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Archive of discussions from 15 May 2007 – 30 May 2007.

Archiving

I archived the talk page, which was getting long. I kept FFA. Feel free to re-add any important topics. Glad to see new faces, and I hope I can get back into this. Alvin6226 talk 03:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Bidoof

There's some debate over Bidoof's Ness-ness at Talk:Bidoof, and I want second opinions from everyone I can because this anon claims he's achieved cult hit status on ytmnd, GameFAQs, 4chan, etc.. -Jeske (v^_^v) 05:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

EDIT: He's copping no-cite for lack of a Diamond/Pearl cite. -Jeske (v^_^v) 05:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by referring to EarthBound (I've never played it, so I don't know if I'm missing something), but the kid's gotta have reliable sources, and YouTube, YTMND, etc., don't qualify as being reliable. --Brandon Dilbeck 06:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't they be primary sources? (What is Wikipeida policy on primary sources?)
D/P is hardly a relevant source for an online phenomena anyway. --Sonic Mew 14:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I've played EarthBound, and I certainly haven't seen any thing about Bidoof to look like something from that game. It should only be mentioned in the article if Game Freak said something like "Bidoof's design was modeled in homage to EarthBound thematic properties." Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 16:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm really confused about what this has to do with EarthBound. As for being a phenomenon on YTMND, a search for Bidoof brings up only 4 things, which hardly seems like anything. --Brandon Dilbeck 00:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
EarthBound has a cult following, which is what this anon was saying Bidoof has - hence the EarthBound link. However, I managed an armistice. -Jeske (v^_^v) 13:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC) EDIT: Guess not. Bidoof is semi'd. -Jeske (v^_^v) 21:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Kirlia

We're having a bit of a situation going on at Kirlia. User:Luigifan insists on adding a trivia section stating that Cosmo and Kirlia look similar in appearance. It's been removed per WP:TRIVIA but yet he continues to add it. I don't think protection is necessary, but still...help please? -Sukecchi 11:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I saw how it looks like, and trivia sections shouldn't have conicidences anyway. TheBlazikenMaster 17:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
He's not stopping...would someone please help? -Sukecchi 11:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I left a message on his talk page. Bhamv 13:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
He's at it again. He keeps saying "It's already on Bulbapedia, I just want the Wikipedia article to be like that article." -Sukecchi 11:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the species megamerger?

Ah, it's been a long, long time. Anyways, what about the aforementioned experiment? Is anyone working on it, or was it scrapped? If the latter, where's the discussion to that effect? Cheers, The Raven's Apprentice(Profile|PokéNav|Trainer Card) 06:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

It's around, and there are a few of us working on it currently, but it's been going really slow due tp the fact that a lot of us are busy with both our own duties in real life and playing the Pokemon games themselves. Anyway, Zappernapper has been attempting to centralize all discussions about the "mega-merger" here at WPP/Layout, and thus far the merged evo-line pages I have made are Pidgey evolutionary line and Spearow evolutionary line. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 06:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
You can't damage Wikipedia. I have blanked the Pidgey line article because it is violating WP:POINT. Vikrant Phadkay 15:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Cheers. The Raven's Apprentice(Profile|PokéNav|Trainer Card) 07:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I take the above back: check the contribs of You Can't See Me! (talk · contribs) and you'll see he's actually been very active in creating the merged pages (Beldum evolutionary line). I gotta catch up! T'would be ironic if his work is seen more than mine. You can't see him! You can only see me! :D Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 07:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
One of the things I don't understand about this whole thing is the whole point of "Wikipedia is not paper", and thus it shouldn't be considered overcrowded or wasteful to have a really large number of pages, and I don't see how "cutting back on the number of pokemon pages" helps in that. Toastypk 10:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
As is, Toasty, the current Poke articles are poorly sourced, and the merger idea will make it so that we don;t have to rely so much on fansites for verifiable info (supposedly). -Jeske (v^_^v) 13:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Not to mention, 493 pages are hell to maintain, and that doesn't even count anything aside from the creature pages. If anything happened to an article of a less-prominent creature (let's say, Kakuna), it'd be rather hard to notice. Though ~200 articles is still difficult, it should be significantly easier than 493.
As for the pages that are up: Pidgey evolutionary line, Spearow evolutionary line, Porygon evolutionary line, Gastly evolutionary line, Beldum evolutionary line, Lunatone and Solrock. I'll get Magnemite evolutionary line up today, and Abra evolutionary line is my next target. Aside from Pikachu, Mewtwo, and the various lists-by-20, that's all there is/will be soon for now. You Can't See Me! 22:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I think you have valid concerns, Toasty, but it's entirely possible that if Wikipedia were a paper encyclopdia, there'd probably be not very many pages about Pokemon species in it; it's because this is online that some of us think it's okay to have over two hundred separate articles about the Pokemon species. But it's not okay to have 493, apparently, for I'm aware that there are a lot of users outside the Poke project who have decried the sheer amount of pages we've dedicated to the Pokemon franchise and have thought that we were a joke. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 16:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I have serious doubts that turning 493 articles into ~200 articles will appease that faction. --Sonic Mew 17:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It's okay to have doubts, but just remember that all this came out of quite literally an entire half-year of debate on WP:POKE about notability of each individual species and how each specie article's good, reliably sourceable info isn't enough to make a lot of these species properly past stub status, and there was a consensus among a good number of us that this and a host of other problems with these pages could be either fixed or made far less troublesome with some condensing of article space. The reason we didn't say "Well just make the individual pages themselves better by Wikipedia standards" is because that's what we've been trying to do over the couple years the Poke-project's been in existence, but we found that it is simply impossible to properly expand some of the species into uncontroversially Good Article status because Wikipedia is not supposed to rely strictly on direct observation of the games and fansites. And, heh, I think everyone should only be very happy about the entire merge effort because no actual Wiki-proper information would be lost. And hey: until the 200-ish articles are created, I think the other 493 would and should be left alone by mergist users.
As for 200 pages not being enough to appease the faction of Poke-hater users, well, consider what could have happened: only 25 pages covering 20 Pokemon each descriptively, with about 20 pages dedicated strictly to individual species. I was the one who proposed this merge concept with appeasing the faction in mind, but consensus calls for merging by evo-line which is far less controversial to us, and I prefer doing it this way anyway. And I think the Pokemon franchise is extremely notable, notable enough that it deserves that many (200) articles. (I think it's because I'm personally biased towards Pokemon as a die-hard fanboy that I want there to be so many articles about Pokemon species themselves.) Condensing the number of articles on individual species from 500 to 200 is like providing articles with 2.5 times the amount of good encyclopedic content, and I'm sure even the faction would appreciate that. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 19:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
You shouldn't worry too much about pokémon haters. Because we aren't supposed to pay attention to them anyway. This is not the place to say what sucks anyway. TheBlazikenMaster 20:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I do think it's awfully nice, however, that this would appease them to a degree anyway. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 21:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Where is that absconding ZapperNapper? He is finally ruining Wikipedia! He can't escape. Vikrant Phadkay 15:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Vikrant, please bring up substantial concerns about how we could improve Pokémon species coverage rather than making personal attacks claiming that the people supporting this merger are "ruining Wikipedia". – mcy1008 (talk) 16:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
zappernapper is involved with things like reformating his hard drives, dealing with doctors and insurance companies, and enjoying his plethora of new games he got back in april. so yes... yes he can escape, and is enjoying it! -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 21:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I doubt it will stop this ridiculous merger idea, but all 493 Pokemon should have seperate articles and I strongly oppose any merger. Grouping them won't change anything since the source problem will still exist. TJ Spyke 05:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
But grouping them will leave room only for what is necessary. As it is now, most creature articles are loaded with cruft and gameguide which contribute to the sourcing problem. The merge won't stop the sourcing problem for good, but it will cut back on unnecessary details, effectively creating healthily-sized articles with reasonable content. You Can't See Me! 05:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
So you'd rather have 493 problematic articles than 200 ones? This reduces the problem, at least somewaht. hbdragon88 06:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
"all 493 Pokemon should have seperate articles"... that's your only reasoning against the merger? At least provide a logical reason. As hbdragon88 said, 200 problematic articles is better than 493, not to mention a lot of problems will be removed with the merge. --Teggles 06:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes

Okay... rather than working on the species merger, I made a few userboxes.

...you can stop glaring angrily at any time now...

#493This user is a Pokémon Creationist and believes that Arceus is the creator.
 {{User:You Can't See Me!/UBX/Pokecreation}}
#151This user is a Pokémon Evolutionist and believes that Mew is the origin.
 {{User:You Can't See Me!/UBX/Pokeevolution}}
UberThis user uses Ubers in WiFi Pokémon battles.
 {{1=1}}
UberThis user does not use Ubers in WiFi Pokémon battles, but does not mind seeing them there.
 {{User:You Can't See Me!/UBX/Pokeuber}}
UberThis user condemns Ubers in WiFi Pokémon battles.
 {{1=2}}

Enjoy! You Can't See Me! 04:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the numbers in the sideboxes are too big. It's usually about 12. Also, is the number "670" (base stat totals of the most powerful Pokémon) too obscure? I would think the word "Uber" would better convey the message. While we're on the topic of userboxes, I want to point out one I made a while ago: {{User Pokedex}}. You plug in how many Pokémon you've caught. However, the Pokédex in Diamond and Pearl instead display how many you've seen instead. If I liked they way they redid the Pokédex, I'd probably add another parameter, but I don't want to. --Brandon Dilbeck 20:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I altered them. I still think that 12 looked a bit too small for Mew's and Arceus' numbers, so I lowered them to 16 rather than to 12. You Can't See Me!

I think these kinds of userboxes are the epitomy of what's wrong with userboxes. Language ones, likes and dislikes of general and broad categories...cool. But I think that it's a heck of a lot better to simply write out "I don't like ubers in competiive play" or what-not. On an unrelated note, I'm getting pissed off because I just spent a half-hour soft resetting for a Modest Kyogre in Sapphire and still haven't gotten one. hbdragon88 23:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Aaah I don't know who to pick! I've since converted myself to Arceusism after hearing about him, but I forgot about Mew. I'm sure she is important though... Toastypk 11:07, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank God I create custom D&D material with this crap - I treat both as gods anyhoo (three guesses who has a higher Divine Rank after looking at my userpage?). -Jeske (v^_^v) 16:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

As much as I hate to kill off the last FA we have...

Bulbasaur has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. -Amarkov moo! 04:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

How would that make any difference? Wouldn't it automaticlly lose its featured status after the merging anyway? TheBlazikenMaster 13:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
The way this should work is that whether or not any article's Featured Status can be proven to be worthy of keeping its status under the most intense scrutiny determines whether or not that article should be merged somewhere else. Bulbasaur, as I recall, got Featured status, but through some controversy and perhaps some bias as well, and such articles are rather shaky and likely to lose that status over time. If there exists some way to legitimately prove that Bulbasaur can be kept as a Featured Article that can stand up to heavy Wikipedia scrutiny uncontroversially, and we undertake that way of making it so, then Bulbasaur would remain in its own article. Otherwise, a lot of us can agree that a merged page covering Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and Venusaur all together has a far better chance of getting the coveted Featured status; that's one of the core reasons why we think the mega-merger-by-evo-line effort can only be immensely beneficial to both the coverage of the Pokemon franchise and the integrity of the Pokeproject itself. With the mega-merger we can potentially have 200 Featured Articles, rather than 493 pages where most of them can't really be expanded beyond stub status and only a fraction of those 493 can uncontroversially make it to Good Article status. (And no good information would be lost through the merging process either.)
Notice how we're finding that Bulbasaur, of all Pokemon, may be on the verge of losing its Featured Status; yet I'm pretty sure Bulbasaur is among Pokemon's most notable species, and Bulbasaur has even been noted in some reliable sources like news outlets and TIME magazine. Yet even with some of the Bulbasaur page's sources counting as good, legitimate sources to cite by Wikipedia standards, Bulbasaur still seems to be in a dangerous position by Featured Article standards. If that's the case, then what chance do the hundreds of other far-less-notable Pokemon like Bronzor and Combee have of getting Featured Status? But we can give perhaps all of the species the chance to be part of Featured Status articles by merging them by evo-line. The end result of this effort will be as important and effective to Wikipedia's coverage of Pokemon species as the spine and rib cage are to supporting the human body. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 19:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, most FAs are usually not merged...this would be new. But just as FAs are considered to be notable (and any AFD atempts are speedy keeps), I believe that its FA status needs to be revoked before merging/deleting. Similar situation occured over at WP:FPC when it was realized that a picture that was about to be featured on the front page prohibited noncommercial use. hbdragon88 22:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Unilateral change because nobody would discuss it

I've changed some stuff in the style guide, trying to remove our current absurdly rigid "you will use this format" approach. I would have liked discussion, but the thread I started on it got archived after nobody commented. -Amarkov moo! 03:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Ruffresia

make him go awaaaaay
And someone mention Porygon to him, will they? I remembered that little ENGRISH NAME IN ENGLISH only right after I reverted him again D:—Ｌｏｖｅはドコ？ (talk • contribs) 06:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me (s)he's confused Vileplume for the actual Rafflesia plant. There's no way I could do this without coming off as trying to show sharp teeth. -Jeske (v^_^v) 07:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I am breaking out the warning templates now! I just used {{uw-error1}}. He keeps this up and it escalates to {{uw-error2}}, {{uw-error3}}, {{uw-vandalism4}} and finally report to WP:AIV. Funpika 11:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I have given "Ruffresia" a citation needed tag, simply because if it's not official, it's wrong. --Teggles 23:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Ruffresia is the official trademark. --Sonic Mew 23:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted a link to Transcribing English to Japanese. Hopefully our little IP friend will follow it and get the message. You Can't See Me! 00:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I just used {{uw-error2}}. If he does this 3 more times then I will report to WP:AIV where he will most likely be blocked. Funpika 01:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
He got blocked. * 10:31, 21 May 2007 Waggers (Talk | contribs) blocked "68.13.204.125 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 31 hours (Vandalism)
31 hour block for that guy. Funpika 18:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

We need someone with AWB.

Resolved

Now that the discussion on template for deletion is finished we need someone that hsa AWB, because it will take too much time to replace all the text. Subst'ing is too late now. But we can replace the dead templates by something though. Let's all replace it by something like "In Pokémon Anime", or something like that. Yeah, so who is with me? TheBlazikenMaster 15:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No No forget all of this. Vikrant Phadkay 15:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, some bot is doing all the job. TheBlazikenMaster 16:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:PokePage

Template:PokePage has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -Amarkov moo! 22:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

We need to actually discuss what I originally wanted.

Five topics from me now!

Anyway, it's kinda nice to have made people actually start doing the mega-merger. The problem is, we strayed off the topic. I'll stick with the same example I used last time, for simplicity:

Let's assume that the merger goes fine, and the entire Whismur evo line is merged. The problem is, there are still no reliable secondary sources on any of the Pokemon included. By the standards we'd apply to any other article, it should obviously be deleted. But that won't happen, because most people still have the viewpoint that we can't delete one species (or evo line) article without deleting them all. Nobody has yet given a good reason why. So, why? -Amarkov moo! 04:51, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, I can't honestly say, aside from a hope to retain some measure of the Pokemon test and or just plain ol' resistance to change. We can obviously keep articles on the familiar Pokes (Pikachu, Mewtwo), but it's going to be a chore to find enough secondary sources to keep AfD-the-Ripper away. -Jeske (v^_^v) 04:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Obviously not. That's kinda the point, that no AfD will come to a decision to delete Pokemon articles. -Amarkov moo! 05:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
That would be the "'ol resistance to change" number. Reading the AfD, I wasn't expecting you to just throw in the towel (your closing statement was, and I quote, "This is pointless."). Try and get momentum going for people to make the kinds of changes necessary to screw out the Pokemon test (I can't). -Jeske (v^_^v) 05:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
That's the problem; I'm not sure what to do. I think I'll go rewrite the style guideline more to make it clear that there isn't a required format, which will have some unspecified effect. -Amarkov moo! 05:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if cutting the format will help. If anything, it'd make the articles less organized and more difficult to maintain, especially now that multiple monsters are being discussed per page. In any case, I think that this merger is the right idea. I'm not usually an incrimentalist, but when it comes to a massive, fan-crushing, high-resistance elimination of the scale of wiping Pokémon articles off of Wikipedia... I'm just saying that the best thing to do in this scenario is to shrink the monsters until nobody cares any more, and then get the axe. Not that I want this to happen; I'd also like to see each of the monsters stay. You Can't See Me! 06:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The way I see it, the whole mega-merger is merely an improvement to the overall situation of 493 articles, but it probably doesn't count as a great fix, but I'm not sure if a fix to the sourcing issue exists, other than to delete such articles like Whismur. If there were a way to provide quality sourcing to each of the 493 pages, they would all retain their own pages, and no merging would've happened. And if that way existed, we would've implemented it to keep the 493 articles in their places long ago. But it's been debated and concluded over the past six months that enough quality sourcing simply does not exist for each specie to support its own page; it is my belief that what little quality sourcing Whismur, Loudred, and Exploud have would stack up in a merged page about them, which should be an improvement to Amarkov's cause as well as a general improvement in content, context, and presentation. I originally proposed twenty descriptive list pages only, covering 20 Pokemon each, with fully solving the sourcing issue in mind, but it's been proven by now that it's just far more feasible to the community to merge by evo-line. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 17:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
But no reasonable merger will solve the problem, which is that there are no reliable secondary sources. Combining many articles with no good sources does not create good sources. Granted, there are some cases where the merger will definitely help, but there still won't be good sourcing for any of the Whismur line. -Amarkov moo! 18:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe not, but I think many of us agree that merging is preferred over deleting. What it all boils down to: Most of the 493 species do not have reliable secondary sourcing, and that type of sourcing is the lifeblood of an article dedicated strictly to a specific subject. If any article on Wikipedia has no sourcing, it ends up a stub article that can never become higher-rank, and if there's any place where the article can be merged to, the merger seems to ALWAYS happen, whether it's sooner or later. The main difference here is that multiple stub specie articles are being merged together in groups, which can admittedly be controversial on its own, but no one wants to see the alternative to happen: mass deletion of specie articles. Like I said, I think we can only rely on implementing a mass improvement in the form of evo-line merging because a mass sourcing fix doesn't apparently exist. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 18:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Just out of curiously, isn't Exploud more notable than Whismur? TheBlazikenMaster 18:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Marginally, yes. I picked Whismur because it was the most insignificant Pokemon I could find. But neither is really notable, I think. -Amarkov moo! 18:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This is just a massive problem with many kinds of lists: they do not have third party soruces. I attempted to nominate List of Virtual Dungeon monsters on the same grounds and it was a near-unanimous keep. Wikipedia likes to look the other way and pretend the problem doesn't exist. hbdragon88 18:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that AfD discussion was terrible. At least every Pokemon is mentioned in some reliable secondary source, even if it's just the stupid Pokemon handbook... -Amarkov moo! 19:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Looking at that AFD, I would've voted Weak Keep on the grounds that monster-based relatively notable franchises like Virtual Dungeon need a supplemental, descriptive list page of the monsters (or robots or whatever), or at least the most important ones, for the sake of coverage; otherwise I wouldn't be able to know very much about the franchise. (And I currently don't, by the way. ^_^) The sourcing issue with that page means it won't become a Featured List, but that's about it; if it's still has practical information based on the other kind of sourcing provided, and fancruft is consistently toned down, I think it should still be kept. (The real problem with that page is all the images.)
It's because of the general lack of quality sources on the Pokemon species that we decided that 493 species should be merged down to 200, thus promoting better coverage; I think there's still some quality sources for all the species, which is why I support merging them than deleting them. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 19:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The franchise is VR Troopers, not Virtual Dungeon; the Virtual Dungeon is the location where those monsters are located. In my personal opinion, I don't consider monsters to be notable because 99% of them are the "monster of the week," unlike the other recurring characters. A Man In Black (talk · contribs) attemped to tackle the issue at my request, but another user opposed, and another admin rolled back AMIB's reverting to the non-images version and protection of the page. After that, it just stagnated. hbdragon88 19:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
D'oh! *slaps self on head* As you can see, I know nothing about the franchise. Anyway, looking at the article, I take my above statement back; I would've voted to merge the most important characters in the list into the page about Virtual Dungeon itself. One of AMIB's old taglines was that if a character can't be reasonably covered in the article on the work or franchise where he appears, that's the only circumstance when he should be in either his own article or a merged list article. Pokemon are much more notable than that, however, so merging them by evoline seems extremely reasonable as a mass improvement. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 19:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Why are we talking about a man in black? He hasn't been active on this project since late March. TheBlazikenMaster 19:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
A bit of history. Erik mentioned the images, and I was just relaying the history about my previous attemps to get rid of the images. Just a bit off-topic. AMIB has stated his preference for just merging into the main articles themselves; i.e. I merged the Cipher article into Colosseum, as he said that real-world context was better. We could discuss the role of Cipher in both Colosseum and XD. AMIB has also stated that there would still be problems with ~200 evoline-evolution articles, though this merger proposal discusses merging all lone Pokes and legendaries into their own articles, which reduces that problem a bit. hbdragon88 19:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
If anyone is wondering how this will turn out, WP:DIGI did something similar and it is still going on: Wikipedia:WikiProject Digimon/Article reorganization and the lists at List of Fresh Digimon and related pages. Granted, it's rather different as Digimon that appear across multiple seasons are not always the same and there is no national "dex" ordering, but it's similar. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Well well well! That's really great. I had no idea that the project dedicated to history's other Mon franchise was attempting to do something similar. The Poke and Digi projects came up with their respective merge plans on their own, apparently, which attests to the necessity of refraining from dedicating separate articles to every single fluffy monster in a big franchise on this general encyclopedia. I believe the fact that both Mon franchises have been merging themselves into something more coherent means that either franchise's Wiki-project sets an excellent precedent for each other. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 17:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
A little more background: The reason for merging was the fact that most Digimon (off the top of my head, Kougamon) were not notable enough as WP:FICT says, as opposed to sourcing as is the problem here. x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, you're right. Most Digimon aren't notable, and while most Pokemon are a good deal more notable, their problem is the sourcing. The merge discussions here are basically based on how pairing the general sourcing issues among the Pokemon articles with the fact that most hate the idea of so many separate species articles produces a scenario stating that, at the very least, the number of articles need to be toned down. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 18:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia likes to look the other way and pretend the problem doesn't exist". Well, that's certainly what you guys seem to be doing. The merger was the background of the the opening post, not the subject, so all that blather about it was off-topic. Stop acting like the merging will magically make everything better and start thinking up some real answers for the sourcing issue! --Sonic Mew 03:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The merge won't fix the sourcing problem; that's a given. I doubt that sourcing will ever be fixed on Pokemon creature articles unless they are particularly notable in the long run, which already wipes out at least 480 of the current 493 pokemon. Merging will aid the problem, though. Currently, there is a load of filler content on most Pokemon creature articles. That's because there isn't enough to say about any one particular Pokemon (for the most part, anyways). By combining articles, there will be less need for this problem with crufty and gameguiding filler content. By leaving only the essentials, there will be less to source, indirectly reducing the magnitude of the sourcing problem. You Can't See Me! 03:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I was just saying that there is no solution, because deleting the lot of the articles would be highly unpopular. I listed one page as an example where there was vehemet opposition to the unfanthomable idea that articles need third party sources. hbdragon88 17:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm starting to feel like a broken record in my replies, and I'm sure some other merger proponents are feeling the same way, but I'll repost again what the merger is supposed to be about regardless: this is not meant to make all problems with Pokemon articles magically disappear, and we're pretty sure no sourcing solution exists that doesn't involve mass-deleting most of the hundreds of specie articles. This is all meant to be an easy and non-controversial measure to take that will merely tone down all of the issues somewhat, including the sheer number of stubby and crufty Pokemon pages, and that sort of improvement is what we can safely undertake at this point. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 21:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Heads up - AFD

The merger articles got AFD'd, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Porygon_evolutionary_line.

Bhamv 15:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Pokémon (1-20) (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Pokémon (21-40) (2nd nomination)
Bhamv 15:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
As you can see, people get surprised when being first aware of a big merger attempt at a set of articles notoriously crufty yet blindly defended for what must be years now; the 493 specie pages have been stagnantly separate and uneventful for so long, and user Pokefans have wanted it unconditionally kept at such an unhealthy high number over those years, that the idea of a mega-merger does come as a shock, whether it's a too-good-to-be-true shock or a WTF-are-you-bastards-doing shock.
The main thing each of the newbies to the merger should know is that this was the result of roughly six entire months of debate about notability and content quality of Pokemon specie articles in general; granted, it's because of that that it's extremely hard to research all the talk page archives to get to see the full story behind the merger. It's only because I participated in all those debates that I'm aware of the full story; otherwise I'd be on the wall over this merger effort myself. At Talk:Ralts evolutionary line, YCSM makes a rather valiant attempt to link to the more relevant discussions concerning the merger in answer to one newbie user's question; the user in response has said he's not against the merger. (Good for him, too: HeroicJay is one of my colleagues in Smashdom. ^_^)
I wouldn't be rattled by whatever objections and AFDs initially shocked users post about this, the merger concept is admittedly hardcore, but then again so were the debates leading up to it. If it seems like it's only a few users working on the merger, it's because all the other users supporting the merger are likely busy with their own things, both on-wiki and real life. I should know; I have a Philosophy final tommorrow. (Which explains why I've been speaking with such bloated diction recently.) Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 16:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's still not clear to a lot of users that this is a merge, not an addition. I don't know how we could get our point across to those who do not read the discussions and such. The only thing I think might work is if we begun to redirect those articles whose info had been merged. Any thoughts on the matter? You Can't See Me! 19:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think redirecting is worth a try. Bhamv 02:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Just let the lists be deleted. For the many species articles, if they ain't broke, don't try to fix it.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:03, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

They are "broke." Sourcing is a terrible problem due to excessive "filler" content; putting them together will reduce the need for that content and somewhat aid in the sourcing department. Also having every creature get an article is undue weight, even for a topic as large and popular as Pokemon. You Can't See Me! 23:07, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Then eliminate the unsourced filler content and just have stubs. Or perhaps cite instances to the episodes they appeared in. Merging the articles into arbitrary lists based on where they are in the in game numbering systems will cause issues with copyright and fair use. Merging them into arbitrary connections based on in game evolutionary line will lead to issues as well.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
No more issues will come from merging than we already have from treating things as individually notable when they aren't. -Amarkov moo! 23:15, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Merging by evos is not arbitrary; it's merging by connections established in multiple first-party sources. Merging by number is currently under fire at the layout page, and we're now trying to find a way to work around that. Please elaborate on how merging will violate copyright and fair use, though. I don't see any immediate connections there. You Can't See Me! 23:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Non-free content criteria states that the minimal amount of fair use images should be used. Currently, the list based on number format is violating that. Recreating stubs or perhaps working on this in a sandbox would be better than having created duplicate content in the first place.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:37, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
The number list is disappearing anyways. Keep updated at WT:PCP/Layout. You Can't See Me! 02:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
The mergers are also causing issues with the interwiki linking. There is no way that the interwiki linking system will work when the Pokémon pages are still separate at the Japanese Wikipedia unless some sort of template is set up just to provide Interwiki links similar to the Main Page's interwiki links.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
So it won't link up. It's not that huge of a problem, especially given the amount of cleanup that would result. As the saying goes, you need to crack a few eggs to make an omlette. You Can't See Me! 02:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
AFAIK, on pages named after Pokemon that would be redirects, you can still have things like categories underneath redirects; the redirect page's title will therefore show up in the category itself, and clicking it will bring you through the redirect to the merge target. In other words, categories actually won't be an issue with the merger plan. I personally wouldn't be surprised if you could achieve the same effect with the interwiki link by posting the links on the redirect page. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 17:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at this Hyuuga Clan article. The English interwiki link leads to Land of Fire#Hyuga Clan. I guess the same could be done for the Pokemon creatures. It would be a one-way deal, but so is the Hyuga Clan thing. You Can't See Me! 02:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: The articles survived. You Can't See Me! 13:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, really, there should be no AFDs for pages involved with a huge merger debate in progress until such a debate reaches some form of consensus. We should probably put notices on the merge pages saying "This article is being considered as a merged version of several other articles concerning several fictional Pokemon species. Therefore, PLEASE refer to the following relevant discussions before considering putting this article on AfD: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]" That's what I think. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 17:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Now the question is, how do we proceed from here? Do we go on with the merge as planned? Is the format set already (the discussion on the layout page hasn't progressed for a while)? Or do we wait a bit more? We really should have a more organized system about this. You Can't See Me! 00:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need this?

I don't think we need Category:Legendary Pokémon Trios.--Tempest115 23:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's empty. I would say a speedy delete is in order. --Brandon Dilbeck 02:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
It's gone now. That was fast. It looks as though the creator of the category intended to group items in the category together—something that isn't really possible with categories—so he gave up and left it to die. --Brandon Dilbeck 02:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of accuracy and continuity...

I've noticed that many of the first, second, and third generation guys don't have information on their locations in Diamond and Pearl. Since most have their location written down in the article under "In the video games" for the other generations, I was wondering if we should add the fourth-gen information, or if it would be too game-guidish. I personally think it would be a good idea.Leprechaun Gamer 23:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that locations in any games should be included unless their location is particularly notable (i.e. Snorlaxen who block off the path to somewhere). -23:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Maybe a general habitat can be given if those are consistent (Gastly almost always appearing in old buildings, for instance), but otherwise locations are filler content. Snorlax/Soodowoodo/Kecleon are good examples of otherwise notable locations. You Can't See Me! 01:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's just that I found that the locations for the other generations were listed, so I was just wondering if we should delete those specific locations (i.e. Caterpie appears in Viridian Forest) or include where to find them in Diamond and Pearl (i.e. Porygon appears in the Trophy Garden on certain days).Leprechaun Gamer 11:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Remove the Caterpie-like ones (WP:NOT#IINFO); add the Porygon one because D/P is the first time Porygon is found wild (in every other game, Porygon is either unavailable or can only be bought from the Game Corner). -Jeske (v^_^v) 13:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but I wanna give some examples of nonnotable ones. Rattata/Raticate in the Johto and Kanto games shouldn't have all their locations listed as they are almost anywhere. Same goes to Zigzagoon/Linoone in Ruby/Sapphire (though they aren't that common in Emerald), maybe we should just list the most notable locations. For example, Wurmples should be listed to Petalburg Woods as it's the most ntoable location, even though it still can be found elsewhere in the games. TheBlazikenMaster 23:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Union

Hello there, members of the Anglophone WikiProject Pokémon. I'm a member of the project, but also one of the administrators of the Wikiprojeto Pokémon, the Lusophone project for Pokémon related articles. We're passing through reformulations on the Lusophone Wikipedia and thus I had an idea for the four languages projects Pokémon: why not create like international relations between the projects, where the members could discuss about how to help each project in other languages (like create an universal template, style and others)? This idea is still basic, but I think it'd be a great step on the development of all Pokémon projects. Think about this and contact me here or in Portuguese and Japanese Wikipedias. Thank you for the atention.

ManecoWifi 16:24, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused...

I just looked at the Ash Ketchum article, and it said that he accidentally caught an Arceus, but decided he didn't like it and sent it to Professor Oak. Naturally, I had trouble believing it, but when I checked again, it didn't say anything about any Arceus. Could someone clear this up for me? Is it true, or was it just vandalism?Leprechaun Gamer 02:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism. You Can't See Me! 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
It was vandalism, reverted in this edit: [1] Bhamv 03:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Archives

I notice that the archives before number 15 still have the Collaborative Project's name on it (e.g. Wikipedia talk:Pokémon Collaborative Project/Archive 14#We're in trouble.). Is there any way to fix this so that if we have to link to some archive earlier than no. 15? -Jeske (v^_^v) 01:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects, I guess? You Can't See Me! 02:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
To where? -Jeske (v^_^v) 03:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Let's say, we create Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pokémon/Archive 14, which redirects to Wikipedia talk:Pokémon Collaborative Project/Archive 14. Linking to sections would still require PCP, though. You Can't See Me! 03:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Can't we move the individual pages to "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pokémon/Archive foo"? -Jeske (v^_^v) 03:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I suppose, but I thought that archives are supposed to be as historically accurate as possible. Perhaps I am mistaken, though. You Can't See Me! 04:35, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

What not to merge

Are the legendary Pokemon species articles going to be merged? If Yes then which of them? Vikrant Phadkay 14:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the idea is that we merge whatever can't be a standalone article. That means that all the trios will likely end up merged, because the pokemon in them are not independently notable. Mewtwo and Mew probably can get their own articles, and I'm not sure what we're going to do with the rest of the legendaries, which don't have a clear way to merge. -Amarkov moo! 15:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, realistically that's what this merger plan is supposed to be all about at its core; if a Pokemon specie is not able to hold its own against the full extent of the scrutiny of the Wikipedia community, based on the quality of the page's sources and what type of content is in it, then it is considered for merging with a redirect somewhere else; that's pretty much what would happen with any other Wikipedia article. If all 493 of the species had better sourcing and more information about them that would not be considered mere game guide and OR, then they'd all stay where they are and a merger concept would not have been considered.
As it stands, the fact that even such notable Pokemon like Bulbasaur and Charizard have such trouble with getting to and keeping Featured Article status is a strong indicator that all the other less notable Pokemon like Baltoy and Claydol have no real hope of becoming full, legitimate articles separately, but merged evo-line pages with Baltoy and Claydol being covered together have much more of a real hope for that. That's pretty much what was agreed upon at this talk page by many users in the past. :/ Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 17:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Let's note that if any one Pokemon gains enough secondary sources, the option of using {{main|X}} is still there. I doubt this will happen for at least 480 of the current Pokemon, but a select few have potential. You Can't See Me! 17:51, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking Charizard has some notability - from what I've seen, he's probably the most popular starter besides Pikachu. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that the event legendaries (Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, Deoxys, Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus) can have their own articles. Funpika 00:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Palkia, Dialga, and Arceus (possibly Giratina as well) could probably be in one article. Mew and Mewtwo could be separate, as they are probably the most well-known legendaries. The legendary birds (the trio and Lugia/Ho-oh), legendary beasts, Latias/Latios, Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza, etc. - A Link to the Past (talk) 02:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Cresselia and Darkrai both have something to do with dreams, moon phases, and so forth. All we need now is a movie or a special to officially link them together and they can get a joint page. Other than that, I prefer merging:
  • By legendary trios
  • Lugia & Ho-oh
  • Latios & Latias
  • Kyogre, Groudon, & Rayquaza
  • Dialga, Palkia, & Giratina
  • Event monsters
  • Phione & Manaphy, though they might be sections of the event monsters
  • All remaining post-E4 Shinnoh legendaries (Heatran, Regigigas, and Cresselia if the Cres/Dark merge never comes about).
You Can't See Me! 03:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
ALTP, you're mixing notability with popularity. Charizard may well be the most popular, but it is just as unattributed as less-popular Pokemon articles. --Teggles 03:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
He's the rarest card in the series, a "legendary" in Ranger (and a main character), a pretty main character in the anime (with a significant role in at least the 2000 movie), is the only main starter evo to appear in GS' intro, and on top of that, he appears far more often throughout the whole anime than most any other Pokémon (excluding Meowth and Pikachu). - A Link to the Past (talk) 08:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Once again, that's not notability. Did you read the link? "This concept is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity"." --Teggles 11:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think some of that is notability, the fact that the creators of Pokemon have put Charizard inside so many more roles in Pokemon media than most other species, and if Charizard was particularly famous and popular as a card, that's considered somewhat encyclopedic. And I believe more second-party sources have talked about Charizard in roles such as the third Pokemon movie. In other words, Charizard has better sourcing than most of the other species out there; it's just that it's still very hard-seeming to craft a Featured Article for it because the sourcing still doesn't quite go the full distance. I think whether to merge Charizard or not is a slightly prickly issue. Erik Jensen (Appreciate|Laugh At) 16:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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