The following messages are from User talk:HD3#Removal of game names from location articles. They were moved here in the hope to attract more opinions on the subject, namely whether the games character or location appear in should be mentioned in the lead section. – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 12:36, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. I have noticed that you rewrote a number of articles about Dragon Age II locations and removed mention of the game from the lead sections. I strongly disagree with these changes and think that they should be discussed first on the forum. Currently most of our leads follow the style "X is a Y in Z" (with the exception of lore articles), and I think that we should keep it. It's essential information that should be available without having to potentially scroll the page and look in the infobox. – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 15:15, July 1, 2013 (UTC)
While i certainly would not support universal removal of the applicable game name from the lead-in, i do feel very strongly that holding such a policy as universal is both a questionable practice and in reality, something that has already been ignored to a considerable extent. A vast number of articles, character articles in particular, do not carry this style. I imagine due to issues similar to labeling an NPC such as Meredith as "the chief antagonist" in "dragon age 2" being an unmarked spoiler if nothing else.
While i certainly understand your concerns about wanting essential information easily locatable at the top of the article, given that the info box universally appears at the top of the article (usually immediately next to the lead in which outlines which game is relevant) mentioning the game seems largely redundant. The obvious exception of course being when the article's subject's role has shifted singificantly between installments. E.G Alistair being a companion in DA:O and only appearing as an npc in DA:2, would certainly warrant such a distinction in the lead-in rather than relying on the Appearances section of the info-box.
Perhaps maintaining the current lead-in style while extending the exception to character articles would be an effective solution? Anyway, given the weight of your concern i will not make any further such changes to any location articles until we've reached a consensus. -HD3 (talk) 01:57, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
It is not really a policy, the closest we have is DA:LEAD that states:
The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable.
Can you explain why mentioning the game is a questionable practice? I don't think that potential spoilers are a problem since "major character" instead of "the chief antagonist" would work just as well.
While the infobox appears next to the lead, the appearances row does not. For example, see Alistair. On my machine there is a distance of 1135 pixels from the top of the monitor to the row. A lot of people won't even see it until they scroll the page. And the infobox is meant to be redundant – it is a summary of the article after all. – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 08:46, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
I feel it is a questionable policy because having to repeat ""X" is a character in "Y"" at the top of every page is both largely self evident and unnecessary. People are intelligent enough that they could work out that an article with a person's name is a character article without us having to explicitly state "X is a character in Dragon Age". So the only essential information contained in such a statement is which installment they appear in. That i agree with you should be clearly marked.
You cite the Alistair page as an example of how someone might be forced to scroll down to see the bottom of the infobox to know which installment they appear in. I'm not sure why expecting someone to scroll down slightly would be such a bad thing. But anyway, that's a moot point because in the overwhelming majority of articles the bottom of the infobox appears in the initial load of the page without having to scroll down at all. E.G Meredith and Elthina. Pages with infoboxes large enough that you must scroll down to see the appearance column are more an exception than a rule. All our affiliated wikias, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed etc, employ a similar policy regarding lead-ins for character articles E.G h http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Saren_Arterius, http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Paul_Bellamy.
-HD3 (talk) 10:36, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that we should say "is a character/location in X" every time. It can be "is the Knight-Commander of the Templars of Kirkwall during the events of X." or "is elven mage met during the quest Y in X". It also doesn't have to be in the very first sentence of the lead.
Even when the infobox is fully visible, the appearances are as far from the lead as it can be in the infobox. I believe that this information is so important that it should be among the first things visitor sees.
As far as I know, affiliation with wikis is purely for promotion purposes, it doesn't mean that we encourage their policies. I really like the UESP wiki style with separate namespaces for Lore and each game. Unfortunately, this is not allowed on the Wikia platform. I also like Fallout wiki style where the game is mentioned at the very top of the infobox but not in the lead: Moira, Bob. – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 11:31, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
I don't cite the other wikis as a way to try and prove we've fallen out of line with established policy. I only bring them up as an example because they follow a very similar article template without having to go so far as explicitly state the primary game/novel title in the lead-in. Yet they persist just fine and without complaint or confusion.
I agree certainly that the information is important enough to warrant mention near the head of the article and should be among the first thing people see. The problem is it already is among the first thing people see in most cases. They always look at the picture first and in most articles the "Appears in" section is about 3 centimeters/1 inch below that requiring no scrolling at all. It also saves us having to shoe horn a mention of the games title into a lead in which would otherwise be in-world decryption.
I agree the Fallout wiki style's solution would solve all our problems certainly, but that's outside my abilities so I am afraid we'd have to ask someone more knowledgeable about such things.
Since we both seem to agree that this information is important enough that it should be clearly marked at the head of the article, the issue seems to be about to what extent to make it explicit. I would contend that a section of the readily available portion of the article designated for quick and easy reference is probably enough in most cases. Since you seem to feel so strongly about the need for an accompanying phrase, i must concede we should probably open this to a wider discussion.-HD3 (talk) 12:11, July 2, 2013 (UTC)
For the sake of concision i will just state here that i am not advocating striking the whole of the current model. Just in the case of Character articles and possibly Locations.-HD3 (talk) 12:49, July 2, 2013 (UTC)