Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 17:02, 30 October 2010

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Images

I'd like to add a provision in regard to the image galleries, since they are becoming more prevalent now. While the wording can be debated, the following points should be made:

Image galleries are to be used sparingly. On smaller articles, such as those for ships, it is common to see a gallery composed of the top, bottom, and side views of the subject, in addition to other images that may note a peculiarity worth noting. This is acceptable. On pages for characters, episodes, and other articles, image galleries should never be used, due to fair use concerns and the fact that Battlestar Wiki is not an image gallery.
The only exceptions to the above should be with regard to the comics (and books) that have multiple covers, in addition to other merchandise, such as the Minimates.
Otherwise, Battlestar Wiki prefers that images be within the prose of the article, thus abrogating the need for image galleries.

We should also note that images in the infoboxes should be:

High quality with a minimum dimension of 200px in width.
Be the newest image available.

The above should have the explicit caveat that common sense prevails in such cases. For instance, we wouldn't want to upload a screen shot of Kara Thrace every time a new episode airs, because that would be ridiculous.

Ok, that's all I have to say for now on that subject. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 13:42, 16 February 2008 (CST)

Looks like a plan. I recently killed an image gallery at Kara Thrace consisting of one image :D --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 16:04, 17 February 2008 (CST)

Cleanup and Organization

I'm done with the cleanup and organization of the Standards and Conventions. I've also added summaries of each section to the main page, so to help people know what to do about certain things without reading paragraphs explaining the whys and wherefores. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. This split was long overdue. One thing I always wondered is why do we have different standards in the Quotes? For no apparent reason, episodes are italicized and not put in quotes there. That whole section could be cut drastically, if we used the same rules as everywhere else. Though changing that now would be too much work. -- Serenity 08:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've always wondered that myself. But now it's too much to go through and change... call it a quirk, I guess. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 16:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

"Numbers less than 11 should be spelled out, "five" for "5", etc." May I suggest that when we find out who "Number Eleven" and "Number Twelve" are we continue to write out their numbers in full for consistency (so we don't have "Number Four and Number 11 meet" OTW 23:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. :) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Name and Callsign Standardization

I know that there have been some recent concerns over phrasing a character's full name to read 'Lee "Apollo" Adama' or 'Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo'. Therefore, I wanted to start discussion on this, seeing as a lot pages on the wiki need to be standardized to get rid of the over-use of callsigns in favor of standard given last names.

To explain where I'm coming from, I feel that the characters should ultimately be introduced with their full name (first and last name) and callsign, simply because viewers sometimes don't get the fact that "Apollo" is a callsign for Lee, particularly if they are new viewers. Also, the lesser known characters (such as Skulls, Racetrack, and Crashdown) are referred to mainly by their callsigns, but do have names that we know of. Therefore, we there needs to be an effort to standardize them across the board, ergo the above idea.

I know some of you object to this, as I've seen in your edit summaries, but I wanted to discuss it here just to make sure everyone knows where I'm coming from. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 19:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we just link Apollo to Lee Adama? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 19:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

We could do that, but it just disjoints the prose. Also, it's not really encyclopedic to refer to people by nicknames or callsigns when we have their actual names, even for the sake of convenience. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 20:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

My personal annoyance with this is mainly that it sounds somewhat artificial to me (it's probably just me and I'm overreacting...), especially when it's done two or three times in a row. It actually reads like it's a standard. One character is generally fine, but particularly with Racetrack/Skulls, Racetrack/Athena or Boomer/Crashdown it's always something like "Later, Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson and "Hamish "Skulls" McCall fly in their Raptor". It's just the sound of that that I don't particularly care for, for some reason :s You talk about bad prose with disjointed references. For me, always noting the full name and the callsign inbetween is bad prose too.

I can see the point with lesser known characters, for example Racetrack who is generally referred to more by her callsign than her name. That's one reason why I left that in the recent edit. I just think, rather than making it an ironclad standard, that some case-by-case judgment should be used about when to use names only and when to add the callsign. With the Battle of Kobol (RDM) article, I felt that it's not necessary to do it for Apollo and Starbuck, since they barely play a role in that section. Apollo is only mentioned as her wingman, and only plays a role during the boarding later, and Thrace only steals the Raider. The section is really about Crashdown, Boomer and Racetrack, so it's better to introduce them fully, since their names are used more often and in both variations.

At the same time, I think we kinda agreed that callsigns are appropriate for piloty actions. So using Racetrack exclusively in the battle article would be appropriate (though she can be introduced with callsign + name), whereas, in a scene in Joe's bar for example, her real name should be used instead. -- Serenity 20:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The pilot vs. other stuff convention is a long-standing one that's followed pretty closely. However, I should reiterate that even if we decide to introduce people as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, we should only call them that once and use their callsign or surname (whichever is appropriate) from there on, just like we do when introducing normal people (i.e. "William Adama ... Adama ... Adama"). --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 21:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

No one is suggesting to use it several times for one character. It's just about the introduction, and what you say is more or less what's done at the moment. But I think doing it in every introduction already creates formulaic sentences, because it's generally done either at the beginning of a paragraph and/or a sentence. IMO this isn't something that should be standardized so clearly that it needs to be done every time, but only when really needed, so that it doesn't impede the prose. For example it's superfluous when a character hardly plays a role in the text, or if subsequent references only use the real name anyways. At least with main characters. As said, when talking about people like Racetrack or Hot Dog, who are really referred to by their names, noting the callsign makes some sense. -- Serenity 21:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Logical punctuation

After seeing the link in the edit summary I just noticed that Wikipedia uses logical punctuation. Interesting. I thought they used American punctuation, but in practice it's probably completely mixed just as here.

I was under the impression that we mostly used American punctuation here, but it appears that the Season 4 articles, at least, use logical punctuation almost exclusively (before Passivity changed them). While the SAC says we use American punctuation, in fact there is a lot of logical one as well. Personally I generally use that as well, because I'm used to it and American punctuation just doesn't make the slightest lick of sense. It's just a stupid holdover from the days when the publications where typeset and there was a technical reason to print them inside. These days, many scientific publications for example are switching over to what the rest of the rest of the world does: place the punctuation marks where they actually belong.

While I'd prefer logical punctuation everywhere, I'm not really saying that we should change it over officially. Just pointing out that we have an inconsistency here. People use different styles and while one article may be consistent in itself, some others are formatted differently. -- Serenity 14:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It's a mishmash, in practice. Generally speaking, putting commas outside of quotation marks makes tremendously more sense, and is far better stylistically. As with everything else American, we aren't exactly the greatest at making things efficient. For instance, we still haven't implemented widescale use of the Metric system, despite the fact that we're only one of maybe two or three countries who still use the "English" garbage while everyone else has converted some time ago. Anachronisms die hard, unfortunately. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Quorum

Can we get rid of the standard that Quorum members must be referred to as delegates rather than representatives (under "Character Names and Titles"), given that Roslin referred to "twelve perpetually unhappy representatives" in the seventh episode of Season Four? -- Noneofyourbusiness 15:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Review this for why we use "delegate," the more precise term than "representative." -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 17:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

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-Because of their length, individual discussions which we believe have reached consensus have been archived.
+{{Template:Archive-bot
-As further discussions are concluded, please move them to the archive as well, in order to keep this page topical and readable. If the first archive threatens to exceed 32 kilobytes, please create a new one. See [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page|Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page]] for details.
+|maxarchivesize = 32K
+|counter = 5
+|algo = old(14d)
+|archive = Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive%(counter)d
+}}
-'''Previous discussions:'''
+{{ArchiveTOC}}
-*[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01|Archive 1 (September 10th, 2005 to November 31st, 2005)]]:
+== Images ==
-<small>
-:[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Verb Tense|Verb Tense]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Ship Naming, Abbrevation and Capitalization Standards|Ship Naming, Abbrevation and Capitalization Standards]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Signing Your Work|Signing Your Work]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Spelling|Spelling]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Single-name Address|Single-name Address]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Episode Links and Formatting|Episode Links and Formatting]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Proposed Guidelines for Dispute Resoluton on Speculative Matters|Proposed Guidelines / Speculative Matters]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Quorum of Twelve|Quorum of Twelve]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Namespaces|Namespaces]]
-</small>
-*[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive02|Archive 2 (December 1st, 2005 to Present)]]:
-<small>
-:[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive02#Disambiguation|Disambiguation]]
-</small>
-----
+I'd like to add a provision in regard to the image galleries, since they are becoming more prevalent now. While the wording can be debated, the following points should be made:
-== Image Sizes ==
+# Image galleries are to be used sparingly. On smaller articles, such as those for ships, it is common to see a gallery composed of the top, bottom, and side views of the subject, in addition to other images that may note a peculiarity worth noting. This is acceptable. On pages for characters, episodes, and other articles, image galleries should '''never be used''', due to fair use concerns and the fact that [[BW:NOT|Battlestar Wiki is not an image gallery]].
+# The only exceptions to the above should be with regard to the comics (and books) that have multiple covers, in addition to other merchandise, such as the [[Minimates]].
+# Otherwise, Battlestar Wiki prefers that images be within the prose of the article, thus abrogating the need for image galleries.
-I tend to think that images that are whole-screen captures (and thus letterbox dimensions) should be about 300px wide. This is, however, based entirely on how that looks on my browser window, which is pretty large, but not maximized on a 1280x1026 resolution. So that might look horrid on some other screen. Anyway, with that in mind, I resize all my full-screen captures to be 600px wide since that's a nice two times what I think they should be viewed at. Should I be even thinking this way, or should I just be telling the articles to be thumbs and set my preferences for larger thumbs? In the case of cropped screen-caps, though, I think 300px is too wide, or rather, often too tall. How do others think on this? --[[User:Day|Day]] 05:21, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
+We should also note that images in the infoboxes should be:
-:Yes, use your preference settings for this. FWIW, I'm a fan of judicious cropping. It helps make smaller thumbs more legible. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 12:28, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
+# High quality with a minimum dimension of 200px in width.
+# Be the newest image available.
-:: If you're trying to illustrate something specific, sure, cropping is needed in most cases. However, for episode pages and, I think, when trying to show a scene, the whole screen is good for its sense of context. I could be wrong. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:09, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
+The above should have the explicit caveat that common sense prevails in such cases. For instance, we wouldn't want to upload a screen shot of Kara Thrace every time a new episode airs, because that would be ridiculous.
-== Image Credit ==
+Ok, that's all I have to say for now on that subject. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 13:42, 16 February 2008 (CST)
+:Looks like a plan. I recently killed an image gallery at [[Kara Thrace]] consisting of one image :D --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 16:04, 17 February 2008 (CST)
-Okay... Most images are gonna be screen caps we get from the shows. In which case the credit should go directly to the SciFi Channel, SkyOne Network or Universal Studios. The question is, which one? Or should it be all three? Or does Universal own the two channels and so saying "Cedit: SciFi/SkyOne" is enough? Or... What do you guys think? --[[User:Day|Day]] 23:56, 21 September 2005 (EDT)
+== Cleanup and Organization ==
-: Universal Studios.  They own the copyright.  -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 16:26, 23 September 2005 (EDT)
-:: Following wikipedia's example, we don't need to credit image copyrights in-text, do we? It should be enough to note copyright status on the image's description page. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:27, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
-== The Freakin' Quote-o-Matic ==
+I'm done with the cleanup and organization of the Standards and Conventions. I've also added summaries of each section to the main page, so to help people know what to do about certain things without reading paragraphs explaining the whys and wherefores. Thoughts? -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 23:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
+:Looks good. This split was long overdue. One thing I always wondered is why do we have different standards in the Quotes? For no apparent reason, episodes are italicized and not put in quotes there. That whole section could be cut drastically, if we used the same rules as everywhere else. Though changing that now would be too much work. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 08:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
+::I've always wondered that myself. But now it's too much to go through and change... call it a quirk, I guess. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 16:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
-It's not very -o-Matic, is it? ;o) Anyway, I think we need a standard for how they're formatted. I prefer the following:
+== Numbers ==
-:"The line, in normal-weighted text, enclosed in double quotes."
+"Numbers less than 11 should be spelled out, "five" for "5", etc."
+May I suggest that when we find out who "Number Eleven" and "Number Twelve" are we continue to write out their numbers in full for consistency (so we don't have "Number Four and Number 11 meet" [[User:OTW|OTW]] 23:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
+: Done. :) -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 23:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
-:--''Rank and Name in Italics'' ("Episode Name")
+== Name and Callsign Standardization ==
-It would also be nice to figure out how to go and look at quotes entered for days other than the current day. What do others think? --[[User:Day|Day]] 19:00, 23 September 2005 (EDT)
+I know that there have been some recent concerns over phrasing a character's full name to read 'Lee "Apollo" Adama' or 'Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo'. Therefore, I wanted to start discussion on this, seeing as a lot pages on the wiki need to be standardized to get rid of the over-use of callsigns in favor of standard given last names.
-::As far as looking at previous quotes, that's a Joe question, though it would be welcome. Joe mentioned that the template info has to be added manually, but a creative wikipedia might work something out from a large database. At first I added at most 2 lines as a quote, but now I stick to one quote. I think the style you noted worked well (it did for my two contributions this week), so let's see if we all say so.  [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 14:50, 25 September 2005 (EDT)
+To explain where I'm coming from, I feel that the characters should ultimately be introduced with their full name (first and last name) and callsign, simply because viewers sometimes don't get the fact that "Apollo" is a callsign for Lee, particularly if they are new viewers. Also, the lesser known characters (such as [[Skulls]], [[Racetrack]], and [[Crashdown]]) are referred to mainly by their callsigns, but do have names that we know of. Therefore, we there needs to be an effort to standardize them across the board, ergo the above idea.
-::: Well, if you want to keep track of all the quotes, why not just add them to [[:Category:Quotes]]? Theoretically, every quote should then be linked from that category page. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:44, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
+I know some of you object to this, as I've seen in your edit summaries, but I wanted to discuss it here just to make sure everyone knows where I'm coming from. Thoughts? -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 19:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
+:Why don't we just link Apollo to Lee Adama? --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 19:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
+::We could do that, but it just disjoints the prose. Also, it's not really encyclopedic to refer to people by nicknames or callsigns when we have their actual names, even for the sake of convenience. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 20:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
-:::: However, it's a bit late for quotes already put up, no? --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:49, 17 October 2005 (EDT)
+:My personal annoyance with this is mainly that it sounds somewhat artificial to me (it's probably just me and I'm overreacting...), especially when it's done two or three times in a row. It actually reads like it's a standard. One character is generally fine, but particularly with Racetrack/Skulls, Racetrack/Athena or Boomer/Crashdown it's always something like "Later, Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson and "Hamish "Skulls" McCall fly in their Raptor". It's just the sound of that that I don't particularly care for, for some reason :s You talk about bad prose with disjointed references. For me, ''always'' noting the full name and the callsign inbetween is bad prose too.
+:I can see the point with lesser known characters, for example Racetrack who is generally referred to more by her callsign than her name. That's one reason why I left that in the recent edit. I just think, rather than making it an ironclad standard, that some case-by-case judgment should be used about when to use names only and when to add the callsign. With the [[Battle of Kobol (RDM)]] article, I felt that it's not necessary to do it for Apollo and Starbuck, since they barely play a role in that section. Apollo is only mentioned as her wingman, and only plays a role during the boarding later, and Thrace only steals the Raider. The section is really about Crashdown, Boomer and Racetrack, so it's better to introduce them fully, since their names are used more often and in both variations.
+:At the same time, I think we kinda agreed that callsigns are appropriate for piloty actions. So using Racetrack exclusively in the battle article would be appropriate (though she can be introduced with callsign + name), whereas, in a scene in Joe's bar for example, her real name should be used instead. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 20:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
+::The pilot vs. other stuff convention is a long-standing one that's followed pretty closely. However, I should reiterate that even ''if'' we decide to introduce people as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, we should only call them that ''once'' and use their callsign or surname (whichever is appropriate) from there on, just like we do when introducing normal people (i.e. "William Adama ... Adama ... Adama"). --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 21:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
+:::No one is suggesting to use it several times for one character. It's just about the introduction, and what you say is more or less what's done at the moment. But I think doing it in every introduction already creates formulaic sentences, because it's generally done either at the beginning of a paragraph and/or a sentence. IMO this isn't something that should be standardized so clearly that it needs to be done every time, but only when really needed, so that it doesn't impede the prose. For example it's superfluous when a character hardly plays a role in the text, or if subsequent references only use the real name anyways. At least with main characters. As said, when talking about people like Racetrack or Hot Dog, who are really referred to by their names, noting the callsign makes some sense. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 21:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
-:::: Wait. Is [[Quotes|this page]] automated somehow? If so, then a Quotes category is kind of moot. I remember looking at it a while ago, though, and it having no date information and just a single quote in it. --[[User:Day|Day]] 13:04, 17 October 2005 (EDT)
+== Logical punctuation ==
-On second thought, I prefer this:
+After seeing the link in the edit summary I just noticed that [[w:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Punctuation|Wikipedia uses logical punctuation]]. Interesting. I thought they used American punctuation, but in practice it's probably completely mixed just as here.
-:"The line, in normal-weighted text, enclosed in double quotes."
+I was under the impression that we mostly used American punctuation here, but it appears that the Season 4 articles, at least, use logical punctuation almost exclusively (before Passivity changed them). While the SAC says we use American punctuation, in fact there is a lot of logical one as well. Personally I generally use that as well, because I'm used to it and American punctuation just doesn't make the slightest lick of sense. It's just a stupid holdover from the days when the publications where typeset and there was a technical reason to print them inside. These days, many scientific publications for example are switching over to what the rest of the rest of the world does: place the punctuation marks where they actually belong.
-:--Rank and Name in Normal (''Episode Name'')
-For full exchanges I think something like this would work:
+While I'd prefer logical punctuation everywhere, I'm not really saying that we should change it over officially. Just pointing out that we have an inconsistency here. People use different styles and while one article may be consistent in itself, some others are formatted differently. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 14:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
-:'''Rank and Name 1:''' Humorous battle banter aimed at Speaker 2.
+: It's a mishmash, in practice. Generally speaking, putting commas ''outside'' of quotation marks makes tremendously more sense, and is far better stylistically. As with everything else American, we aren't exactly the greatest at making things efficient. For instance, we still haven't implemented widescale use of the Metric system, despite the fact that we're only one of maybe two or three countries who still use the "English" garbage while everyone else has converted some time ago. Anachronisms die hard, unfortunately. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
-:'''Rank and Name 2:''' Scathing insult.
-:'''Name 1:''' Pithy retort.
-:--''Episode Name''
-What do you guys think of this? If no one replies in a few days, I'll start soliciting opinions on people's talk pages and via AIM. After a few more days, I'll simply make an executive decision and put this policy up. I think it would be best to link it at the head of the [[Quotes]] page, too. When the time comes. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:05, 28 October 2005 (EDT)
+== Quorum ==
-::Day, I've been adapting that format (per your original thoughts) and I find it works well. My only problem is insuring a proper break between the quote(s) and the name and episode for single-quotation blocks. I think this thing has languished long enough to put up a quick vote or 5-day consensus/no-objection period, where we can make this the practice (and retrofit all recorded quotes to match if necessary). --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 08:42, 1 November 2005 (EST)
+Can we get rid of the standard that Quorum members must be referred to as delegates rather than representatives (under "Character Names and Titles"), given that Roslin referred to "twelve perpetually unhappy representatives" in the seventh episode of Season Four? -- [[User:Noneofyourbusiness|Noneofyourbusiness]] 15:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
+: [[Battlestar_Wiki_talk:Standards_and_Conventions/Archive1#Quorum_of_Twelve|Review this]] for why we use "delegate," the more precise term than "representative." -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]]</sup> 17:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
-::: COnsider this that period. Also, do you mean you like the break, but you're concerned about adding it for some reason that I do not understand, or do you mean that your dislike &lt;br/&gt; tags? --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:46, 1 November 2005 (EST)
-:::: Okay. I'm about to put my above policy up. I think I'll have to play with it for a bit to get the display format the way I want it for ease of copying and for users who know nothing of HTML. --[[User:Day|Day]] 15:02, 11 November 2005 (EST)
-::::: I would suggest putting this policy (when it is finalized) and a note about not repeating quotes right on the [[Quotes]] page where the "This is a list of quotes..." statement is. [[User:Nwobkwr|Nwobkwr]] 19:59, 17 November 2005 (EST)
-I noticed that people have started putting in quotes from the original series.  I think this is great but in terms of standardization I would follow the same idea as used on the [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Main_Page Memory Alpha wiki]:
-* If it is an original series episode, quote as [[TOS]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
-* If it is a 1980 series episode, quote as [[1980]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
-* If it is a re-imagined series episode, quote as [[RDM]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
-[[User:Nwobkwr|Nwobkwr]] 13:46, 21 November 2005 (EST)
-:Not a bad idea, Nwobkwr, but it might get cumbersome. Might I suggest we use only the "TOS" flag for TOS and 1980 episodes, and leave the RDM episodes as-is? This gives a slant to the current series, but then, we will have many more quotes from RDM than from the old series since transcripts of the TOS/80 shows are far less available than the current. It also saves on visual complexity. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:30, 30 November 2005 (EST)
-::I think we should put the dab in the episode credit, and only when there are episodes in each series with the same title. (basically, "The Hand of God".) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:53, 30 November 2005 (EST)
-Another thing to consider. In light of [http://battlestarwiki.org/index.php?title=Template:Quote_of_the_Day/09_30&curid=3654&diff=19411&oldid=19408 this] quote, should we allow non-BSG quotes on a longer-than-one-shot basis? I think it would be okay, but others (obviously) don't. I'd like a few more opinions and some actual discussion, rather than just editing. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:00, 13 December 2005 (EST)
-== Links ==
-So, in my opinion, the first occurance of nearly any proper noun should be a link. Even the thing an article is about. This means that the first occurance of an article's topic will be in bold, which I think is nice. For longer articles, I think linking becomes kind of discretionary. If someone hasn't been mentioned (or linked, maybe) in a while, then they could/should be linked. Also, episode credits at the end of an event description should ''always'' be linked. --[[User:Day|Day]] 15:19, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
-:Using links-to-self to bold title text is discouraged by the Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles|Manual of Style]]. In general I think we should defer to Wikipedia for guidance except where we feel a justified need to explicitly contradict them. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:02, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
-:: Ah. I think that's probably wise. Should we, then, manually '''bold''' them (or, in the case of ship names, '''''bold-italicize''''' them), or leave it out all together? --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:40, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
-:::Manually bold. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:41, 2 October 2005 (EDT)
-== HTML ==
-I, ah, didn't think this was exactly necessary, but, uh... I think, now, it might be. Do we need to make a note about preffering <nowiki>''</nowiki> to &lt;i&gt;? I see various posts that have several changes, but leave the HTML intact. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:51, 21 October 2005 (EDT)
-: Agreed.  Wiki sytnax should always supersede HTML sytnax. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:29, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
-: Adendum: By the way, I created two templates: {{tl|s}} and {{tl|u}} for {{s|striking out}} and {{u|underlining text}}, respectfully. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:36, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
-::HTML isn't exactly tasteful, but isn't it preferable to templates? HTML and wikisyntax both retain their formatting if moved to another wiki, but anything formatted with templates won't. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:17, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
-::: Good point, Peter... Maybe "hacking" MediaWiki might be an option, so as to create wikisyntax for underlining? Yes, this would undoubtedly create similar problems, but if a patch was submitted to the MediaWiki developers then they may introduce it (or something like it) into future versions of the software. Just a thought... -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 18:58, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
-:::: What would you have the Wiki Markup be? Underscores and dashes, maybe? Might be dangerous, but perhaps it would require two of each in a row? Or three? I was thinking that _underline_ would render <u>underline</u> and that -strike- would render <s>strike</s>. However, I don't want underscores to mess up URLs or for strike-outs to mess up use of the em-dash, which is often substituted by the double-en dash (--). I'd just as soon use the HTML tags (except that it would get in the way of validating the HTML of the Wiki in XHTML 1.0 Strict, if that's a concern). Maybe we could use !!underline!! and !!!strike!!! or something. Ohoh! What about ``underline`` and ```strike```. Of course... you could go nuts and <nowiki>'''''`````italic bold underline strike`````'''''</nowiki> for '''''<u><s>italic bold underline strike</s></u>'''''. Sounds like a fighting more from some anime. Heh. --[[User:Day|Day]] 05:52, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
-== Verb Tense 2 ==
-While it may be a "convention" within fiction articles about an episode, the verb tense issue is not using present-tense within an encyclopedia unless something is still ongoing. As I posted in the main page talk page and on a user whom made me aware of the verb tense issue, I posit that this convention be changed for the actual entries for the people, places, things. In other words, in the episode pages, the verb tense would stay as it is, but the verb tense in the individual article entries for say "Gaius Baltar" which would be the encyclopedic entry on him, would follow the norms and conventions used in other encyclopedias. That convention being, again using Gauis Balter's entry, the descriptions of Baltar's background, and events which have already occurred on Caprica, etc. be in the past-tense, whereas referring to him as the Vice-President, and duties onboard Galcatica, etc. would be present-tense since this is the current state within the timeline of the show at present. This would of course be edited as events unfold within the show. If for example he is removed form office as VP, then the verb tense would change for that piece of information as well as adding in how he stopped being VP, etc.
-Likewise passages about say the development of the Mark II Viper would be past-tense, while the current disposition and capabilities of the Mark II would be present-tense. Not trying to be overly pedantic, but if we were to use and adopt the convention that this "encyclopedia" were to be discussing things and concepts within BSG as if it "were real" so-to-speak, like say in a present day encyclopedia would describe the development of the F-14 Tomcat in past-tense terms but describe current description of the presently active variants of the F-14 (i.e. the F-14D) and its deployment and present status within the arsenal of the United States Navy, it would be present-tense. Contrast that with descriptions of say, a WWII German Stuka Bomber which would all be past-tense in a current day encyclopedia.
-This sort of tense usage within things such as the ''Star Trek'' technical manuals, Omnipedia's etc., which match he tense usage of current "real world" encyclopedias. Again, not trying to be a bull in a china shop as the new guy on the block, but it is rather jarring to read encyclopedic entries which do not follow the verb tense conventions used in "real world" ones. [[User:Lestatdelc|Lestatdelc]] 22:54, 1 December 2005 (EST)
-:I can see why you feel that way, but past tense sounds horrible in a literary criticism context, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect "star trek encyclopedia"-style articles to be free of critical analysis. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:26, 1 December 2005 (EST)
-::I am not suggesting that the past tense be used in the literary criticism and or episode entries or sections, but in the encyclopedia type entries. It isn't just the ''Star Trek'' encyclopedias but encyclopedias et all which use the past tense for historical or background content and present tense about current status content. In other  words, in all encyclopedias (and I post those style content sections here) would say:
-:::"Bill Clinton was born ''(past tense)'' in Hope Arkansas,  and was elected President in 1992 ''(past tense)'' and after leaving office ''(past tense)'' now lives ''(present tense)'' in the State of New York and has ''(present tense)'' offices in New York City."
-::If he were to move to Anchorage Alaska to live and had offices in Juno Alaska this would be updated in a real encyclopedia to read:
-:::"Bill Clinton was born ''(past tense)'' in Hope Arkansas,  and was elected President in 1992 ''(past tense)'' after leaving office he lived ''(past tense)'' in the State of New York and had ''(past tense)'' offices in New York City, on Dec 2nd, he moved ''(past tense)'' to Alaska and now lives ''(present tense)'' in Anchorage and has ''(present tense)'' offices in Juno."
-::To use present tense throughout this site, to be honest it reads awkward in many places. Not to mention that it does shatter the kinda cool suspension of disbelief aspect to have an encyclopedia ''Galactica''. — [[User:Lestatdelc|Lestatdelc]] 00:38, 2 December 2005 (EST)
-:::The idea of a fictional "encyclopedia Galactica" is patently not this site's goal. We document plenty of in-canon stuff, certainly, but we have a great quantity of content given over to actors, writers, behind-the-scenes material, critical analysis, and three or four different incarnations of the series. I don't have any interest in working toward the false document mystique, personally. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:35, 2 December 2005 (EST)
-:::: Well for me personally, that is 9/0ths of the appeal of wanting to work on things at this site. Particularly since BSG in its re-=imagined form is a rich subject to do just that, because of the attention to detail and "realism" as the underlying ethos of the show. Having a robust wiki that reenforces and builds out upon that quality of the show is, to my mind, ideal. Not saying you have to want that to, but it is a real cold shower for me perosnally. Just my 2/100ths of a cubits worth. — [[User:Lestatdelc|Lestatdelc]] 20:53, 3 December 2005 (EST)
-::::I can appreciate Lestatdelc's arguments on using present-tense, and it took me a bit to digest, but I agree with the standing convention. I've recently discovered the Star Trek Memory Alpha wiki (wow, and to think such a wiki could be done is amazing to me) and reviewed a few pages at random. Many use past tense there, but some, like the page on the excellent episode, [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Enterprise_Incident "The Enterprise Incident"], is successfully written in present-tense. I suspect that Memory Alpha hasn't a verb tense convention there, but note how the active-tense generates a feel of the characters ''doing'' something, rather than being "historical". As Peter explained to me, fictional characters are always in the act of doing something each time you read or watch them--and after a time I realized how correct he was--it keeps the characterization alive to me and to the article. The use of the verb tense also makes it more challenging to write the article as good fiction tends to evolve--in an active voice. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:15, 2 December 2005 (EST)
-::::::But we in theory are not advancing the story but discussing what has occurred on the show and describing the details of the universe presented in the show (as well as "about the show(s) themselves). If we take the notion of suspension of disbelief at face value, and imagine the events of BSG not being fiction and documenting the events and details there of, particularly in encyclopedic form we would present events which have occurred as past tense, and present status and ongoing things in present tense. What Peter has said up-thread is that there is no interest in such a thing for him personally (and it would seem that most concur) I would consider it unfortunate as this is a great missed opportunity. I think that such "false document" mystique is actually something that has rather large appeal, witness the massive industry of such things in the ''Star Trek'' fandom, from blueprints, tech manuals, omnipedias, and the entire supplemental industry to the RPG medium. As for other projects about fictional stories and their universes, I would point to things like the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp The Encyclopedia of Arda] which is based on the Tolkien universe. I don't wish to be a disrupting presence here, especially being a "nugget" as it were, but I think this is a bad call for a missed opportunity. I can envision a clear convention which would allow for discussing each incarnation of the series and the "about the show" aspect in tandem with the "in universe" repository of content about said universe in the style of such things as the Trek universe things of Omnipedia, Concodrance, Tech Manuls, etc. and the Arda/Tolkien examples. — [[User:Lestatdelc|Lestatdelc]] 20:53, 3 December 2005 (EST)
-::::: If one cares to review the earlier verb tense discussion, I originally thought past tense was the Way To Go. However, now I stand with the current convention (I think this is also displayed in the past discussion, but I'm too lazy to check). I agree with the present-tense being used to talk about, say, the ''Oddesey'' or ''The Matrix'' or ''Friends'' or whatever, but those aren't, to me, the most compelling points, good as they may be. The compelling point is, once again, that I'm lazy. The amount of man-hours it would take to update the tense in every character bio every week while the show's not on hiatus is, well, a lot. We have a hard enough time with the stuff that's already within scope and I don't see Lest's reasons as nearly as compelling as the three against: Added workload, literary precedent, and more "alive" feel (to borrow Spence's word). And, more specifically, I, too, find the false-documentary idea only "eh" at best. The new series is shot in a way that kind of feels like a documentary, but let's leave that to them and let's us do our own thing. And, in any case, how would one account for multiple series and spoilers in a documentary? Bleh. We might have to start talking in alternate realities or [[railgun|adaptive physics]] if we went down ''that'' road. ;) --[[User:Day|Day]] 05:24, 3 December 2005 (EST)
-:::::: Well we would be updating the character entries anyway as new events unfold, and placing those events in past tense as they are entered is no more work than putting them there in present tense. The only distinction would be what is currant and ongoing status. For example "Gaius Baltar is the VP in the government" which stays like that until events change that, which would be editing that entry to add whatever event changed that anyway. In fact having both be present tense would be really awkward from a readers perspective. I would also point out that it is not "false documentary" so much as "false document" i.e. if there were an up-tp-the-minute encyclopedia that covered the vast array of things '''within''' that BSG universe that was "passed through" the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscenium proscenium] to us here, that is the style of content about the things within the show which I posit, should be presented in the relevant verb-tense. And the "outside the proscenium" content, about the show, the actors, episode summary, analysis, and comparisons between series, etc. would all be in the present tense which, I agree is much more natural and engaging. I don't honestly see it as more work once the bulk of such tense resolution is done to the exiting content where needed, and as I have posited (probably to the point you guys wanna toss me out the nearest door me already, sheepish grin) would hold much more appeal to me and I am sure others of whom it is demonstratively evident there is an audience for, otherwise fandom and official creation of things like blueprints, tech manuals, etc. for other series stuff, which is presented as if they were "genuine documents" from said universe depicts in those various shows, would not be so prevalent. Again, not trying to be cantankerous or difficult. — [[User:Lestatdelc|Lestatdelc]] 20:53, 3 December 2005 (EST)
-::::::: I would also really prefer past tense. Like Lestatdelc says, it creates the feel of the article being real. Starwars Wiki always uses past tense, and refers to the articles as being written "in-universe", which to me sums up why past tense is so good. Writing is present tense sounds like someone is writing the events as they watch them on TV, which kind of takes you out of it. Also, I personally find present tense just seems really clumsy. It's like reading a little childs picture book (without so many pictures, and uh, bigger words :) ). Day makes an good point about keeping with the documentary style, and as for alternate series and spoilers, just check how starwars wiki handles non-canon and spoilers. It would be a bit of work to change, but not too much if lots of people work on it. One more point, it might be easier to convince those who are new here to write in past-tense than in present-tense (which seems like an uphill battle). Anyone else agree, or are us pro-past-tense people just in the minority here?--[[User:Undc23|Undc23]] 22:13, 16 January 2006 (EST)
-::::::::As I've stated above, the "in-universe" conceit does not appeal to me at all. Present tense prose is more difficult to write than past tense, but I think the results are crisper and sound more professional. The process forces one to pay closer attention to their writing style.
-::::::::As for your comment about convincing "those who are new here to write in past-tense", I find that notion troubling. This matter is such that there can only be one standard. The purpose of the Standards and Conventions process is (naturally) to create and promulgate a consistant style. If you wish to change the policy, discussion here is the place to effect it, not through unilateral action. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 22:34, 16 January 2006 (EST)
-:::::::::You've misunderstood me, I was merely suggesting a change - one which I don't expect will happen, and I'm fine with that. My comment was that at the moment people are coming in and writing past-tense, and having to be told to write in present-tense as they have not read these standards. I was saying that one advantage of changing the standard to past-tense would be that they would probably not have to be told. I'm not about to tell people to go against the standard - that we have one standard is more important than what it is anyway.--[[User:Undc23|Undc23]] 00:11, 17 January 2006 (EST)
-:::::::::: I also think that present tense sounds more academic. As has been noted before (more than once), this style was initially adopted chiefly because that is the accepted academic style when writing about works of fiction. This is one of the ways in which we attempt to be encyclopedic. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:55, 17 January 2006 (EST)
-== Ranks and Locations ==
-Okay. So I was playing this [[:Template:Quote of the Day/09 29|this quote]] and I ran into an issue. In Civillian Speak, I'd call Apollo "''[[Galactica]]'''s [[CAG]], Captain [[Lee Adama]]", but I have an inkling that in Military Speak he'd be something like "[[CAG]] (''[[Galactica]]''), Cpt. [[Lee Adama]]" or whatever. You'd only use this when needing to differentiate him from, say, the [[CAG]] (''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''), but we might want to. Same goes for [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] and [[Laird]]. Does someone with a better grasp of military (specifically US Naval, if possible) conventions with respect to this have a suggestion on what kind of convention we should adopt? I'd love it if it didn't conflict with the current Quote of the Day episode convention (since ''Pesgasus'' is half of the ships this is likely to apply to), but we can always change the QotD thing, if we have to. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:04, 6 December 2005 (EST)
-:I've tended to use the military abbreviation style as the Army used that I learned while a civilian employee.
-::ADM, CDR, MAJ, COL, CPT, LT, LTJG, ENS
-::CPO, SGT, PVT, SPC
-::Deck Hand, Recruits have no specific abbreviation I can find.
-:All caps, no spaces or punctuation. There should be plenty of Internet resources for this. And RDM has already noted the format he used, taking it mostly from the Original Series and his military experience. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 15:15, 18 January 2006 (EST)
-:: Enlightening (and I'm just glad someone replied to this at all), but somewhat tangental to my wonderment. I guess it was really about how we're supposed to specify where people are assigned when they have a specific role. In "Pegasus" Tigh and Fisk are both Colonels, but they're ''also'' both XOs, so for would we call one "COL Tigh (XO, ''Galactica'')" and the other "COL Fisk (XO, ''Pegasus'')"? Or what? --[[User:Day|Day]] 15:49, 18 January 2006 (EST)
-::: They would be referred to as ''Galactica'' XO and ''Pegasus'' XO repectively. They're referred to by position first, not by name. Unit, Position, rank, name. [[User:Joemc72|Joemc72]] 16:02, 18 January 2006 (EST)
-:::: So, I guess, with relation to the quotes, we don't really need to say where given characters are assigned... I don't know why I'd gotten that need into my head, really. --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:59, 18 January 2006 (EST)
-== Image Format ==
-Mostly, the images I upload have been .jpg files. That's just what I tend to use on the web by default. However, because we scale our images a lot (i.e. all out thumbs), would it be more prudent to use .png formatting which, I hear, scales better? And, if that's so, should we make a note on this page about preferred image formatting (though, as long as it shows up alright, I don't see why we'd discriminate)? --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:09, 23 December 2005 (EST)
-:Most imprudent. PNG is far less efficient at compressing photographic images than JPEG. All image scaling is handled by the wiki software, and based on the original JPEG, so no significant generational degredation should exist.
-:PNG has its own distinct uses, and is much better than JPEG at line art and schematics. I think this is commonly understood by most internet users, and I don't think that we need an explict policy on it. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:32, 23 December 2005 (EST)
-== Image Control Station ==
-I was working on identifying and classifying unused images that have been uploaded, rather than deleting them outright (at Peter Farago's suggestion). While I started this with the intention of it being something I could handle myself, it has been suggested that it might merit a project or sub-project. I wanted to see if there was any consensus for a project that:
-"would take over the Images section of Standards and Conventions (since that's not really where that shouold live, ultimately), and it would cross-coordinate with Characters. I'd want to call it something like Aft Image Control or Auxilliary Image Control... Or, failing those series-references, the Ministry of Images ([[User talk:Steelviper/IslandofMisfitImages/#Project?|Day]])."
-Potentially I would move [[User:Steelviper/IslandofMisfitImages/|The Island of Misfit Images]] to a Project namespace with a more Galactica-themed title, but it would be a subpage/project of the Image Control Station (to avoid slamming bandwidth-challenged folks that might stumble across the Control Station). The actual control station would be more of a place that coordinate all the image related project pages (present and future).
-So the main options I'm proposing are, a project page for Images in general with a subproject for misfit images, just a project/subproject for the misfit images (and we'll link to it from somewhere), or just leave it in Steelviper's user space. (Though I'm open to other ideas as well). --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 09:30, 18 January 2006 (EST)