Template talk:Infobox fictional vehicle/Archive 1

Archive 1

Status/Fate

I am considering relabelling "Status" to be "Fate", in accordance with WP:WAF. Having "Status" on a starship is particularly troublesome with Star Trek, which is set in multiple time-frames (obviously TNG era is set later than Generations, for example, but it is not clear that an infobox for the Enterprise-B ought to be saying "Status: Destroyed or decommissioned", when the last time we saw it, it was great, with many years of potential adventures. Morwen - Talk 08:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Take into account this is a global infobox not a Star Trek only infobox.. if the status is unknown then it shouldnt be stated in the infobox. Deus (talk · contribs · count · email) 08:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Aye, WP:WAF applies everywhere, not just Star Trek (it's just that Star Trek's multi time setting highlights its wisdom). Morwen - Talk 08:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Dont forget WP:WAF was writen to make writing about anything not related to: Slugs, Koalas or Cars, et cetera, extremly difficult.. I also dont get what you mean about the Status, fate thing..? Deus (talk · contribs · count · email) 08:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No, WP:WAF was written to try to bring up the extremely poor standards of articles about fictional material.

By saying the ship has a current "status" we are putting ourselves inside the context of the universe in a particular timeframe. Saying "fate" is an out-of-universe perspective. All these ships will get destroyed or decommissioned or something eventually. We know how the -nil, -A (probably), -C and -D end up, but not the -B and the -E. So -nil fate: blown up, -A fate: probably decommissioned, -B fate: unknown, presumably not active around the 2340s to make way for the C, -C fate: asplode. D fate: asplode. E fate: unknown. Morwen - Talk 09:36, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

If its unknown you shouldnt be calling the status field just to put "Unknown" - eitherway i've changed it to make you happy. Deus (talk · contribs · count · email) 09:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ta. By the way, do you know what the "First Appearance" or "Last Appearance" fields are for here: real world or internal chronology? (So, for example, should the USS Defiant be first appearance: In A Mirror, Darkly or The Tholian Web?) Morwen - Talk 10:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

When I created the template the idea I had in mind is to take the real world to keep things simple and not make it confusing :) - All pages using this template to my knowledge do it by the real world first appearance. Deus (talk · contribs · count · email) 10:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

That's good, at least. Personally, I find it very confusing to have an infobox which mixes up real world and fictional data (some of which is actual narrative elements, others of which are technobabble), all together. For example USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) just outright says: "Launched: 2245", as if that was a settled thing. Morwen - Talk 10:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It does also say in the intro "The USS Enterprise is a fictional starship" ;)! Deus (talk · contribs · count · email) 10:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. and so we should treat it as one. Morwen - Talk 10:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Manufacturer

As per discussion, I would like to propose an additional parameter "manufacturer" to list the manufacturer of the corresponding spacecraft. The reasoning is:

• The name "fictional spacecraft" does not exclude mass produced, i.e. non-capital spacecrafts,
• The manufacturer association for these mass produced ones is not different as in e.g. the registry,
• Option is to be optional,
• Plural in manufacturer can be handled as in Template:Infobox Aircraft.

-- Ylai 09:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing is I can't see any usefulness to this, registry does have a usefulness as often notable ships have notable registries (e.g., Enterprise, NC-1701(-X)). I personally don't know of any science fiction where manfacturer plays a notable role in the ship except being trivial. Also the template as designed can be used on any spacecraft (i.e. Space stations, battlecruisers or fighters, etc). Arguably fighters/aux. craft play a crucial role for spacecrafts (i.e. Vipers in BSG, SA-43s in SAaB or F-302s in Stargate). Matthew 09:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Then please explain why an optional manufacturer would hinder the template being suitable for any of these functions. -- Ylai 09:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Manafacturers do not play a notable role in fictional spacecraft, better to write it in prose. - Peregrine Fisher 09:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

As in the example above, the manufacturer in SAaB is a crutial information, since the manufacturer itself is part of the story arc. -- Ylai 09:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Apart from being trivial I do not remember Saratoga's manufacturer Aero-Tech playing any significant role, none the less there's no reason why it can not be written in prose. Matthew 09:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

See episodes 1.03, 1.10, 1.16, 1.24. Also, information regarding manufacturer is easily tabulated. Otherwise one could argue everything can be written in prose. -- Ylai 09:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Everything *should* be written as prose as well, the infobox wasn't designed to replace well written text, if everything "easily tabulated" was added then this template would have died long-ago. Also see WP:WAF#Infoboxes_and_succession_boxes, I'm not a big liker of WAF, however it does indeed define why manufacturer should not be added, as unlike weapons, or fighters and even arguably registry manufacturers aren't essential to the ship. Matthew 09:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

1. The key in WP:WAF is - quote - "understanding the entity's context", and above I am still waiting for an argument why Aero-Tech is unessential to understand the context. Also, e.g. an numerical and mostly arbitrary registry is to the lesser extent essential for the contextual understanding.
2. Nowhere did I ever argue to replace the information in prose by the infobox. The context for the debate has been whether to write it in prose only. -- Ylai 09:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Aero-Tech plays no essential role in the ship, it just "made" it, "For entities within fiction, useful infobox data would include the creators or actors, first appearance, an image, and in-universe information essential to understanding the entity's context in the overall fiction." - thus the manufacturer is not essential information to provide commentary/information on the ship. Thus this information is better written in OOU prose. Matthew 09:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, you are still arguing about the ship itself and not the context. -- Ylai 09:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes are for information that is universal to their subject. Manufacturer isn't specified for most, and isn't important for almost all the rest. Just mention it in the article. - Peregrine Fisher 09:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes aren't meant to be only the intersection of the subjects, but it could also be the union. And in the case it is unspecified or contextually unimportant, it does not have to use an optional parameter. -- Ylai 09:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

For another example, see: Template:SW Craft. -- Ylai 10:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"Crew count"

This doesn't seem to be needed in my opinion, a ship's crew in fiction is basically not-constant... people die, there is new crew and the fact is it's unverifiable for the fiction as a whole. Matthew 19:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: The only usage is: 360 - 1,000. This to me seem to trivial and is on par with "eye colour" in character boxes (in my opinion). Matthew 19:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree -- its variability makes it in-apt for infobox content. "Crew capacity" I imagine would stay static, but that's some pretty useless, un-informative trivia. --EEMeltonIV 19:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll be bold and remove it then. I'd agree as well that "Crew capacity" would likely stay static, and that it would also be too trivial (that's not factoring the point it isn't really relevant to the ship its self). Matthew 21:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Designed

Thinking about adding a "designed by" field (i.e. who designed the ship). Any opinions on this? My personal opinion is that it's useful OOU information—and I don't believe it to be trivial, either. Matthew 20:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Status

Is the "Status" field in-universe? The entry for the Enterprise-D says its "status" is destroyed, but it's not destroyed in Encounter at Farpoint or even its "last appearance" in the ST:E finale. Erm. Thoughts? Perhaps "Status" should be changed to "Fate" or something more indicative of its (final) status? Or maybe rename the field "in-universe status" (although that would look ugly). --EEMeltonIV 17:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmph, I see the tense problem.. perhaps we should consider removing it. Matthew 17:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I've changed it to fate. --EEMeltonIV 19:01, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Alternate names

Some fictional ships (like many, many real water-type ships) have previous or alternate names, or nicknames. Can somebody add a field for that? I tried but failed (rarely edit infoboxes). Ingolfson (talk) 11:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Way too in-universe

Right now this is way too oriented towards in-universe data. We need more real-world fields in here (designer, appearances, whether the thing was portrayed by a model or CG et cetera). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Last -> Most recent

I've changed the "last appearance" field to "most recent" in an attempt to clarify in- and out-of-universe ambiguity. I figure "most recent" more clearly anchors it in terms of our real-world time frame. And I think it'd be easier to explain the in- and out-of-universe distinction to those who sometimes jumble it up. "Last" also connotes that it isn't coming back, which wouldn't be the case with ships that aren't destroyed/retired. --EEMIV (talk) 13:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder, though, whether the field is really all that necessary . . . Hmm. Does this field potentially open up the "Well, it appeared most visible in Return of the Jedi, but a few years later it was part of Marvel Comic #87" -- i.e. "trivial" appearances? Thoughts from any of the, like, three people who watch this page? ;-) I know, I'm making a fuss about a template that's existed just fine for a long time. --EEMIV (talk) 13:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

After butting heads with another editor about this field's entry in one article, I'm again raising the question as to whether a "Latest appearance" field is necessary. Chris? Matthew? --EEMIV (talk) 21:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. It's just another aspect of unnecessary recentism. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)