Improving the wiki

[reveille]

Hey, I just wanted to post something here to see if we could come up with some new ideas for how to organize the Wiki - as well as update/clarify how we want to present info and such.

There were a few specific things I had in mind to mention, so I'll list them below here:

1. The main page is very cluttered. I don't know if this is just me, but I feel like maybe we could come up with something to help clear it up. I feel like right now we have way too much going on at the front page. Like, maybe we could just link to separate pages with lists of characters, albums, ect? Instead of having them all on the front page? It just looks super hectic.

2. I think this is also true of the character pages, specifically the main 765 pro pages. I don't know if having all the sections under collapsible info would be ideal, but it seems like these pages are super crowded as well. A lot of them with info that seems kind of redundant or unnecessary (I'm thinking mainly of "recorded group songs" which seems like a waste of space.) This was specifically what I wanted to come up with a solution for, I feel like maybe we should develop a better way to lay out these pages, as there is just way too much going on them right now.

(Someone started doing collapsible song table box things, so I tried to finish up some more of the main characters. They look really good, - I think it would be cool if we came up with more stuff like this.)

I have contributed a lot to the wiki back in it's infantry, and I am happy to donate a lot of time to helping improve it even more, so I'm not trying to bring this stuff up and ditch. I know how much work it is to do this stuff and I want to help. I just feel like this site is really heavy on the eyes at the moment, and maybe we could all discuss that? Anyway, feel free to say whatever, just felt like it might be nice for us to talk about current wiki developments so we can help each other with the workload

[Chance4U]

I completely agree that we need to reorganize a bit.

1. Main Page: We kind of set up the main page for clutter by putting the CD series and voiced characters, and looking at other wikis, no one shares a similar layout to our main page. I honestly feel like we're just not as user friendly as we could be. Other wikis use subpages and disambiguation pages a lot more often than we do, so maybe we should aim for that.

2. Character Pages: I've been wanting to add character stories to their pages but a few problems have come up.
* A: Some people around the wiki have a thing for "spoilers" for the characters, so it's pretty inconsistent. Do we need to use a spoiler tag for each character story summarization, should we use it only in the vast section of their Game Discography, or should we use it at all and just have the ending without warning? I personally prefer the latter, because it makes the story summary much easier to handle. Takane's page still uses the "Spoiler start/end here" tag in her anime appearance, but no other page does. Should we take it down?
* B: Since each new addition is its own continuity, we always have more to add to the game discography section. However by doing this, we are now requiring that each idol have their own entry per rank. That's at least Ranks A, B, C, D, E, and F for each game plus any DLC dramas/routes also available. Not only is this seemingly overwhelming to add, but no one seems to have the information for some of the routes, such as the original Arcade game.
* C: I'm sorry for not finishing the collapsible tables. I've been trying to pull as much information as I can from Dearly Stars, but thank you for the complement. I tried to create them so they would both organize the songs and help shrink the page a bit. The recorded group songs is a ridiculous amount for the 765 Pro idols, but it does well on pages with smaller amounts like DS or probably CG and ML. Altogether though, it might just be too much information to handle.

3. Translated Games: As far as I know, the only already translated game media for iM@S are SP (sans Ritsuko, Azusa, Ami & Mami) and Shiny Festa. If I had a computer that could handle two emulators and an Apple device, I would do it myself. Since I don't, we're still missing 6 already translated idol routes and several ENGLISH profiles for characters that appear as rivals in SF. It's already been decided that information released in English to a Western crowd should be given priority, as we are an English speaking wiki. However, we are missing entire profile SF cards for 17 Cinderella Girls, including fully voiced characters. This worries me, mostly because if we can't handle an iOS game that was released over a year ago, how are we going to handle a possible upcoming localization?

4. Image Colors: Whether people realize it or not, image color pretty much changes from appearance to appearance. However, many of the characters have not received official word on what their image color is directed towards (e.g. Sae Kobayakawa's image color is moderate pink.). Isn't it a bit misleading to use "moderate pink" instead of just showing the color since several VA's and interviews comment on the official colors, and it's often different than what is said on the wiki (such as Ai and Ryo's colors are officially BOTH Pink/Splash Red and Mint Green/Neue Green). Just wondering..

5. Page Name Issues: I hate to bring this back up, but we never decided on what we should do to solve this growing problem. We need to establish some rules for the wiki for the circumstances we are facing now, such as "What to do when we have to official, yet different romanizations?" or "Does stylization need to be ignored in some cases?". See the link below for more information.
* http://forum.project-imas.com/index.php/topic,2156.msg55112.html#msg55112

There's more I would have liked to add, but I have to go to work..

[liza94]

Some people around the wiki have a thing for "spoilers" for the characters, so it's pretty inconsistent. Do we need to use a spoiler tag for each character story summarization, should we use it only in the vast section of their Game Discography, or should we use it at all and just have the ending without warning?

I think spoiler tags aren't nessesary.

[Maka]

I have tons I would do if I was more competent in the coding part of the wiki. :/

[Okayu]

1. Main Page: We kind of set up the main page for clutter by putting the CD series and voiced characters, and looking at other wikis, no one shares a similar layout to our main page. I honestly feel like we're just not as user friendly as we could be. Other wikis use subpages and disambiguation pages a lot more often than we do, so maybe we should aim for that.

While before it was kind of okay, once all the mobile game characters were added to the front page it got really hectic. I do think the front page should be smaller, but I did like having the albums listed as it was quicker than going to albums then the album series then the specific album.

2. Character Pages: I've been wanting to add character stories to their pages but a few problems have come up.
* A: Some people around the wiki have a thing for "spoilers" for the characters, so it's pretty inconsistent. Do we need to use a spoiler tag for each character story summarization, should we use it only in the vast section of their Game Discography, or should we use it at all and just have the ending without warning? I personally prefer the latter, because it makes the story summary much easier to handle. Takane's page still uses the "Spoiler start/end here" tag in her anime appearance, but no other page does. Should we take it down?
* B: Since each new addition is its own continuity, we always have more to add to the game discography section. However by doing this, we are now requiring that each idol have their own entry per rank. That's at least Ranks A, B, C, D, E, and F for each game plus any DLC dramas/routes also available. Not only is this seemingly overwhelming to add, but no one seems to have the information for some of the routes, such as the original Arcade game.

I think that spoilers should be used when knowing the information beforehand would spoil the story. In most games this would be at least A rank and the ending for certain. Story summaries tend to be long so I think that for those they should be expandable by default. The anime doesn't need any spoilers besides maybe episode 20, episode 23, and the later part of the movie as those were considered twists. I'm not sure what you mean by the arcade game since as far as I know it was completely ported as the xbox 360 game, the only difference is new models and a few extra commus + Miki.

3. Translated Games: As far as I know, the only already translated game media for iM@S are SP (sans Ritsuko, Azusa, Ami & Mami) and Shiny Festa. If I had a computer that could handle two emulators and an Apple device, I would do it myself. Since I don't, we're still missing 6 already translated idol routes and several ENGLISH profiles for characters that appear as rivals in SF. It's already been decided that information released in English to a Western crowd should be given priority, as we are an English speaking wiki. However, we are missing entire profile SF cards for 17 Cinderella Girls, including fully voiced characters. This worries me, mostly because if we can't handle an iOS game that was released over a year ago, how are we going to handle a possible upcoming localization?

I personally think that adding untranslated material would be more important as that's information english speakers normally wouldn't be able to experience while with translated works they can just play it themselves. Not to say it shouldn't be added at all, but it doesn't need to be top priority either. As for the mobile game idols I don't think people will be too upset. We already have CGdex that has information for that game, and I think it'd be better to do something similar for the other mobile idols instead of the stress of making all these niche wiki pages. For idols that have a greater role than just appearing in the mobile game having their own page is fine. What I'm trying to say is that many of these idols are only in the mobile games, and I think that instead of putting all this effort into making pages for every single one and trying to update it that it'd be better to expand the dex and add to that instead. If the front page is overwhelming imagine what newcomers think when seeing over 100 idol pages.

Here's a front page example I tried making. Yes I like toggle buttons.
Alternatively this design looks nicer too while still keeping the info. http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page

[Maka]

Tbh, I would remove the doujinshi and merch sections entirely, because if we wanted to count every single idolmaster doujin ever written or every figure our wiki would double in size, haha.

[Okayu]

Tbh, I would remove the doujinshi and merch sections entirely, because if we wanted to count every single idolmaster doujin ever written or every figure our wiki would double in size, haha.

Most didn't complain when the mobile games did so.

[MetalPredat0r]

Tbh, I would remove the doujinshi and merch sections entirely, because if we wanted to count every single idolmaster doujin ever written or every figure our wiki would double in size, haha.

Second this. Really, there doesn't seem like much of a point to it as not only has it not been updated in years, archiving all the doujins WOULD be hectic.

Most didn't complain when the mobile games did so.

At the very least the mobile games are official material and are easier to archive. Doujins are all over the place and some might go YEARS without even being scanned at all so keeping track of all of them is next to impossible.

[reveille]

Since I don't, we're still missing 6 already translated idol routes and several ENGLISH profiles for characters that appear as rivals in SF. It's already been decided that information released in English to a Western crowd should be given priority, as we are an English speaking wiki. However, we are missing entire profile SF cards for 17 Cinderella Girls, including fully voiced characters. This worries me, mostly because if we can't handle an iOS game that was released over a year ago, how are we going to handle a possible upcoming localization?

Yeah I agree with most of what you said, and I do feel like this is a very in depth/long discussion that will continue for awhile before we're able to get this all done. I have Shiny Festa so I'd be happy to translate profiles, I'll take a look at some of the other rival pages and get to work on that maybe this weekend?

Tbh, I would remove the doujinshi and merch sections entirely, because if we wanted to count every single idolmaster doujin ever written or every figure our wiki would double in size, haha.

I didn't even see this (the doujin section) but yeah I totally agree hahaha, like obviously we can mention any significant releases but for now it just seems so unnecessary to devote that much manpower to fan comics

I have tons I would do if I was more competent in the coding part of the wiki. :/

Well what I did to help me get better at coding was just going on to a page and copying a part of it and then re-filling in all the info for the page I was making edits to (if you want to create a grid table or an info box.) It just takes practice before it becomes intuitive (like most things)

While before it was kind of okay, once all the mobile game characters were added to the front page it got really hectic. I do think the front page should be smaller, but I did like having the albums listed as it was quicker than going to albums then the album series then the specific album.

Yeah, it was fine when we were just dealing with 961/765/871, but now it's like.. I dunno, it's too much for me to look at personally, and I really feel like the amount of info we have up on the main page could be condensed/filed.. I liked the ideas you brought up for new layouts, but of course everyone has to put their input in as well before we pull the trigger. I like our wiki but I feel like it's starting to lose out on some other imas wikis that are around

[Okayu]

Second this. Really, there doesn't seem like much of a point to it as not only has it not been updated in years, archiving all the doujins WOULD be hectic.

At the very least the mobile games are official material and are easier to archive. Doujins are all over the place and some might go YEARS without even being scanned at all so keeping track of all of them is next to impossible.

Merchandise is official material as well. I thought this was an imas wiki, not "only things I like about imas wiki". There used to be a pretty good list of doujins as well but it's 404. It wouldn't be too difficult to add merchandise. The albums are already a separate thing so it could just be a chart with categories for things like release date, what type of item it is, etc.

I like our wiki but I feel like it's starting to lose out on some other imas wikis that are around

Really that's on them. This has been the go to wiki for me and others and has been for many years. Personally I really dislike wikia's format and much prefer this by fans for fans wiki.

[MetalPredat0r]

Merchandise is official material as well. I thought this was an imas wiki, not "only things I like about imas wiki". There used to be a pretty good list of doujins as well but it's 404. It wouldn't be too difficult to add merchandise. The albums are already a separate thing so it could just be a chart with categories for things like release date, what type of item it is, etc.

I understand merchandise has to count, of course. I'm just saying that Doujinshi in particular doesn't necessarily count as Doujinshi consists of fan-made material that's sold in conventions. Unless the Doujin itself is officially recognized by Namco themselves, I don't think it really counts. It's kinda like archiving fanfiction in a way.

[Okayu]

It's kinda like archiving fanfiction in a way.

It's funny you mention that as technically some official materials would be considered fanfiction.

[MetalPredat0r]

It's funny you mention that as technically some official materials would be considered fanfiction.

True. This is a series that runs on alternate stories with its branching pathways.

Speaking of, would adding the different story routes for every character just be overkill for each page? Or maybe have an altogether separate section that lists off different paths that you can take depending on your actions and answers?

[Chance4U]

Tbh, I would remove the doujinshi and merch sections entirely, because if we wanted to count every single idolmaster doujin ever written or every figure our wiki would double in size, haha.

I'm surprised we haven't done this already. If it's not official manga or literature, I don't believe it needs to be listed on the wiki.

Merchandise is official material as well. I thought this was an imas wiki, not "only things I like about imas wiki". There used to be a pretty good list of doujins as well but it's 404. It wouldn't be too difficult to add merchandise. The albums are already a separate thing so it could just be a chart with categories for things like release date, what type of item it is, etc.

While I agree that iM@S supports being for fans by fans, I thought we were trying to relay official information to the public. Fan generated support is an enormous factor for the franchise, but at the end of the day, we don't own what is officially produced by Namco. We don't add doujin storylines to pages because they are not official; significant elements of them may go in the "Fan Culture" section of pages instead. I don't think that doujins need that recognition, because it's kind of like trying to catalog Pixiv art. The sheer volume alone will probably kill you, and fans will upload new items everyday. There is no official transaction with Namco or any other creator, so like MetalPredat0r said, it'd be an attempt to catalog fanfiction. Shouldn't that manpower go towards an attempt at something else that is more productive, like writing official character routes or an insane attempt to catalog all of the merch from 2004 (Yes, it officially existed back then.)?

Speaking of merchandise, I think it's a stupid idea to try to keep up with it all, mainly for two reasons:
1. If we don't keep doujin works, we are going to have to dig through TEN YEARS of cataloging to find it all. Now, as someone who has done the research on every concert since 2004, I feel like I have the right to say you don't want to do this. An event is pretty easy to identify, as a date, setlist, venue, performers, and pictures are at least somewhat widespread between people. I had to sort through this website ( http://imasnews765.com/?paged=1 ) to find all of my sources up to 2009. Then I had to go further back to find everything from 2004 to 2008 via independent research on official websites, blogs, boards, ect. You're telling me that you want to dig through 451 pages of merchandise AS WELL as find unlisted official items offered only for certain things, like Dearly Stars exclusive Banpresto passes, Gemaga artpieces only available during certain releases during certain years, or the several 876 Art Panels or a STATION!!! Weiss Schwarz only available to one person at the end of a LIVE's lottery event where the items weren't reported on, or limited edition magazine inserts only available with a purchase of a brochure from a live event where iM@S didn't even participate, or the special award given to bettors for winning a derby race with a horse named after an idol (Poor Azusa)? Have fun.

2. If we do keep doujin works, where do we stop for merchandise or games? Does being for fans by fans mean we need to catalog all iM@S artwork (by official artists or not), or all figurines created, or show gameplay of iM@S Champ? If you could easily tell me how many of the following were officially sold by Namco, where they were manufactured, and what price they sold for, I might believe that we have the capabilities to handle merchandise. After all, it's only 21 items (and an artwork set) out of 400+.
* http://i.imgur.com/XyQAvVG.png
* http://i.imgur.com/unP0C8J.jpg
* http://i.imgur.com/w0Tn436.jpg
* http://imgur.com/a/puK9N
* http://imgur.com/a/HqKTH

As fun as researching your favorite thing can be, if we can't even complete a costume page set that consitently grows monthly, what makes you think we can find every piece of ten years' worth of merchandise of a list that grows weekly?

[Okayu]

As fun as researching your favorite thing can be, if we can't even complete a costume page set that consitently grows monthly, what makes you think we can find every piece of ten years' worth of merchandise of a list that grows weekly?

Aren't you the one who has been working on that? I mean you refer to it as if it's been a group effort, but looking at the recent edit lists it's usually the same handful of people. I'd be glad to help out with some of the story routes though. We could just focus on the easy to find merch first rather than things so niche they probably aren't up for sale even on Japanese auctions.