest of info from Babelfishing the press releases and most of the movie sites are in Flash. Argh. AnmaFinotera (talk) 09:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Splitting volume number from chapter number in infoboxes

I have never been particularly happy with how the number of volumes and chapters has been handled in {{Infobox animanga/Manga}} for ongoing series, and a recent update I made to the template (or, more specifically, an edit to Bleach made afterwards) served to exascerbate the issue. I was curious as to whether anyone else feels the same way, and if anyone has objections to seperating the number of volumes from the number of chapters for ongoing series. I also asked this on Template talk:Infobox animanga since I wasn't sure where best to ask. —Dinoguy1000 20:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I have never been able to understand why chapters are mentioned at all. It seems like pure trivia; only the volume numbers ultimately matter. Doceirias (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Genres

I came across to some editors removing genres from articles. Most of those are removal of redundant genres an the like, so they're good edits. But then I saw things like "three [genre] max per MOS" in the edit summaries, and I couldn't help to go WTH?

Genres must be decided by the content of the article's subject, and by that alone, not by a pre-decided number. It's like with fair-use images; the policy gives some criteria, which in relation with the article's content determine the number of images. It can't be any other way.

Still, the article doesn't really say "three max". It says:

"Ideally, there should only be two or three genres for each article."

This sounds good an all but it doesn't work, because people interpretate it as a "it has to three" rule, which is not the case. Two or three genre categories may be accurate for some series, but not for all of them. It depends on the complexity of the series. Furthermore, this guidelines already has some criteria regarding genre categories:

"Try to pick the most accurate categories, and avoid redundant genres."

That's more than clear. In fact all the removals I saw could have been done under these creteria. Therefore I'm removing the misleading line about three genres. If someone still wants to suggest three or other number, then make it clear that it's just a suggestion, and as such it wont be accurate to every case. It has to be clear enough so that people won't go around using that as a criterion for removal. Kazu-kun (talk) 20:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why any article would need more than three. Care to name a specific example? I certainly see your point about it being possible to remove excess genres under the old guideline, but giving it a concrete number seemed to give a better sense of what we meant, and stop people from adding comedy to every series with jokes in it. Doceirias (talk) 21:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Stoping people for doing nonsensincal edits sounds good but "concrete" criteria for things that must be decided in relation with the content goes well beyond the purpose of a guideline. Anyway, an example... I believe the best example is the Serial Experiments Lain article. Five genre cats, and just by reading the article you can tell all of them (exept for "Science fiction", which is redundant with "Cyberpunk") refer to main aspects of the series' content. I can look for more example if you want... although that's not the issue.

EDIT: I removed "Science fiction" from Lain. That would serve as good example of removal under acceptable criteria. Kazu-kun (talk) 21:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

And Drama. Drama is almost always redundant - everything except comedy is inherently drama. Drama is what you put when no other genre categories apply. Now there's only three genres, and mystery is extremely, extremely dubious, since there are no detectives or murders to solve. Doceirias (talk) 21:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

After thinking about it some more, I compressed Mystery and Psychological (which is a dubious genre to begin with) into Psychological thriller, which seems like a better fit anyway. Doceirias (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is not to say there are no series that could have more than three; To Aru Majutsu no Index, for example. Not as well known, but I'm pretty sure all four genres are appropriate and necessary. My point is that the numerical suggestion did not rule out exceptions, but did help discourage people from getting carried away. If someone is interpreting that to mean there can only be three, no matter what, then that person is wrong, and should be dealt with accordingly. Unless, of course, their edit was actually correct, and they were removing unnecessary genres; in which case the arguments is merely one of semantics. Doceirias (talk) 22:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Three seems a bit low to me. Even if some seem somewhat redundant, that's kind of the norm for genres. I'm not sure I see the need to be so conservative with them. -- Ned Scott 02:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Also I don't think we need to set a number. And Doceirias, even though the suggestion didn't rule out exceptions, editors used it that way, and that's the problem. It means it was misleading, and that's the reason I removed it. Also if it really was a suggestion it shouldn't have been used as a rationale for removal. Kazu-kun (talk) 03:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that. I'm not sure editors using something incorrectly means we have to change the guideline; surely the problem lies with those editors, rather than the guideline. But it really makes no difference if we have the number or not; the guideline still means the same thing, and we seem to be on the same page with that. Doceirias (talk) 03:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess so, but it's one of those weirdly defined things anyways (that's sort of my over-all view on genres anyways :D ). Considering there can be subjective definitions for some genres, it's one of those areas where it's good to be a little soft. Though I still understand where you are coming from, and that there are a lot of genres were you're just like "come on, that's the same thing!" But unless the infobox is really getting crowded, then I wouldn't worry about it too much. -- Ned Scott 03:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's about focus, really. Just like a well written character and plot description focuses on the most important aspects rather than every minor detail. I certainly don't mean to oversimplify. Doceirias (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I really disagree with this removal. A number is placed, I believe, to let editors know not to bloat the genre box. Rephrase it, fine, but an outright removal seems like a bad idea. Doc, Ned, do you two approve of Kazu-kun's edit? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with it, really; it doesn't actually change the policy at all. I'd be equally fine with changing it to "In general, two or three genres should be sufficient for most articles." Or something along those lines. Keep the ballpark numerical figure, clarify that it is not a hard limit, and exceptions are allowed where appropriate. Doceirias (talk) 04:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal. While I agree that people using it to remove "extra" genres without good reason is a bad thing, that's something to address with those specific editors. I think having a ballpark figure is a good idea. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It can't be anything but a suggestion, as the number of genres must be decided by the subject's content, not by an arbitrary number. But then, if it is just a suggestion it cannot be used as a rationale for removal (we have a clear criteria for that purpose), so there's not reason to have it to begin with. Still, Doceirias's wording seems appropriate to me. Kazu-kun (talk) 05:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It should not and is not intended to be used as a rationale for removal - the policy itself does that. But it provides a concrete example that makes it clear what, in general, the policy is aiming to achieve. Doceirias (talk) 05:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

In general, two or three genres should be sufficient for most articles. Yeah, I could go for [something like] that. Inclusively, what Doc said regarding comedy, everything except comedy is inherently drama, should as well be indicated in the guideline, as action is for some reason the only example given. Does everyone agree? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

With that I disagree. I really think that series where dramatic themes are prominent should be noted as such. "everything except comedy is inherently drama" sounds good, but it means nothing when it comes to tell the reader what a series is about, which is the point of including genres in the infobox. Overall, I think our current criteria does the work just fine. EDIT: I still agree with Doceiras' wording of the line I removed though. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think all genres inherently have dramatic elements. It isn't worth noting unless they do something like mix Slice-of-life elements in with the mecha; in which case, Slice of Life would be a perfectly fair genre to add. I just think the word Drama is pretty much meaningless, implying the absence of genre. Doceirias (talk) 06:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

You're generalizing too much. And don't forget we also deal with non-conventional genres in the anime-manga project (Class S, shounen-ai, Yuri, to name a few), which don't necessarily imply Drama. Still, the poit is that Drama has to be noted when appropriate. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

All of those are subgenres of romance, which is a subgenre of Drama. You seem to be giving drama some meaning it doesn't have. Doceirias (talk)

But that is not the point. We can't tell all that to every reader, can't we? You seem to be giving the infobox a meaning it doesn't have. And by the way, not all those are subgenres of romance. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Because it is common knowledge. The infobox is a basic generalization, not a substitute for a sourced section describing the show's tone and style. (And yeah, I don't know what Class S is...) I dunno, I'm not campaigning to get the line added to the guideline, but I have been removing the word as redundant from a lot of shows, so it might be worth pointing out how meaningless it usually is. I'd ask for examples where you think it is needed, but odds are I'd disagree, and annoy you by removing from those pages as well (though I am keeping an open mind.) Doceirias (talk) 06:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I just don't want the guideling to be too concrete on things that re so subjective. Anyway, this discussion will have to wait to tomorrow. Now I've got to go to sleep or I won't be able to pose as a productive human being tomorrow morning. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Doceirias, do you agree with what I am proposing? And Kazu-kun, can you clarify on what you did not follow in my argument? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, yes.Doceirias (talk) 07:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I made this edit in hopes to get things moving on this issue. I think it's a fairly uncontroversial edit, right? --Eruhildo (talk) 13:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. Though I still think that something akin to what Doc said, everything except comedy is inherently drama, and, all genres inherently have dramatic elements. It isn't worth noting unless they do something like mix Slice-of-life elements in with the mecha; in which case, Slice of Life would be a perfectly fair genre to add, should also be incorporated so editors don't go about adding Drama blindly. Can someone include this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That's too specific and arbitrary IMO, and even unnecessary as I don't remember seeing editors going out of their way adding Drama to everything. I think our current criteria is clear and works just fine. Kazu-kun (talk) 19:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not see the guideline clarifying this. As I mentioned above, action is the only example given, which, IMO, is not satisfactorily. Then shorten Doc's comment regarding the genre, but not leave it as is. Any thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The thing is that I don't even think that "everything except comedy is inherently drama". I think that If I have two... fantasy works? and one of those has way more dramatic elements than the other, then it's worth adding Drama in the infobox. Kazu-kun (talk) 19:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How would you write it in? And if we were to include the slice-of-life / mecha sample? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with that - if the less dramatic one is a comedy, then you could add comedy to that, but degrees of drama in a fantasy are to be expected. Fantasy already is a drama; most kinds of drama that might be added would be better described by Romance or Political Thriller, or Slice of Life, or something more specific. Drama just doesn't mean anything. Doceirias (talk) 20:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Drama: 1.a. A composition telling a serious story; 1.b. A serious narrative work or program.

By that definition, half (rough estimation) of all anime and manga would be drama. Wouldn't that would be Overcategorization? Even now, there's stuff like Fist of the North Star and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure classified as drama. "Why", I ask you? I believe whatever isn't a "Comedy" it's a "Drama"... Unless we're talking about Comedy-drama.--Nohansen (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I still think a genre is not that rigid of a category, and the guidelines should reflect that and give some room for exceptions. Anyway, I have nothing else to say. Kazu-kun (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The drama category needs a severe cleanup. Overall, what should be proposed for the guideline? I feel this whole "drama talk" needs to be reiterated. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Drama category cleanup

Just making a new spot to discuss this. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a quick link: Category:Drama anime and manga. There are 394 articles in the category right now. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a new notion worth trying on for size: Drama should only be given if a show is primarily a drama. For example, Whisper of the Heart is primarily a drama, with a few fantasy elements. Listing the genres (if it gave any) as Drama and Fantasy would be fine. However, Twelve Kingdoms is primarily a fantasy, so including the Drama genre would be redundant. Doceirias (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Did this idea get lost in the shuffle? Doceirias (talk) 02:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

We should also take a look at Category:Comedy anime and manga. Right off the bat, I see Genesis of Aquarion. That's not comedy (unless you take into account unintentional humor).--Nohansen (talk) 04:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a tendency to slap comedy on anything with jokes in it, yeah. I have trouble understanding how Gunbuster is a comedy, but Diebuster certainly has a whole lot of comedic elements, and an argument could be made...there's a bunch of borderline ones like that. I don't think we need to restrict it to only overt comedies, but not everything that makes you laugh is a comedy, and it could probably be thinned a bit. Actually, pretty much any genre category could. There must be a lot of articles that are tagged with something generic when there is a more accurate category - we moved a bunch of shows with Romance and Comedy to Romantic Comedy a while back, if I recall correctly. Doceirias (talk) 04:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Gunbuster is a parody, but not a comedy. Drama would actually be a decent genre for it, though it tends toward melodrama than anything else. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Comedy-drama category

I've created Category:Comedy-drama anime and manga for those series and films where "there is an equal, or nearly equal balance of humor and serious content" and those where there seems to be an overlap of both Comedy and Drama categories (like Welcome to the N.H.K.).

To start off the discussion, I propose that Honey and Clover be moved from Category:Romantic comedy anime and manga to Category:Comedy-drama anime and manga. Given the definition of romantic comedy ("a story about romance in a comedic style"), I think Hachikuro is a better fit in Comedy-drama.--Nohansen (talk) 06:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

That's an awkward name - is Dramedy too new a word? Doceirias (talk) 08:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I named the category after the main article: Comedy-drama. So, for the sake of consistency, I didn't have much of a choice.--Nohansen (talk) 04:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I put One Piece within that category, per the genre box there. Nohansen, did you ever happen to catch my final inquiry here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Having never read Honey and Clover, I don't know if that's a good move or not. Based on what little I know of it, it seems that romance plays a decent part in the series. Since romance is technically a type of drama, I think having it where it currently is should be acceptable. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 06:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Are English editions "other"?

That is, should English language publishers of manga go in the publisher= or publisher_other= field of the project infobox? There's much confusion over this, and I see it done both ways with almost equally, and editors changing it both ways. It doesn't help that what guidance we have is inconsitant: the documentation in Template:Infobox_animanga#Manga says to put "the Japanese publisher" in publisher=, but examples down the page have both Japanese and English publishers in publisher=. So which should it be?

Bringing this up here to get a discussion with more visibility about what is, ultimately, a style descision. Frankly, you can make plausible arguments both ways, based on pure logic and utility. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think English should also be other, unless its OEM, as we are "foreign" to Japan. Either that, or do like with do with the anime and add another option specifically for the US licensor (or English one to be more English neutral). It is an interesting question, though, since another related issue that comes up deals with serialization. Serialization's instructions don't include a limit, so do we list all magazines of serialization, or just the original? As another related side note, our examples are long past needing some updating (for more reasons than just this) :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 22:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia; the English edition and the original edition should not be other, especially since the other field now defaults to collapsed. Doceirias (talk) 22:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There, see? Right away, we get the two plausible arguments (from Collectonian and Doceirias). Maybe we should do a poll... —Quasirandom (talk) 23:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

... or create a publisher_English= field. —Quasirandom (talk) 23:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Taking the infobox for what it's meant to be — a quick summary of the media types of a given series — it makes sense to list the English licensing company in the publisher field with the original publisher, and then place all other publishers in the publisher_other field. If the English publisher is visible at first glance of the infobox, then the reader instantly knows that this series has been licensed, but if the English publisher is in the hidden field, it makes it that much harder to check if a series is licensed or not, and since we're the English Wikipedia, I believe that anything pertaining to the English release of something should be just as important as the Japanese information. As for serialization magazines, I've often included all magazines a manga/light novel has been serialized in, and not just the original since if a series was moved from one magazine to another, it wouldn't make sense not to include that in the infobox.--十八 23:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Doceirias and Juhachi: this is the English Wikipedia, so the English information should be listed with the Japanese in the main publisher field. English speakers and readers are our primary audience, and the information likely to be of most interest to them should be immediately visible. If they are interested in the other information, it's easy enough to click the expansion link. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Does this count as a consensus? —Quasirandom (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

What if there are multiple English licensors? E.g. Negima has Del Rey, Tanoshimi and Chuang Yi so this would mean half of the companies being listed as primary. Unless you actually mean to list the Japanese and American publishers rather than Japanese and English? Shiroi Hane (talk) 15:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the English language Wikipedia, not the North American Wikipedia -- all English language publishers should be treated equally. If that means a stack of publishers, so be it -- we stack 'em in the other publishers. —Quasirandom (talk) 15:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm kind of on the fence with this, though I personally tend to move English publishers into the publisher_other field when doing infobox work. In any case, I think the decision should be carried out across all similar fields in the other animanga infoboxes, in order to keep things consistent. —Dinoguy1000 17:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you about consistancy across formats. I'm poking at manga because it's usually the first one I see. Personally, I think the English editions should be exposed rather than other, but again, arguments both ways. —Quasirandom (talk) 03:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I also agree on consistenct, but I'd rather see it done similar to what we do with anime. Have a separate field specifically for English licensors, that also is shown instead of hidden. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Television series endings category

One thing I just noticed on Serial Experiments Lain that I hadn't noticed before - it is in two categories, one for 1998 Television series beginnings, and one for endings. I've never seen those on another other anime, and I'm assuming we used the Anime of the 1990s category instead. Would I be correct to remove those categories? Doceirias (talk) 06:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This MOS page currently states under Content part 5 that anime articles should use a Category:Anime by date of first release. These categories are grouped by decade, so yes, the Anime of the 1990s category should be used (I'm just stating this for others that may not know). As for the beginnings and endings ones: I've been seeing them appear on many anime and manga articles lately. Personally I think all that is excessive (why use Anime of the 1990s and the starting and ending date ones? and who is really going to look through a category of anime series that ended in 1998?), but I don't feel like arguing about it with all those who disagree with me. --Eruhildo (talk) 13:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I once had a brief discussion with someone concerning it. I believe that since it is not a parent category or the like, it should remain. Otherwise, am I missing something? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Other Licensors

Someone just updated the documentation, which ended up pointing out an inconsistency. Template:Infobox animanga/OVA has a collapsible field called licensor_other, for non US licensors of an OVA. Such a field does not exist, however, in Template:Infobox animanga/Anime nor Template:Infobox animanga/Movie. So, should those two be updated to be consistent with OVA, or the field removed from the OVA box? Also, per some of the above discussions on English licensing of manga, should the documentation of the licensor for all three of these templates be changed to say English licensor(s) instead of just US? AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't be just US, that's for sure. This is the English language Wikipedia, not the North American wikipedia. Don't have a strong opinion about which way to rationalize things otherwise. —Quasirandom (talk) 02:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

OAVs with Episode numbers

I think this may be a new trend - the Baccano! DVDs contain extra episodes, numbered 14-16, the Spice and Wolf DVDs will contain episode 7, which was not broadcast. Currently, we seem to be calling this an OAV and adding a new infobox, but my feeling is that if the episode numbering continues from the TV series, then it should be counted as part of that work, rather than a separate OAV. Particularly with Spice and Wolf, where the middle episode is DVD exclusive - this leads to confusion, with 12 episodes listed in the anime infobox, even though there are actually 13. I sort of feel we should only call these DVD exclusive episodes an OAV if there is a clear division - if the DVD contains only those extra episodes (a sequel OAV series) or they are only short bonus features rather than part of the main series. Thoughts? Doceirias (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

But that's just going to get even more confusing. The definition of an OVA is that it is not aired on TV, so you shouldn't count OVA episodes in the "TV anime" infobox under no circumstances. In the case of Spice and Wolf, 12 episodes were aired, and one (while numbered episode 7) is officially an OVA. 12+1=13; is this really all that hard for the average reader to comprehend if he/she sees 12 TV anime episodes, and one OVA episode, which is exactly what happened for the Spice and Wolf anime? And I find it sad that we wouldn't even be having this discussion if SaW's OVA was a bonus episode, or occurred after the end of the last aired episode, or wasn't even named "episode 7". This kind of detailed information is more suited for prose in the article, not in an infobox.

For example, take Sola. Thirteen episodes were aired, and there were 2 OVAs. The first OVA occurs within the time frame of the TV anime series between episodes 4 and 5, and the second OVA is a prologue to episode 1. The first OVA is not numbered episode 4.5 or otherwise, it just happens to fit in that time frame. Just because SnW's production company wanted to name the OVA as episode 7 just means that we don't have to worry where it fits in the story.

In the case of Baccano!, is it so hard to list 13 aired episodes, and 3 OVAs for the infoboxes, and then explain in prose that the three OVAs just happen to be labeled episodes 14, 15, and 16? It makes the infobox simpler and puts the really detailed information in the article where it should be. I mean, the whole point of an infobox is to give the reader the opportunity to quickly know about the basic and pertinent info and major media types. If you start detailing things like (for Baccano!): "16 (13 aired, 3 were OVA)", then what's the whole point of even having an OVA infobox? If you want to do it that way, then just nix the OVA box all together or just use it on series that were never aired on TV.--十八 03:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with that definition of OAV - an OAV is created for video. It isn't an episode of the TV series that happens to be DVD exclusive, it is a separate work - part of the same franchise, maybe, but not given an episode number. I don't think they should be treated as a separate work if they aren't intended to be. If the OAV episode is not included on the TV discs, it is clearly an OAV; if the OAV episode is included on one of the TV discs, but not given an episode number, I'm inclined to still treat it like an OAV, but the episode numbers seem like something worth taking another look at. Doceirias (talk) 04:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The same thing was done with Wolf's Rain. The four OVA episodes were numbered eps 27-30. It is still considered an OVA in the article, and by most people. The episodes were released separately to DVD months after the TV series. They are OVA episodes, but they are also make up episodes. The infoboxes reflect 26 episodes plus a 4 ep OVA, the prose explains the what and the why. That is how it should be. AnmaFinotera (talk) 04:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

{{Japanese episode list}} has a parameter called TopColor that will change the color of the row above the summary. This is used on List of RahXephon media for its OVA, "Her and Herself". This would make sense for things that happen in between two episodes, chronologically. As for OVAs that are "later on", I'd probably lean towards a separate table just to help make the distinction between what aired and what was an OVA. Think of it like another season in the show. -- Ned Scott 04:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

As Juhachi said, the infobox has to be clear about what was broadcast and what wasn't. It doesn't matter if it happens in between two episodes; if it wasn't broadcast, the infobox has to state so, and using the OVA sub-infobox to do it seems to work appropriately. Explanations about numbering order and such can be given in prose. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

More examples...

• Kamichu!: 12 broadcast episodes and 4 direct-to-DVD episodes. The producers amended the episode list and now Kamichu! has 16 episodes total. No distinction is made between TV episodes and DVD episodes. There is no "Kamichu! OVA"
• Ayakashi Ayashi: 25 broadcast episodes and 5 direct-to-DVD episodes. The five new episodes, including in the regular DVD releases, are collectively (and officially) known as the "Divine Comedy OVA".
• X (TV series): In anticipation to the series premiere, Madhouse released the "Omen" OVA. In the R1 release, Geneon including the OVA as Episode Zero of the 24 episodes television series (upping the total to 25).
• Seven of Seven: Volume 7 of the DVD release included an unnumbered New Year's special that takes place after episode 19. R1 DVD have it as an extra episode, R3 DVD have it as episode 20 and amended the numbering accordingly.

It seems this is a case-by-case basis problem.--Nohansen (talk) 04:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that unless the DVD-only episodes are considered something separate (i.e. OVAs), we should include them in the TV episode count (noting they are DVD-only). In conclusion: the Baccano! and Spice and Wolf DVD-only episodes are not OVAs.--Nohansen (talk) 04:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

OVA = Original video animation; how can it possibly work out that DVD-only episodes are not, by definition, OVAs? I mean, I guess today it'd be ODA (original DVD animation), but the concept still works. Notice that the anime infobox we use has "TV anime" as the primary title. Why should we, logically, list OVA/DVD-only episodes in a box titled "TV anime"? This is just going to confuse the readers.--十八 06:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Things simply aren't that black and white. It seems like overcomplicating things to insist that only things aired on TV can be part of a show - what about the other exceptions mentioned, episodes yanked because the animation wasn't complete, or similarities to events in the news? These aren't broadcast, but they don't become OAVs automatically just because something like that happens. I think it is worth being flexible on the matter, particularly in cases where doubt or confusion enter into it. Doceirias (talk) 06:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see why we have to explain all this in an infobox. What's wrong with leaving the details in prose? As for these exceptions you bring up, I think only in the most extreme conditions would an OVA box not be used, such as with what happened to Moetan. But in that case, the episode was originally intended to be aired on TV, but then got pulled. For Spice and Wolf, the episode was never going to be broadcast from the get go, most likely due to TV air time schedules. The reason why I know this is because there was no announcement of broadcasters refusing to air the episode, as was the case in Moetan.--十八 06:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And another example — the Moetan adaptation had its sixth episode pulled, with an "episode 5.5" recap aired in its place, and it also has a post-airing episode 13. Would this be 12, 13, or 14 episodes? —TangentCube, Dialogues 04:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The Shakugan no Shana anime had an OVA set between episodes 13 and 14. Here is how the editors listed it. --Eruhildo (talk) 05:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Template change proposal

Right, I'm slowly coming to think this is the best solution: add to the Infobox animanga/Manga template a new parameter publisher_english=, to be displayed (and not hidden) between publisher= and publisher_other=, to be used for all English language publishers of a series. It's another line in the box, but it makes it obvious even to new editors what to do. In favor? opposed? comments? —Quasirandom (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

In favor :) Its more consistent with what we already do with anime, while also giving the original publisher proper standing and separateness (if that makes sense) AnmaFinotera (talk) 15:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I vote "aye", sounds quite reasonable. —Dinoguy1000 16:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Reasonable update. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it sounds like a good solution. --Eruhildo (talk) 02:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I support this. Very good idea. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. Doceirias (talk) 02:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like we've got a winner. So there's two parts to this: updating the template (INCLUDING the documentation), and making the change in all the articles. I could be wrong, but I don't think the latter can be botted. Or can it look for the various English-speaking flag icons (including Singapore!) in both publisher= and publisher_other= and move those lines? —Quasirandom (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It may need a little work and testing, but it's definitely something a bot can do. One would need too list the relevant flags manually once for all, but that's about it. What a bot cannot do without delving a lot deeper into things, on the other hand, is telling apart English Canadian editions and French ones, for example, but I doubt it's a major issue. Bikasuishin (talk) 00:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Even if the bot simply adds a blank field to every page, we can easily move the correct publishers by hand. Doceirias (talk) 00:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it's universal, but I usually see the French Canadian editions with a Quebec flag instead of a Canadian one. More of a problem is Singapore, which can be English and any of various Chinese. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably better off doing those manually then; not sure how many they publish, but compared to the American publishes, it should be manageable. Doceirias (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Template change: execution

So -- anyone up for making the template change? (Trust me, you don't want me doing it. I can hand-code HTML, but I still think like the Fortran programmer I used to be.) —Quasirandom (talk) 17:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy to make the edit, though I'd first like to know if {{Infobox animanga/Manga}} is the only template getting this change at this time, and if not, what others specifically need to be edited. —Dinoguy1000 17:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell if there's consensus above for changing the others or not. Though it looks like the discussion for the others is under another heading, below. So I guess it's one step at a time, and do just the manga box for now. Unless someone else jumps in and corrects me first. —Quasirandom (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There've been no further comments on this (I was waiting for more feedback, I'm not lazy, honest!), so I'm gonna go ahead and make the change. —Dinoguy1000 18:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done I added three parameters: publisher_en, publisher_english, and publisher_English. Further discussion can dictate whether the display should be changed or an alternate parameter added or removed. —Dinoguy1000 18:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool...so did we come to a conclusion on whether we could get a bot to at least move any US/UK/Australian publishers to the new field? AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Not sure. Someone thought it would be possible, but I think was waiting for the template change before working on it. —Quasirandom (talk) 20:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I can find some time to write a bot for this during the week-end. I'll let you know how it goes. Bikasuishin (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Coo. Thanks! I've added the parameter to the template doc and put it in action in (where else?) Yotsuba&!. Looks good there. —Quasirandom (talk) 20:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to include Cast and Voice Actor consensus?

I have been editing Turn A Gundam's list of Voice actors since User:Silver Edge tagged a verify source on it. (edit history) and placed edit comments about someone should verify the last charater in the Talk page. Silver Edge left a comment about he would not put a lot of effort in that section due to this issue. Someone deleted the whole section stating no straight cast list per consensus. I see no such guidelines in the MOS-AM page, and no discussion here and the archive at all. Could anyone point me to the original discussion and if it is really the consensus, should we add it to the main page guidelines so future editors can use it as a reference? It seems to me that not having a short list of cast and staff is not a really reasonable thing to do, since the Japanese page and most info found on or offline list such info in this orderly manner. MythSearcher^talk 05:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's recommended (and preferred) that a character section with details regarding each character be used instead (and the voice actor information would be part of each character's section), but a cast list is fine until a more detailed section is created. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The only section dealing with this (that I am aware of) is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles)#Series point 4 and 5; that requires/suggests that the voice actors are credited in the character section, and/or that notable production staff is mentioned in the production section, and to an extent, in the infobox. Considering this, a separate list seems like a duplication. As far as I know, this type of list is not used in most TV series articles. — G.A.S 05:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I suspect Silver Edge was thinking of a recent discussion that agreed having an article that consisted only of a cast listing was a bad idea - but nobody ever said anything about having one as part of a larger article. In this case, however, the cast list is redundant to the list of characters. Doceirias (talk) 06:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, it is preferred to have a detailed section over a simple list, but if no such section is available, say, no source could be found for detialed discussion of the topic, a list is fine. Also, I have to point out that it is not Silver Edge who said anything about not having a list, it is only a link to the recent edit of another article that User:AnmaFinotera deleted the section and claimed about consensus. That article got a link to characters but no production or staff section could be found. MythSearcher^talk 08:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

What makes a genre?

Is "Ecchi" a genre?

I ask because some articles (like Elfen Lied and Tenjho Tenge) have "ecchi" down as a genre, but the ecchi article never calls it so. It says ecchi "is [a term] applied to anime or manga that has vague sexual content."--Nohansen (talk) 23:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not a genre; yank if off if you see it. Doceirias (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's not a genre, we should remove it from Category:Anime and manga by genre; right?--Nohansen (talk) 02:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks like a category ripe for deletion. Probably a good starting list of pages to yank the term off of. Doceirias (talk) 04:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Whether it's an actual genre or not, the term is certainly used as if it were a type of genre constantly. I suppose we can say it's redundant to harem in a large number of cases though, so no major loss. --erachima formerly tjstrf 07:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Since ecchi is not a genre, I've taken the liberty of moving it to a new category: Anime and manga by topic. The same goes for Category:Creature anime and manga, Category:School anime and manga and Category:Transgender anime and manga.--Nohansen (talk) 19:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Certain users still think it's a genre: [1].--十八 23:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

My basic position: the vast majority of anime sites, reviewers, and fans recognize ecchi as a genre. If you do a quick google define, a "genre" is the category a story or script falls into, which in my opinion certainly applies to ecchi. There is a large demographic of viewers who watch anime purely because of a focus on fanservice. Furthermore, ecchi has common, identifiable traits. And if we communicate to users that Kanokon, To Love-Ru, et al are romantic comedies rather than what they are, we have failed to create a useful source of information. --Estemi (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with Sex Comedy. The problem is, Ecchi is a slang used by a narrow minority, and borrowed incorrectly from Japanese. It is my perception that the term is falling out of use in favor of more accurate ones. Using a neologism on Wikipedia is against policy. Doceirias (talk) 01:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I could accept that. Nevertheless.

Neologisms are new terms with unclear definition and uncommon use. Ecchi has a clear definition: it means "perverted". It's not new; there's no ambiguity; it's not rare by any standard (google "ecchi" and "sex comedy" and count the hits). By similar trains of logic to the ones proposed, Anime should be moved to Japanese animation, Hentai should be merged with Cartoon pornography, and Harem (genre) should not exist. Are any of the wasei-eigo terms on Wikipedia used "correctly" by Japanese standards? I can't think of many. And yet they're common, and they describe things that are distinct (if only slightly) from western equivalents. In any case, Wikipedia is its sources filtered into articles. If our sources acknowledge ecchi, we acknowledge ecchi. None of our sources call these things sex comedies. --Estemi (talk) 02:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd like to see Hentai moved to Ero anime, but the term is pretty entrenched. Ecchi never has been as widely used, being more fandom jargon than anything else. It doesn't have anything to do with perversion, even among the fans, however; they use it for soft core titillation shows, usually not anything kinky. As more people are pointing out that it actually just means fucking, and that it makes no sense to use the word to describe anything that isn't hardcore, the term has begun to die off.

But I'm not arguing the page on the term should be deleted, or that the term can't be used as a category to group appropriate shows together (although I am concerned about it being slapped on any old anime; it would not be appropriate on Haruhi Suzumiya, for instance. But that is an entirely separate issue.) I'm simply arguing that it isn't a genre, and should not be in the genre field. Genre specifically describes story elements, while ecchi is just the style. We don't distinguish between super robot and gundam style mecha shows in the genre field either. Doceirias (talk) 03:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

While the meaning of "hentai" as used by English speakers is indeed quite disconnected from Japanese usage, I don't think the same is true for "ecchi". There's a wider range of meanings in Japanese of course (including "fucking"), but when something is described as chotto ecchi na sakuhin, it doesn't imply "hardcore" at all. But as you say, that's pretty tangential to the issue at hand anyway. Bikasuishin (talk) 12:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Is "Yuri" a genre?

Again, some articles (like Miyuki-chan in Wonderland and Read or Dream) use "yuri" —and "shoujo ai"— as a genre, but Yuri (which underwent some major edits not long ago) calls it a "term".--Nohansen (talk) 02:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There might be an argument in favor of this (likewise, yaoi) but it seems very susceptible to over use - Read or Dream is the Read or Die spin off, right? Not Yuri by any definition except wishful thinking. If it were possibly to keep it to shows that overtly dealt with lesbian relationships as the central focus and selling point, you might have a case. Doceirias (talk) 02:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not a case, but a fact. Although yuri has only recently been accepted as a genre: since the publication of the first yuri manga magazine (2004). Still, yuri doesn't have stablished archetypes like those of BL (yaoi, shounen-ai), and doesn't have a primarly target audience either (BL is primarly targeted towards girls). Forthermore, unlike BL, which was a genre from the begining, yuri was first a term used to describe content, and, like I said before, only recently has been recogniced as a genre. That's the reason the article is named "Yuri (term)" instead of "Yuri (genre)", because the article talks about the whole subject, not only about yuri as a genre. Anyway, I think it's ok to use yuri as a genre for series in which yuri is a central focus (sourced, of course). Also I should clarify that yuri is not only lesbian relationships, but also strong emotional bonds such as that depicted in Voiceful from Yuri Hime: a sort of romantic friendship, if you will. This is an important aspect of yuri. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk:666 Satan#Requested move

There are editors who are wanting to keep the page at "666 Satan" instead of "O-Parts Hunter", ignoring the guideline of this very page, which says to use official English titles (see link). Can we have some additional thoughts over at the appointed survey? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I was arguing that directly from the guidelines of this page. The move is done now, but if when this page says "most commonly recognized by readers" it doesn't mean "readers of the series", it really needs to make that clear. --erachima formerly tjstrf 07:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) - I believe what needs to be transparent is whether it asks for the official English publication title or the original English title, if there exists one. Hope this made sense. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense that it weighed both? --erachima formerly tjstrf 07:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thought it was one way or the other. How do we weigh both? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My personal interpretation of the paragraph has always been roughly synonymous with "use the terms found in the most widely disseminated English version". Which may be how you've been interpreting it as well, but discounting scanlations when making those judgments.

As for why you'd have to think about both, if a series has an official English US name and an official English UK name, we'd have to weigh between those two. If you have an official English US name and an official English JA name, the same should apply. As for how to weigh it, well, depending on the meaning of the rest of that paragraph, it's either by which is more commonly utilized among readers of the encyclopedia, which is more commonly utilized among readers of the series, or possibly even which is more commonly utilized by readers of the English language. That "readers" is really rather ambiguous now that I'm looking more closely. --erachima formerly tjstrf 07:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Revisiting Order and Sections

I think it may be time to update the MOS some of the standards that seem to be happening with more recent B and GA articles (I'd say FA, but its been embarrassingly long since we've had one :( ). Some things I've noticed:

• Setting - while still rarish, for some series it is an important element and the MOS does not address its handling at all. If relevant, should it be a subsection of plot, a section of production, or a standalone section placed elsewhere?
• Themes - the same issue with setting. Usually, themes gets hacked because of lack of sources, but when properly sourced, where should it go? Under plot, standalone, etc?
• Media information - this should be renamed to Media as it is what we are really used. Also, structure here should be better clarified to note that, in general, we have subsections for the major media such as anime, manga, novels, movie, and items which have little information available or relevance like drama CDs, go in a general other section. Also, a general media list is less preferred to having a List of X episodes, List of X chapters, List of X novels for the relevant media. The other media methods should generally not need to be broken out from the main article unless it is a very unusual case.
• Since our primarily featured topics over the last few years have been episode lists and chapter lists, I think its high time we made anime/manga specific MOS for those, particularly with the TV projects ep list guide being out of date. One for a List of characters would also be good.

Thoughts? (as per a suggestion below, I've added subsections for each topic to sort out discussion) AnmaFinotera (talk) 22:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Setting and Themes

Where to place sections such as "themes" or "setting" or whatever variant of those has to be decided in a case by case basis, as it depends on what kind of content and references you can get. We may offer some suggestions in the guideline, but it must be clear that these suggestion won't necessarily apply to all cases. For example, if you have a "design" section, "themes" may be a sub-section of "design". However, if the article don't have a "design" section, for lack of refereces, for example, "themes" would have to be placed somewhere else: under "story" (if the article has such a section), along with "plot" and "characters", or as a standalone section. Like I said, it depends of the content and references. Kazu-kun (talk) 00:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

True, though I think we should at least address it within the MOS in terms of what such sections should include, and perhaps emphasizing that themes can not be sourced from the episodes alone, as that would constitute editor research/opinion. :) It could be included that placement may depend on the content of the article, with suggested "common" locations. AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! What such a section should include, and how it should be sourced; these are real issues which need to be addressed. For example, a "themes" section should include analysis and interpretation on the subject's main themes, by reliable secondary sources (third-party published sources). That'd make it clear that primary sources (ie: episodes) shouldn't be used, at least not to source analysis and interpretation. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

We should reference WP:WAF as well, for backing up that themes require third-party reliable sources. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

These would be fruitfully addressed -- I was thinking about bringing up the last one myself. I agree with Kazu-kun, though that strong guidelines for the first two might be hard to get. I'd be likely to put Themes as a subsection of Story myself, but I can easily think of other organizations that might make sense, given the article -- for example, with Reception, depending on the available information. As a procedural thing, may I suggest that we break these into three discussions under separate headings? One being the first two, since they're more closely related than the other two. —Quasirandom (talk) 01:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, that'd be fine (and added) :) AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Reading the description of the Production section, it looks like the sort of information rather amorphously included there could without too much stretching be interpretted to include Thematic material. My only hesitation is that most of the Production info is external to the series -- how it was created -- and theme is inherent, outside of how the creator got it there. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Second thought: Would it be worth asking for an assist at WT:WAF? —Quasirandom (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wait! Let me try to make a draft for this first. Kazu-kun (talk) 19:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. :) —Quasirandom (talk) 19:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Draft for Themes

• Themes: This section should include analysis and interpretation on the subject's main themes by reliable, third-party sources, including reviews, criticts, and scholar articles. The creators' intention regarding the subject's themes, with reference such as the offical website and interviews with said creators, may also be included. It should be noted, however, that creators' comments alone may not be helpful to assert notability, as these don't usually reflect a coverage "independent of the subject". Therefore, it is recommend to always include, and give preference to, material from third-party sources. "Themes" should be placed as a sub-section of "Design", if such section exists, or as a standalone section.

Ok, that's it. Though now that I think about it, we may need a guideline for the whole "Design" section, which can be seen as an alternative to "Production", though more focused on analysis and interpretation than on the development process. Kazu-kun (talk) 21:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Media information

I like your suggestion pretty much as-is. Well, to order wordsmithing. Emphasis on breaking out only one media at a time, as a single coherent list. —Quasirandom (talk) 01:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What about order of the subsections? Try for chronological, as much as can be determined? Or will that get us into the Shigofumi argument again, where the original work comes out after the spin offs? I think they tend to be ordered more by which order the sections are created than anything else. Doceirias (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How about original work, then chronological for adaptations, then whatever order flows best for the minor stuff like music collections and whatnot? --erachima formerly tjstrf 02:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I usually go with original work followed by all others in chronological order by first release dates in Japan. And you are correct, when they are there at all, right now it seems to be mostly by whatever order they were thought of, or whichever version is the last editor to rearrange the sections favorites. :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

One thing about trying to maintain strictly chronological: adaptations by drama CDs are usually made before an anime. —Quasirandom (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes, true. So I guess the question is should we emphasize by media type and have a more or less set order, chronology, or go for some blend of "where exists, manga, anime, novels, movies, OVAs first, with the original work as the very first section, then anything else following in chronological order" ? AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it'd be easier just to always go chronologically, just as we do with the infobox ordering. An example like this is at Shigofumi.--十八 03:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That might be easiest. It's only the lead where the distinction between first and original actually matters. Doceirias (talk) 03:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there any real reason to have a rule about the ordering at all? Making additional rules or guidelines is considered an inherent negative that has to be outweighed by the positive effect that the rule's existence would have. I don't see the prevention of slightly differently organized media sections as being worth the instruction creep.

While we're on the subject of media info, I recall seeing an article yesterday (don't remember which one) that had figurine production listed. On the one hand, it was sourced info, but on the other hand, it seemed like a really weird thing to put into an article since every show ever gets figurines, and nothing was mentioned as being particularly unusual about these ones. --erachima formerly tjstrf 03:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with erachima here. Per WP:BURO and WP:CREEP, it's improper to set rules for trivialities such as the order or arrangement of a section; guidelines are not meant for the sake of standardization, but rather to solve an actual problem, which is not the case here. Kazu-kun (talk) 05:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How is enhancing and improving our manual of style an issue of either WP:BURO and WP:CREEP. The MOS is not a hard standing rule, but it does aid editors, especially new ones, in how anime and manga articles should be formatted. Several other higher end MOS's are far more detailed than ours is and I think the project, and our articles, would benefit from providing more clarification in these areas. We don't have to go into the order arrangement, it people feel it is too detailed or being too picky. I do think we should at least address the over all thought behind this idea though. AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to clarify that I was only addressing the media info order, not the MoS or section as a whole. --erachima formerly tjstrf 06:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It was clear I wasn't talking about this MOS as a whole, but just about trivialities such as the arrangement thing. Other than that, this whole discussion is addressing some interesting points. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you've got a point as far as ordering the sections - consider that side dropped. I think what we're trying to do with this section is make it easier for people to identify which sections of an article can be improved. With an eye towards offering options rather than limiting. Doceirias (talk) 06:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Media info draft

Here's a draft revision:

• Media: This should be placed towards the end of the article. It can include, as appropriate, separate subsections for lists of episodes, for manga volumes, for novels, for movies, for games, and for all other media such as soundtracks and drama CDs. If a given list takes up a large amount of space, consider splitting it out to a separate page titled List of (series) episodes, List of (series) chapters, or similar. It is preferable to spin out in this way only one format at a time, rather than all media together. You may find the {{Graphic novel list}} and {{Japanese episode list}} templates useful for formatting lists.

Have at it with ye hatchets.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Quasirandom (talk • contribs) 14:22, 2 April 2008

Hmmm...a good start, but a little bit is missing, I think. How about:

• Media: This should be placed towards the end of the article. It can include, as appropriate, separate subsections for information on the original version of the work, as well as any anime series/OVAs, manga, novels, movies, video games, and other media (such as soundtracks and drama CDs) related to the series. These sections should, in general, include the original release information, original broadcast information (if applicable), and English license, broadcast, and release information (again, as applicable). For sections on anime series and/or OVAs, manga, and novels, the appropriate list of episodes or volumes and chapters should also be included. If a given list takes up a large amount of space, consider splitting it out to a separate page titled List of (series) episodes, List of (series) chapters, List of (series) novels, or similar. It is preferable to spin out in this way only one format at a time, rather than grouping all media together in a single list. You may find the {{Graphic novel list}} and {{Japanese episode list}} templates useful for formatting these lists.

AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How about some compression:

• Media: This should be placed towards the end of the article. It can include, as appropriate, separate subsections for information on the original version of the work, as well as any related anime series/OVAs, manga, novels, movies, video games, and other media (such as soundtracks and drama CDs). These sections should, in general, include the original release / broadcast information (as applicable), and English license and release / broadcast information (again, as applicable). For sections on anime series/OVAs, manga, and novels, include the appropriate list of episodes or volumes and chapters. If a given list is long compared to the rest of the article, consider splitting it out to a separate article titled List of (series) episodes, List of (series) chapters, List of (series) novels, or similar. It is preferable to spin out in this way only one format at a time, rather than grouping all media together in a single list. You may find the {{Graphic novel list}} and {{Japanese episode list}} templates useful for formatting these lists.

Though that didn't compress very much, did it. Ah well. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

How about more active voice, and removal of redundant wording:

• Media: Place the media section towards the end of the article and include – as appropriate – subsections with information on the original version of the work, related anime series, OVAs, manga, novels, movies, video games, and other media (such as soundtracks and drama CDs). Include information about the original Japanese release (or broadcast), information about the English licensee and release (or broadcast) and the appropriate list of episodes, volumes and chapters in the applicable sections. Consider presenting this information in a separate article titled List of (series) (episodes/chapters/novels/...) if a given list is too long compared to the rest of the article. The {{Graphic novel list}} and {{Japanese episode list}} templates are quite useful for formatting such lists.

It is preferable to spin out in this way only one format at a time, rather than grouping all media together in a single list. — I believe that this would depend on whether the specific section is too long compared to the rest of the article, it should not be prescribed as we might end up with 5 less notable articles with 13 episodes/chapters each, where one would have sufficed. This would depend entirely on the situation.

G.A.S 05:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that was the idea of that statement, to keep from having 5 unnecessary lists and to correct the misinterpretation that has resulted in things like List of Bleach media and List of Naruto media (*shudder*). Any suggestions for how it might be worded it better to indicate that it should not be done automatically, nor should the entire media section just be dumped to another page because of size concerns often caused by bad formatting. I.e. Episodes and manga chapters and soundtracks, et all should not be "spun out" into one huge list shoved together. Rather, for most series, at best there should be one episode list, one chapter list, maybe one novel list, and the rest of the media information, such as CDs, video games, etc, retained in the main article. And that those lists should only be done if they are too lengthy to stay in the main. AnmaFinotera (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In both of those examples, WP:SIZE comes into play; and it says split! split! SPLIT! :) But there are cases where a combined list is perfectly acceptable, although care should be taken to keep the formatting across tables constant. G.A.S 05:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

A single list is indeed acceptable by Size, but for the most part, not for an anime or manga article :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 05:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I rather that WP:SIZE is more lenient to lists, but only as long as the topic has no logical way to be split — Two exceptions are lists, and articles summarizing certain fields. These act as summaries and starting points for a field and in the case of some broad subjects or lists either do not have a natural division point or work better as a single article. —WP:SIZE#Occasional exceptions. In both the examples, we have anime, manga, OVA...; which could easily be split into list of (series) (media type). But it is also unfair to apply the same rule to cases where the combined list is the same length as most other series's list of a single media type. But this comes down to plain old common sense at the end of the day. G.A.S 05:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

~poke~ So are we agreed on any one of these versions so the MoS can be updated. AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Lists

One obvious thing to note in the list guidelines, just mentioning in case it gets lost, is that list articles should not in general be created except by spinning out the information from an overloaded main article. (Not that I haven't created one from scratch *cough*). —Quasirandom (talk) 01:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

So have I *cough* but I'd suspect that's because both of us have enough experience to be able to say "okay, 24 episode list or 13 volumes of manga would overload the main so go ahead and break out" :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I generally create lists when I know they are going to contain too much information to put into the main article in the first place. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

*wry g* Well, anyway. Should we have separate guidelines for characters, episodes, and manga chapters/volumes? The first has some specific WP:WAF issues that should be covered, which suggests is maybe ought to be split out. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be good. I think we're at the point that our MOS can have multiple pages, and since we have quite a few types of articles, it would be good to give them good coverage. I'd be willing to work on drafts for the lists during the week and this weekend unless someone else wants to. AnmaFinotera (talk) 00:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Lists draft

Okay guys, I've written up a first draft of a list guideline at User:AnmaFinotera/WIP4. Thoughts, comments, (kindly delivered) criticisms, etc :P This one will be used to draft the chapter list, so want to get it right first.AnmaFinotera (talk) 17:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It is an excellent work as an essay; but way too prescriptive as a manual of style.

Refer to Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance: new guidelines are written where:

1. Solving a problem: Something is experienced as problematic, for which an appropriate solution is sought; or
2. Writing down existing state of the art practice.

Consider: Is there a problem to be solved: I believe not currently. There are more than 25 lists, which have been peer reviewed and promoted to featured status within the last year. Obviously, it seems that these writers can use their own judgment in writing up a featured list. Unless all of the current articles are put up for re-review, and fails, I believe that there is no problem.

Consider: Is this proposed guideline writing down an existing practice: No:

The style and content it prescribes does not seem to have consensus: Of the 25 featured lists, I believe none complies with the recommendations:

• Too short descriptions per episode: 20 (18: 60-70 words) (2:100-120 words)
• No episode descriptions: 2
• No DVD Section: 22 (Opting to present a summary of this information only in the lead.)

As such, I would recommend refining the essay and maybe making it applicable to TV series in general; as I believe the scope could be far greater than anime alone.

G.A.S 05:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I not sure Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance applies to Manuals of Style (and its also an essay :P). A manual of style is intended to describe how the pages should be set up, not how they are now. We have some great FLs, most done by a handful of editors. Many many more episode lists are in horrible shape, and the question of how they should be formatted is a frequent one, hence the reason for looking into expanding the MOS to include this information. It's first, and foremost, to aid in creating future lists, and then secondary, a place to point folks wanting to clean up all the bad ones.

For the specific notes, longer episode summaries have only more recently been considered acceptable, from what I've seen, so yes many are still shorter than they could be. I tried to come up with a good range but that can always be adjusted. They are just guidelines, same as the film plot section suggestions 400-700 words. It isn't intended to say "they must be at least this long" but more of a "they shouldn't be longer than this." Shorter is fine if that's all that is needed to give all the major plot points and ending of each episode. The two that I can think of that have no episode summaries are also ones with seasonal pages. For the DVD section, I tried to make it clear that it was optional. In the lists that have them, they have not been required to be removed before the lists passed, so it is acceptable either way. :) As for making it applicable to a TV series, as I noted, the episode one would also be used to draft the chapter one. As they should be relatively consistent with one another, I think its fine to deal with here.AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

If it is added to WP:MOS-ANIME under as See Also (name of essay) you have my full support. I believe WP:EPISODE lists guidance for length as about 10 words per screen time. How about listing the recommendation as "Up to 10 words per minute; but include details about..."? And yes, the essay applies to MOS as well, since MOS are Wikipedia Guidelines (See Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Guidelines. What I meant is, Episode lists are not only applicable to anime, we just have a fair share of them. Such an essay could – with minor adjustments – be adapted to provide guidance to other editors as well. G.A.S 06:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Up to 10 words per minute allows for 300 word summaries. *grin* I believe the Film MOS lists it both ways, per minute and then range. I know episodes are not only applicable to anime, however the TV project hasn't shown any interest in fixing their MOS (which isn't even a "real" MOS) and I've tried several times to bring up the topic of needing to update, expand, and overhaul the episode area (which does not reflect current consensus nor trends), but all such attempts went mostly ignored and undiscussed. Its one reason I stopped working as much with TV articles, lack of many active members with project enthusiasm and energy. ;) AnmaFinotera (talk) 13:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Page layout

Why is reception placed above the media section? If the reception of the series is most likely going to take into account reviews of the anime/manga/light novels etc, wouldn't it make more sense to place Reception after the Media section?--十八 02:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I concur with the suggestion to place reception after media. It does make more sense that way. G.A.S 06:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The current order was in keeping with Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/How to write about television programs, which we take some mild guidance from. However, said "MOS" was recently revisited to conform to what is actually being seen in recent television FAs. The new version puts reception below Media (but above the episode lists, which we include in our media section), so I think it would be good to at least revisit this as part of the on-going discussions regarding MOS updates. Sadly, we can't look to FAs because we haven't had one in two years. :( I'm currently ambivalent about it, myself, and will weigh in later after further thought.

To ensure most project folks get to weigh in, I've left a note on the main project page pointing to this discussion. AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

But then why were we using WP:TV as a model when most anime/manga articles have many other adaptations or media types, including dramas, light novels, visual novels, etc.--十八 07:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

In any case, the layout suggested by MOS is nothing more than a suggestion. If you believe a different format would make more sense and read better, then just ignore the suggestion. In general, though, I do believe the Reception should be placed at the bottom of the article in most cases, as this section reflects the reception to the subject as a whole, not only to its plot summary or whatnot. Kazu-kun (talk) 07:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably because it is one of our parent projects, along with Japan, Films, and Comics, and was the main parent projects to deal with our particular kind of series information, where there may be adaptations and other forms, production information, episodes and serialization information, etc. AnmaFinotera (talk) 07:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Per my discussion with Collectonian concerning Wolf's Rain, it makes more sense to have the reception following all the relevant media information, as the reception is often focused on different aspects of the media (i.e. sales for the manga, how the visual novel was received, critical reception on the anime, and so on). Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 20:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

True, and remembering that discussion, I'd be fine with changing it. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I thought "Reception" was 'supposed to' go under "Media". I support this being made clear in the MoS. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I confess it makes more sense to me to leave Reception closer to Production/Development/Themes, since the latter especially can be tightly linked to what critics say about a series. Or to put it another way, it's a quick transition from What Creators Tried To Do to How Well They Did It. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I note BTW that if you wander around the better-class (as in, higher ranked) literature articles, "Critical reception" or similarly titled sections are almost always before publication and adaptation info. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but most articles are not the better-class. Most anime articles are plot, some media info, and if we're lucky (that is, if sources are available) a reception. In such a case if you place the reception above the media info, the result would be the reception right under the plot, which reads horrible and makes no sense. Furthermore, sometimes the media section is more than just a list of products formated in prose; sometimes this section actually has some encyclopedic info that can be commented (criticized) in the reception.

Ultimately, this kind of arrangement issues are better decided in a case-by-case basis. Kazu-kun (talk) 22:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

For another take on this issue -- WikiProject Novel's style guidelines for writing a novel article orders the sections (after translating their terms to ours): Lead, Development, Media Part 1: Original Version, Plot, Characters, Themes/Style (which we don't have), Reception, Media Part 2: The Adaptations. Half of it upended from how we do things.

Splitting the media makes more sense when you're always dealing with a book which then gets adapted, but we've got franchises with adaptations going everywhichway, so I don't recommend following their guidelines there. But putting development first makes a certain amount of sense: here's the inspirations for the story, and now here's the story. Dunno 'bout swapping Plot and Characters, though. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The plot and characters sections are there to give context for the other (more encyclopedic) sections, such as development, design, themes, etc... placing development fist makes no sense. For example, how would I talk about the development or design of a character I haven't mentioned yet? Kazu-kun (talk) 01:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It makes more sense for a work, yeah. —Quasirandom (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It's the same. For example, you said "here's the inspirations for the story, and now here's the story". But think about it... you can't really talk about the inspirations for something without addressing that something first. Let's take a look at what I think is the best anime article on wikipedia: Serial Experiments Lain.

• (plot) "Serial Experiments Lain describes "the Wired" as the sum of human communication networks, created with the telegraph and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet and subsequent networks. The anime assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface."

• (design) "Communication, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series, not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience - and particularly viewers between 14 and 15 - "the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self: the relationship between self and the world". The intrusion of technology in the social structure is part of the process described".

Here you can see how the "plot" gives context to the "design" section. That way there's no need to elaborate more than necessary in "themes", and the whole article is more cohesive. Here's another example:

• (plot) In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess.

• (design) "Theology plays its part in the development of the story too. Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body. From self-realization as a goddess to deicide, religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lain 's background."

Can you see how what is written on "design" would make no sense (or need further elaboration) if you don't know the "plot" elements beforehand? This way, however, the whole thing can be understood just fine, and the text flows better throughout the article. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Invisible links to important information

I'm going through and adding invisible links of the form <span id="Make up a unique subsection name"> on many style guidelines talk pages and archives at places where I recognize that someone has given sources or a great answer for questions that keep coming up, and then making a list of the new links so that people can find things easily. If anyone would like to do the same for this talk page and its archives, that would be great.

While I'm here ... WP:MoS, like pretty much everything else in Wikipedia, is written in WP:Summary style, meaning that where sections got too big, they got handed off to a new page (such as WP:Layout). Clearly this page is a style guideline, but does anyone here think of this as the "main" page for a subsection of WP:MoS? It doesn't look that way to me, it looks like it's focused on specific articles, but perhaps parts of either the text or previous discussions feel to you guys like they are part of a wider discussion. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Individual project MOS aren't really a subsection of WP:MOS, but guidelines for a specific set of articles that often bring together multiple style guides, regular guidelines, policies, and the consensus of the project who manages it. AnmaFinotera (talk) 14:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Understood ... so you're saying that the scope of this page is all articles in the scope of your WikiProject? Just checking ... people get upset with MoS editors when we assume things without asking (as they should). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. A clarification ... without getting into the wider issue (which is at WT:Mos), note that all archive pages request that they not be edited. So if someone likes the idea of doing something that serves as indexing the 3 archive pages for this talk page for easy reference, make sure you have very wide support from this community first, because without it, the presumption would be that edits on an archive page will be reverted. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. There are sometimes where, of course, an article has multiple MOS, then decisions have to be made as to which one takes the lead. This MOS is like any other, though, such as the Films MOS, Japan MOS, and the other topic specific guidelines. There are also quite a few more general ones, such as the Date/Numbers MOS, which also expound on specific points. The MOS here is the result of consensus in the Anime and Manga project regarding the layout and content of the thousands of articles within our scope. As the opening notes, we do look to some other larger MOS' for guidance, and of course like all MOS's, it always must be in keeping with Wikipedia heavier guidelines and policies. I'm not sure I understand your clarification? AnmaFinotera (talk) 15:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the clarification, I'm writing up the proposal now at WT:MoS#Proposal to index; that may or may not be helpful here, since you've only got 3 archive pages, but I just wanted to mention that it is being discussed, and feel free to join the discussion. Regarding scope, I know my question seems a little dumb since it gives your scope as the very first section, but I've found that even when people intend to start with a specific scope, sometimes the conversations start ranging pretty widely, and an assumption creeps in that they're discussing general principles that apply to all pages.

I have another question: the "style" infobox on the right side of the page lists Anime in the top section. Do you guys have any objection to moving it farther down in the style box, so that we put all articles that have a particular scope in the same section? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The link didn't work :P For scope, for the most part we tend to stick to our scope, with some occasional overlap on our parent projects. Also, this page only has 3 archives, but I suspect that is because many of our discussions tend to take place in the main project page. Which section were you thinking? Where Film is now, or a new section where some of the missing MOS's would also be added for topic specific? AnmaFinotera (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Still writing the proposal. How about a new subsection of the style infobox called "Related to specific subjects", since there are two other "Related to..." subsections. All 4 of the current subsections clearly have at least one entry that shouldn't be in that subsection, that should be in a new subsection. Personally, I would be in favor of getting rid of the "other" subsection, but I'll talk about that in MoS after we've done the more obvious work, that's a judgment call. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd personally be fine with it, but others should probably weigh in here and in the main MoS page. AnmaFinotera (talk) 16:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Please see WT:MoS#A "scope" section in the style infobox? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Flags in Infoboxes

Let me start by pasting Collectian's message from WT:ANIME:

Possibly something that could be of importance to us, the TV project is having a heated discussion on whether flagicons should be removed from all TV infoboxes. See Template talk:Infobox Television#Flag usage for the start of the discussion, and Template talk:Infobox Television#Proposal: Flags should no longer be used in Television Infoboxes, per WP:FLAG.

Now, I like the flags, but I just realized there are times when they're not that helpful. A few moments ago, I did some cleanup on the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex article. The article had a flag for every country that aired the series through Animax, and it didn't look too good. Mind you, what I did ain't too pretty either, but it's less messy.

Also, WP:FILMS and WP:TV don't really recommend listing every-single-country that has aired any given series or released any given film. {{Infobox Television}} is limited to the program's country of origin, while the FILM MOS recommends to limit the release info to: the country that produced the film, the country where the film was first released and the majority English-speaking countries. Given that "FILMS" and "TV" are two of WP:ANIME's parent projects, maybe we should take their MOS's into consideration?--Nohansen (talk) 05:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

With the show/hide option, listing multiple countries isn't really an issue. I've even thought about suggesting it for other infoboxes, as it was probably not considered as an option. However, I did notice that someone recently added a separate field for English countries, an idea I'm not wild about, and probably could use more discussion.

Regarding the flags, as I said in the Template talk:Infobox Television discussion, I don't see our use of flags as an issue. You see one, maybe two flags in the average animanga infobox, and for entires that are directly related to the country (as opposed to noting the nationality of a person, etc). -- Ned Scott 21:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

That someone who added the seperate English field would be me, and you're not the first to complain about it... ;-) The initial discussion on the addition can be found here, and another complaint here. —Dinoguy1000 16:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I am one of the people who supported the English field. It is appropriate and in keeping with the fact that this is the English encyclopedia so English versions should be readily and easily identifiable rather than demoted and buried with other language editions. Its no different than our not spending paragraphs and paragraphs on non-Japanese foreign language versions and not included every foreign language release and air dates in our chapter/episode lists.AnmaFinotera (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge "Proposal"

Just in case anyone missed the notice on the front, some nice person has proposed that our MoS be hacked and trashed, AKA merged, into the constantly under dispute WP:FICT under ridiculous ideas that our MoS is somehow unnecessary. Ugh. Feel free to leave your own thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Merge with anime and manga. Mine are obviously pretty clear. :P AnmaFinotera (talk) 13:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

In all fairness, I think we need to assume good faith. I don't think the nominator had any ill will, but rather thought the two MOS pages were similar enough (or overlapped enough) to be fine if they were combined. I happen to disagree with him (as does everyone else who has posted in that discussion), but we need not attribute malice where there likely is none. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes to animanga infobox

There are some proposed style changes for Template:Infobox animanga being made. Please see Template talk:Infobox animanga#Template style. -- Ned Scott 23:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Plot summaries

This is something I've been a bit confused about (indeed, I mentioned it just above.) How much plot is too much, how much is too little; how complete is it required to be to be representative of the series? When I write plot summaries, I invariably take an approach a bit more like the dust jacket; give the concept of the series, the basic parties involved, and any detailed needed for the character descriptions and theme discussions to make sense. But I've seen several editors cite the no spoiler tag policies to suggest that we are required to discuss the entire plot, beginning, middle, and end. I've no objection to that - I agree with the lack of spoilers - but I tend to think it isn't always necessary, and often leads to excess detail. If the themes section doesn't discuss the ending, then do we need to discuss it in the plot section? Right now, we tend to have basic introductions for the main characters on the main page, and more detailed versions on the character page, which might describe the eventual fate of the characters. Likewise, if there is a list of episodes or some other complete summary, the plot section seems justified in doing a more brief general overview of the story. Confusing question - since I am pretty muddled about it - and I don't want to seem like I'm arguing something I'm not, but I thought it might be worth discussing. Doceirias (talk) 05:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a good point to bring up, as the MoS isn't clear and articles are tackling it both ways. I feel that a full plot isn't required just due to the no spoilers clause, but that to really give encyclopedic, and comprehensive coverage. The plot summary should ideally include the beginning, the major plot points, and the ending. This is more some of our related projects, like the the Film MoS, and I believe the TV MoS (too many tabs open to check at the moment). If we only do a partial summary, it becomes something of a longer teaser (much like a DVD dust jacket). In that case, we are basically requiring those unfamiliar with the series to go read/view it to get the full picture, but as the dust jacket requires you to buy the DVD to actually find out what will happen. For what happens in a specific episode/chapter, then yes, their respective lists should fill that need with greater detail. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But granted an exposition of plot info on an episode list will only work for anime-original series. The same could be applied to manga-original series with chapter lists though (and I suppose light novel-original series by the same token). Also, a good amount of our material haven't ended yet, so it's not like we can provide an account of the ending. In my experience, we shouldn't try to write overly detailed plot info. Collectonian also cited an older version of Air (visual novel) as having too much plot, so I don't see why she's advocating for a more detailed plot summary to use in articles. In the end, the most we can do for the majority of articles is provide a brief overview of the series' premise, major characters, and main plot points, and anything beyond that would not only be too excessive, but would go against WP:NOT#PLOT.--十八 06:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Detailed and comprehensive does not have to equal lengthy. Air's was too long for the media and included more minute details than were needed. Just as with film and television articles, we shouldn't do blow by blow, but over all major plot points. One should easily be able to cover the major plot points and ending within a reasonable amount of words, and the plot section should be not take up the majority of the article. The plot should be from the primary work, with differences in adaptations noted in a separate paragraph or a separate subsection under the plot. In the end, we are saying the same thing, I think. Cover the start (general a major plot point), the major plot points, and the ending (also a major plot point by any definition). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But as I said, a good amount of manga, anime, and light novels have no ending, so your third point can't be applied universally. Even so, taking into account all the manga and light novels that have ended, what are the chances that we're going to get an editor who has read the entire series and can even provide the information about the ending? No matter what, it's infinitely easier to write about the beginning than the end, and it's very hard to find editors who have knowledge of a series' ending as it is. Not to mention I'm unsure how many editors would like being prematurely spoiled about a series' ending they plan on reading (or else why would they even be interested in editing the article of the series half the time?). Plus the vast majority of these series don't even have translations, making it even harder. I just think you're trying too hard to apply WP:TV and WP:FILM guidelines to WP:ANIME in regards to providing an ending. For a single book, or a single movie, or a TV series that has ended (including original-anime that have ended), writing a summary of the ending is easy, but that applies to a very small percentage of the majority of series under this project's scope.--十八 06:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have yet to read a manga series nor viewed an anime series that doesn't have some sort of ending, even if its just "and they continued on their journey." Obviously an on-going series would not have an ending yet, but one should be added when it does end. We're not here to avoid spoiling people. Don't want to be spoiled, don't work on the article. There is a reason I do little to no work on Fruits Basket and could do little to help with the FB character list. That's a personal choice to risk spoilers or not. It isn't Wikipedia's responsibility to "shield" readers nor editors from the ending just because they make the choice to go to the article knowing what Wikipedia is. It also isn't the responsibility of other editors to do the same. I have to really disagree that only small percentage of series for which we have articles that have endings. I'd say its the reverse. The greater majority are for completed series, and such there is an ending and writing a summary of the work is relatively easy. For unlicensed works, unless the series was unknown (in which case, its unlikely to have a plot at all), finding the ending is also relatively easy. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No that's not what I was getting at. I didn't say that the minority of series weren't complete; as you said, most of them are complete. But (BIG but), the vast majority of the time, we won't have anyone who even knows what the hell happened at the end for series that:

1. Have never been officially translated or distributed in English in their entirety
2. Are very long (Urusei Yatsura), and therefore it would be hard to find anyone who knows what happened at the end and be willing to write a summary. Anyone else who hasn't read the series may not want to be spoiled, so they don't look up for forums on the net that have people discussing the ending.

So even if an ending exists for the majority of manga and light novel series that have ended, it's unthinkable to expect that an ending would be able to be written for all of them. This of course doesn't apply to anime-original series since it's so much easier to provide an ending there.--十八 07:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem there is, that by that reasoning, its also unthinkable to expect us to every have GA or FA articles, because in reality its only a handful of editors willing to do the necessary work to do it. The lack of editors at the time something needs addressing shouldn't be an excuse not to have it. Baring all other options, an editor can go read the manga themselves (or at least the last volumes if its a long, licensed series). While I'm not a fan of scanslations, I've also grabbed some to be able to provide a plot summary for its article. Like on Elfen Lied. People wrote about the anime because its licensed, but the manga is extremely easy to read online (though its translation is still on-going). The manga was also released in Spanish, second language of the US, so it isn't unreasonable to think that there are editors who have read the whole series in either format. Quite a bit of the time, especially for anime and manga, its just a matter of expending the necessary effort. Now untranslated light novels, yeah, its real hard because they aren't generally fantranslated in any form, but there are not many series that started as a novel.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

"Not many series that started as a novel"? I think you need to take a look at Dengeki Bunko and MF Bunko J. Granted there are a lot of redlinks in both lists, but imagine if all those had articles, and that's only for two light novel imprints.--十八 07:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I meant relative to manga and anime series. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Chapters vs volumes

I've noticed a lot of manga articles give the number of chapters. While this isn't completely pointless for a serialized medium, I tend to think it should be discouraged since that number goes up on a weekly basis and most pages don't get updated that often. Doceirias (talk) 08:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Only the weekly serials though; I think most manga are serialized in monthly or bimonthly publications. Granted, I've only seen the use of chapter number in the infobox in articles that are serialized weekly (Bleach (manga)). I think it'd be okay to do something like, "As of MONTH YEAR, NUMBER volumes have been sold in Japan, compiling NUMBER chapters." This way the chapter number only has to be updated every time a volume is released.--十八 09:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It's also...who thinks about the chapter number? You might think about the magazines issue number, or the volume number for the tankobon, but unless you're reading scanlations, most people wouldn't consciously notice that they were reading chapter 101. I tend to think the chapters numbers are just not notable. Doceirias (talk) 09:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I started a similar discussion on this awhile back that didn't really go anywhere... I kind of like the chapter numbers myself, but wouldn't mind in the least omitting them. —Dinoguy1000 17:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, at least one application for the chapter number would be for a series that has already ended to show the total chapter count.--十八 22:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Once a series has ended, there's even less reason to include a chapter number, since it is then of relevance to no one. Doceirias (talk) 01:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why not in the prose. Then why do we list episode numbers instead of just DVD volumes?--十八 03:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Because people do watch an episode at a time - very few people read a chapter at a time. Maybe for a book like Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, where every chapter is stand alone... Doceirias (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the chapter count needs to be in the infobox, but in the prose where available I think its appropriate to mention the series spanned X chapters while discussing its serialization information. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:27, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. Doceirias (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I was actually going to suggest that, but you beat me to it... Needless to say, I'd support that as well. —Dinoguy1000 16:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine either way, though unless there's a real good reason for including the number of chapters, I don't really see a need for including them. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

MoS Format

Should we look at reformatting the MoS similar to other MoS, such as WP:MOSTV and WP:MOSFILM, where in the series sections are actual sections instead of bulleted items? I think it would be beneficial for navigating the page, and quick linking to specific sections of the MoS. Also, shouldn't our MoS be updated to include something about the image to go in the infobox? Both TV and Film's MoS include this in the MoS itself to provide guidance. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support if we do this to the character section as well (for consistency): This should also allow as to get rid of the long horizontal lists which are rather difficult to read. We should also try to have consistent list formats: A few of the lists are bullet lists, while other are numbered lists. This seems awkward. G.A.S 06:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, yes, I mean doing both the series and character section :) Also agreed on need for consistency where lists are used. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support as it will make the MOS easier to use, link to, and read. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
• Support, and while we're at it, can we add sections that actually discuss episode/chapter/character list pages, rather than only discussing when and how to split said lists? —Dinoguy1000 17:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  I proposed it awhile ago during the discussions on adding sections. I even wrote a draft version, but the only person to comment on it opposed its use as anything but an essay, feeling it was instruction creep. Kind of an irony as was actually used as a basis for the section on episode lists that now appears in WP:MOSTV. :P -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  It was said that it should be expanded to TV in general, which was done;). I believe it is good advice, but need not be mandatory. G.A.S 20:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done MoS format has been updated. Should we start a separate discussion on the issue of images in the infobox and Dinoguy1000's suggestion for a section on list pages? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Why not? We can in the meanwhile link to WP:MOSTV page. Would it be necessary to duplicate it? It may also be a good time to discuss best practice for the characters section, following Scartol's copy edit and comments on Talk:Tokyo Mew Mew. G.A.S 15:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)