Metroid Wiki:Discussion Center

Welcome to the Metroid Wiki Discussion Center! Use this forum to ask the staff and other senior community figures Wiki-related questions, to alert others to major issues, or make suggestions that would affect the Wiki on a large scale. Before posting a new question, please examine the Help Guide to see if your issue is addressed there. To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please: Place your question at the bottom of the list Place the title of your question == between pairs of equals signs == Remember to always sign your posts with name, date and time (by adding: ~~~~)

  Archives

• 2010-2010 (Feb-June)
• 2010-2012 (July-Feb)
• 2012-2012 (Feb-June)

New Affiliation

Dear MetroidWiki,

I just created my account so I could propose a new affiliation. I am here, talking on behalf of Icaruspedia of NIWA. Since it has been claimed that the Metroid and Kid Icarus are sister series, it would only be fitting for us to take on that tradition. Kid Icarus: Uprising in particular mentions the Metroid series quite a lot, especially regarding a certain enemy called a Komayto. With all this similarity, I find it baffling that we aren't affiliated already. I hope you accept,

JORDAN DEBONO (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I personally believe we should affiliate with your wiki since both wikis are under the NIWA wiki, not just for the Komayto relationship. IceBlue (talk) 22:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

unfortunately I cannot provide any hyperlinks for you to access. The Captcha is preventing me from continuing and I cannot seem to get the test right. I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

An affiliation beside NIWA? I really don't see why not :] --Malake256 ^{{Talk | Contribs}} 22:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Excuse my slow understanding, but are you positive with the affiliation or not? I can't tell if your against it or not due to the emoticon you entered. Sorry about this,

JORDAN DEBONO (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think he's genuinely supporting your suggestion. I'm indifferent myself, but if everyone is for it then that's fine with me. :) —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 02:38, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

That's great! I will inform an active administrator on Icaruspedia so that necessary procedures can be made. JORDAN DEBONO (talk) 07:49, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about this delay, but could you give us your banner so we can add it to our list of affiliates. Our Public Affairs Director Starphoria will do the rest. Thanks, JORDAN DEBONO (talk) 16:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Hopeful return

I recently purchased Other M. If I can muster the courage to play the game without going catatonic or something I'll add to our content. MK 21:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Your bravery will be long remembered! —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 15:40, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Well past the evil scene. My eyes... they burn. MK 01:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.19.2

We've upgraded to MediaWiki 1.19.2 and upgraded all the extensions to the latest versions. Let us know if you see any bugs or issues. -- Prod (talk) 16:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

NIWA Check in request

Hello, I'm dkpat from Golden Sun Universe/NIWA. I recently made a thread on the NIWA Forums that requests that an admin from each wiki "check-in" and give an update on their wiki activity. I would appreciate it if someone from Metroid wiki could check in. Thank you. (I tried to link directly to the post, however, the Asirra extention prevented me from doing so. Please also check on this and be sure you are using the standalone version, not the version included with Confirm Edit, which is known to have this problem) Dkpat (talk) 16:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Checked in on NIWA. Not sure how to check on the extension you mentioned. —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 00:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It's something that Prod would have to fix. I checked the Special:Version page and you are not using the standalone version. Just try to get him (or someone with server access and mediawiki know how I suppose) to check it and fix it. Dkpat (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Area Articles

This is going to be the start of a somewhat coherent attempt at seriously expanding and improving the content, organization, and overall quality of our articles based on Areas. What I would like to do is outline some of the biggest problems these articles face, some of the potential solutions, ways to improve the categorization of these articles, and other issues for discussion.

Problems

1. Inconsistency in organization. This is a major problem even just among Metroid Prime Areas, which are probably the most organized and consistent of them all. This also is a problem for the Fusion and Other M Areas especially, which are built by the Federation beforehand and therefore are difficult to organize in the same way.
2. Combining story elements, descriptions of the area, and basic in-game facts. This is something most, if not all, Area articles are terribly ineffective with. For instance, Chozo Ruins lumps the backstory, architecture, and then more backstory all into one general section, then goes on to describe the environment and general area by discussing the enemies present and the items in the game without really using either to relay information effectively.
3. Categorization. Category:Locations is simply a mess, and it's got all the Areas just lumped into the parent category, while smaller locations like Glacier One get the nice, easy-to-navigate, specific categories.

Possible Solutions

1. Create a standard that can be adapted to Metroid Prime Hunters planets, Metroid Fusion sectors, Super Metroid areas, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes areas alike. This would likely have to have a good deal of discussion beforehand, but it would drastically improve how effective our area articles are at actually providing a coherent source of information.
2. Probably one of the biggest parts of the possible organization standard. This should be done so that we place proper emphasis on important elements of the area, source it all well, and make it possible to get whatever kind of information someone would be looking for on an area page.
3. Reorganize Category:Locations. This also impacts things like Category:Aether. What I'd like to do is set it up so that you can find locations by looking through them by game or by where they are in relation to other locations. For instance, Category:Rooms in Agon Wastes would be part of a greater category called Category:Agon Wastes, which would also contain things like Category:Agon Wastes Wildlife. Category:Agon Wastes would be part of Category:Aether, which is part of Category:Locations in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. This may wind up intersecting with some way of organizing creatures and the like, but that's another project.

Issues to clear up

• Agreeing on a common standard for organization. Should be discussed in detail, and then whatever we decide should be applied soon afterward to area articles.
• Agreeing on a good recategorization system. Needs discussion.
• Sources. This is something I think everyone agrees is something we need more of on these articles, but while there's no end of sources for articles like Phazon Mines or Chozo Ruins, the Fusion or Super Metroid sources would probably take a bit more poking around in dialogue, manual, or website info.

Hopefully, this giant wall of text is comprehensible enough that we can get some serious improvements out of it. I'm entirely open to discussion, suggestions, revisions, and the like, so long as it happens. Bop1996 _{(Talk | Unfinished projects)} 18:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I'm all for recategorization. But I'm not sure I entirely agree with the idea of a standardized layout for organizing Area articles. For example, certain places, such as the Chozo Ruins you mentioned, are full of backstory, from everything to Chozo architecture to religious significance. On the other hand, areas like Magmoor Caverns or the Impact Crater would need to be organized completely differently because of how different they are as in-game entities. All I'm saying is that standardizing Area articles, which cover things that can be so completely diverse, might be short-sighted, or worse, restricting.

I'm not sure I see the benefits to standardizing the layout of these articles at all. Can you volley an argument for why this is necessary? You often use the phrase "ineffective," but I fail to see exactly to what you are referring. You make it sound as though the Chozo Ruins article, for example, is randomly sorted, whereas, upon closer inspection, it's actually written linearly (Founding -> their architectural legacy aka "What they did after they founded it" [which could conceivably go under the Environment heading] -> the Corruption and Space Pirate arrival, followed by the Environment heading, which covers everything as it is during Samus's arrival). Now that my opinion is way out there, I'd love to hear further evaluation from you. Anything to better the wiki! —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 20:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I had been hoping that whatever layout we come up with would be flexible enough to compensate for the discrepancies between Areas with massive background history and Areas with no real background at all, for instance. Every Area may not have enough info to form a coherent "History" section, but they should all have at least enough to give a general layout and description of the area. Some articles may require more detail of the way technology is integrated with the Area, while some may need detailed descriptions of the Phazon growths all over the place. At the very least, having some sort of base standard that all area articles should be up to par with seems optimal. Even if this standard can't just be rigidly applied to every article, at least they'd have something in common, and they'd be much easier to read and use for information if that was the case.

As for the Chozo Ruins article, I really like how good a job the article does of describing what the Chozo did there before the Leviathan strike. However, the "Architecture" section, I think, would be better if it was either incorporated with the description of the area or written more like it's part of the entire narrative the "History" section writes. But I digress, since going over it now, it's not horribly disorganized, especially compared with the way other Area articles just stick a few paragraphs in there with both story and gameplay elements there wherever they can fit without really differentiating between any sort of description at all.

So the takeaway from all this, I suppose, is that I'm definitely willing to concede that a rigid standard would be a very bad thing for our Area articles, but I still maintain that having some sort of baseline standard that provides the basics of what an Area article should have and what kind of information goes with what would be very beneficial. Bop1996 _{(Talk | Unfinished projects)} 23:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree with all that. You're right, providing at least some sort of requirement skeleton as a baseline, upon which editors may salt and pepper as needed, definitely sounds like something we could use. Did you have a rough draft in mind already? I'm all ears. =) —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 00:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I have a few basic ideas for a good skeleton. First, if an area can, it should get a section devoted to the background of the Area, organized chronologically, and adapted to fit the needs of the article in question. For instance, Agon Wastes would get a pretty sizable chunk dedicated to the Luminoth settlement there, the history before the Leviathan strike, during the war with the Ing, and after the Space Pirate arrival. Brinstar, on the other hand, would maybe get some details from the game manuals of Metroid and Super Metroid, some manga refs, and that'd be all. Sectors like Sector 1 (SRX) would get brief sections dedicated perhaps to the noteworthy Fusion or Other M plot events that occur there and maybe a mention of how the sector was set up by the Federaton beforehand.

After that, there should be some section(s) devoted to describing the area in detail in terms of its appearance; layout, architecture, general types of terrain, structures, whatever. Again, the sub-headers can be customized to fit whatever the Area is like. Obviously, we aren't going to want detailed descriptions of biological features in Phazon Mines or industrial complexes in Phendrana Drifts.

A bit of a quandary I'm having at the moment is whether to give the inhabitants/mechanoids/military forces in each Area a section of their own, or to incorporate those into the sections about the area's layout and such. I can see benefits and drawbacks to both, so it might be best to work with those on a case-by-case basis for each Area. In either case, it'd be best to give a nice description of the creatures, mechanoids, or things like Space Pirate forces in each Area at some point in the article. Also, somewhere, probably its own section, there should be something about the upgrades, but I'd like details about acquisition kept to a minimum since there's other pages that should go into more detail about that sort of thing.

Also, there should hopefully be a gallery on each page and references for all these sections, as those are fairly important, and other side info like that.

After that, the categories mentioned earlier should be applied so that the Area gets some sort of game-specific category as well as categories based on geographical location. I believe I went into more detail on this earlier in this topic.

I'm entirely open to suggestions, feedback, comments, whatever on this. No matter how you slice it, this is a pretty big project and an equally big set of changes, but I hope this will drastically improve our content in a type of article that is pretty underwhelming as things stand right now. Bop1996 _{(Talk | Unfinished projects)} 23:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Well it looks like you've given it a lot of thought! Everything sounds good to me so far. I don't have much of a comment besides "I agree," except on sections concerning creatures/mechs/military section. That's a toughy. I think it makes sense to add a section wherein we can note every enemy that appears in whatever area, purely for the sake of having all the info we possibly can for an area. But the question is how. I'm not loving the idea of a long, bullet pointed list. And descriptions of each enemy will get pretty long winded. On Zelda Wiki (did you see another reference to ZW coming? :P) they've been using galleries in place of lists, which looks a lot nicer (it's what I did on the Luminoth Technology page). So that's an option. The same thing could be used to list upgrades, with the image, name of the upgrade, and number of them (as in the case of Missile Expansions). Unless you have an idea that might work better? —Embyr 75  ^--Talk-- 00:11, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of having galleries for those things, the only problem would be getting some nice transparent sprites/logbook images for all of those, which is really something we should theoretically have anyway, but we don't have as many of those as we should as of right now. In any case, provided we don't get any new additions to this discussion in the next few days, it's looking like we should be good to move forward improving Area articles soon. Bop1996 _{(Talk | Unfinished projects)} 19:39, 23 November 2012 (UTC)