User talk:Who is like God?

if you see some change I made (a move or such) affects some of your contributions or other stuff, go ahead and let me know  Okay, how about this: I see your point about the monster capitalizations etc., and I don't really have a counterargument. However, if you change them in some articles and not others, you leave the content of the wiki the same while making the copyediting worse. For example, are you planning to double-check all 400+ pages containing the word "baron"? :>    Ryan W 21:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll certainly try. At least most instances should be covered eventually, as with the "what links here" I can catch the majority. I also like to do this because as I go through articles I can iron out some of the text that has room for improvement, further clarity, or fact cleaning (like in the imp article). I also gathered that if I didn't do it now it would only get harder later, as (at least) level articles are added on a relatively regular basis and they use the monster names regularly. Who is like God? 05:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't forget about the search function as well, it's what I use to find various word instances I need to change (usually to turn into wiki-links). Baron, for example, comes up with 491 matches. (yikes!) Nuxius 02:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

"Accurate" article titles
I somewhat disagree with the way you have renamed the articles Doomguy (to "Doom's protagonist") and the Icon of Sin (to "Final boss"). While this type of naming convention is decent, I would still argue that the original article names were better suited especially for this type of informal hobby encyclopedia. This is because Doom's protagonist is called "Doomguy" and the Doom II final boss "Icon of Sin" by nearly all Doom fans on the web. You could even say that calling them using these names is a strong community consensus and that they have basically become standard vocabulary in the community. Furthermore, this wiki's main function (at least the way I see it) is to serve the online Doom fan base, and articles about things should be named based on what names most doomers know them. Naturally this principle doesn't always apply/work and I can imagine there can be exceptions - but I don't think we should make one with these two articles (and in other similar cases). -- Janizdreg 22:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The point is accuracy ("objectivity") of information (which is what an encyclopedia especially strives for) rather than "common usage". If you repeatedly use Icon of Sin (a name pulled of the name of the level) and Doomguy (a nickname) here in that way you eliminate the understanding that they are those things, even if you mention it somewhere (any clarification is lost outside of the article itself). Because of the use of Doomguy the article was originally written almost as if it were a piece of fan fiction (the one in the wikipedia still suffers from this to a good degree). Besides, there are redirects for that reason. People will naturally and expectedly come looking for these things by hitting "Go" using the community names and will be led to the articles regardless of how they are named, and they will see their usage on the basic definition of the article. But only if the article is named more properly and that "doomguy" is a community nick do they keep that in mind while reading. Also, look at the quotes by the developers, they don't say "doomguy". In an article about "doomguy" you could define what "doomguy" is (a name given to the protagonist by fans), but is that article necessary? Not really, since that is easily offered in the article about the main character of the game in a handful of words. Doomguy and Icon of Sin are not NPOV. Should it be the wiki's role to further a bias, however widespread it is among certain circles, because we belong to such circles? (This being Doomworld and some other fan sites, where the term is used rather often.) Of course terms like Doomguy, vanilla Doom, classic Doom, Icon of Sin, need to be addressed and put in context... but used blindly?


 * You must admit that "Doom's protagonist" is in no way ambiguous.


 * And using "Doomguy" here is the equivalent of saying; "If some dude loads Doom with a PWAD that adds sprites without patching it with DeuTex, it hangs". That's also a very common way of saying things, yet it's not how you write a wiki sentence.


 * The best way to write an article that clearly informs a wide range of readers is by writing it as if you were from another planet, because your eye is open to describe and point out every relevant detail, and not by writing what is expected (people don't need to get informed about what they expect, because they already know it).


 * You and I, we clearly understand in the community sense what "Doomguy" is, after years of exposure to it, but someone who is newer to the community has to initiate himself in all these terms (often used in a way that takes them for granted), and that makes a wiki much more obscure to those not in the fandom circle.


 * These two (Doomguy, Icon of Sin) are obvious examples, but this happens a lot in more subtle ways each time a term is reused loosely without considering what it really implies; sentences become shorter since the reader is assumed to know what all these community terms are, and readable only to some and with a particular bent. A lot of my tweaking has to do with that issue, and it's why I find so much to improve... there's tons to expand and fine tune.


 * Trust me, edits of mine of this sort may seem arbitrary at first glance, but they have all to do with how I reinforce the text, making it readable so either a guy from the community or someone else can read it and say "ah". If one is alarmed at "Doomguy" is moved to "Doom's protagonist" it's because the article was there first (by resistance due to habit). Who is like God? 23:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You do have valid points there. I stand corrected, and I agree. Thanks for clearing out the reasoning behind your edits. Never the less I'd advice you to consider about discussing renaming/moving major articles with other Doom Wiki members before acting. -- Janizdreg 01:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

myk, thank you for writing the above; it makes a lot of your edits easier to understand. I think we still disagree about this one, but you apparently agree that "common usage" titles like chaingunner can be described in gameplay articles (despite the difficulty of footnoting them), which at least answers my "misconception" question.

Although I personally give advance notice about large projects, I can see why someone else might not (most contributors only drop in every so often, so it is frequently impossible to generate discussion about a change until after it is made). I predict however that if you continue to make 1,000 edits per month, this kind of thing will happen regularly.

Janizdreg, I disagree that "informal hobby encyclopedia" is the consensus viewpoint (here is what the policy page looked like when I arrived). Doom2.net and the ZDoom Wiki are informal hobby encyclopedias. This is intended as a scholarly project, or at least as close as may be with so few good models to follow. Ryan W 04:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The way I see it, Doom Wiki is "informal" (though a better word would probably be "unofficial") in the sense that this isn't an official Doom database operating under id Software's blessing and control. Therefore we aren't strictly limited to (for example) using wording coined by id and we can and should use or at least mention vocabulary common amongst the fans in addition to the "official" stuff.


 * Of course if you were referring to the writing/content style of this wiki, then there is nothing to debate about, since I do know this wiki aims to be written in the style of official encyclopedias. -- Janizdreg 21:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)