User talk:Erik the Appreciator/Erik's Sandbox

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Pokémon species list pages
Ugh, we should really strip out all the in-universe information. We don't need to height and weight, ability, species, etc. Hbdragon88 23:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting opinion. There'd be a lot of people who would say to our faces that we do need them, I'll bet. Are you saying none of those table cells need to be in the separate species sections at all? And thanks for being the first to recognize this subpage's existence. ^_^ Erik Jensen (Appreciate 04:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh, sometimss you just have to do it. Kind of like how we merged the cities, the gym leaders, etc. together.  I reread the page - I think that the bottom rows can safely be killed, the top isn't nearly as bad (Pokedex #, evolutions, and typings are mildly important).  In fact, I had an idea to break it up by typing, but I realize that the Water-type would probably need to be broken into three lists, and then you have the issue with dual typings. (Is Magnemite an Electirc, or a Steel?  Does his typing in R/B/Y have any indication?) Hbdragon88 05:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh absolutely, I thought a lot about the group-by-typing concept and even proposed that but someone else thought this way would be simpler and more concise. Anyway, I removed those bottom rows. I wonder how many other users would warm up to our mergist conspiracy, mmm? Erik Jensen (Appreciate 05:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This does cut the problem down to just 25 large pages, which is much preferred over the current mess of 493 articles. Hbdragon88 05:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, but it's still the sort of thing that will require the input of many other editors before we can actually get anywhere. Hopefully AMIB may comment. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 05:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

For starters, I think you should try and invite both AMIB and ALTTP to check this mock-up in this sandbox, then after some deliberation we try a combined proposal together at WP:PCP as more of a focused group. As much as I'd love to see this sort of breakthrough, I hope there'll be enough outside support for it, and it may take more of a team effort than just one guy's thought on how to structure Wikipedia. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 05:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I should also lay out how I think we should actually carry this out if the time comes: We should create these 25 pages first without touching the other 493 species articles. Once the list pages are in relatively good shape, we form a sort of sub-project at WP:PCP where a committee of users goes through each and every one of the 493 articles in order, and for each of these pages this sub-project analyzes whether it looks like the page can become a legitimate Good and/or Featured article or not. If so, keep the full Pokemon specie page where it is and put the "Main Article: (Pokemon specie)" tag on that Pokemon's respective section in the list; if not, redirect the page to the proper list page. Doing it this way has several advantages, I think, one of which is that in the future, if someone thinks one of the specie pages that would have been redirected has enough to deserve its own article, he or she can go and bring it up at that subproject and demonstrate how the separate article can stand on its own. Another is that creating new list pages without doing anything with the older ones until later should not set off as many alarms and may cause more widespread acceptance of this endeavor. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 17:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this could work. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, thank you. (Tips hat.) In relation to sourcing, this is meant to cut down the sheer need for specific sources within individual articles, and it's the specific things about Pokemon articles like game guide and story write-up that come from the half-unreliable fansites and therefore are rather frowned upon by Wikipedia's meta-game. It'd probably be easier to find second-party sources that are more reliable, sources reliably saying very general things about each Pokemon species, and such general sources would probably seem much more appropriate for list pages like this than the individual species pages. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 21:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I want to point out that zig-zagging the pictures through the article makes me dizzy and moving my eyes back and forth to look at the pictures creates unneccesary eye strain. --Brandon Dilbeck 23:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I used to have them all to the right. Perhaps that can be something discussed at length later, if my concept of merging is actually accepted at WP:PCP. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 00:46, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

How about merging by evolution chains?
The main issue I have with merging by number is that the Pokémon are divided into pages each containing what seems to be an arbitrarily chosen number of Pokémon and that the Pokémon in each page each seem to have nothing tying them together except that they are close in number. You'd have an article entitled "Pokémon species #241–#260" which would contain a whole mishmash of Pokémon including Suicune, Miltank, Marshtomp, Pupitar, Celebi, Blissy, and Grovyle&mdash;why should Miltank, Marshtomp, and Suicune all be together on the same page? I think one of the best ways to merge Pokémon together is to merge entire evolutionary chains together. Most Pokémon have an evolution or pre-evolution&mdash;merging them this way would bring us down to approximately 247 articles, half of what we have now. Many of the rest of the Pokémon that don't evolve are legendary; perhaps we could merge legendary Pokémon from each region/generation together in the same fashion to bring that 247 even lower.

I understand that 247 is greater than 25, but it's still much fewer than 493, and there is an additional benefit to readers. For one thing, Pokémon in an evolutionary chain aren't always kept together by National Dex number. Take Blissy for example; it isn't right next to Chansey when we sort by Nat'l Dex number. And Chansey's new pre-evolutionary form is even farther away. But if we put them together in an article, the relationship between the Pokémon becomes very apparent, and in some cases this is beneficial to the reader. I can see this being very handy with Pokémon like Eevee and its evolutions Flareon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Umbreon, Espeon, and the two new 4th gen ones. Or there's the case with Roselia and its two new gender-based evolutions (right?) pre- and post-evolutionary forms. And there's the case with Tyrogue and its three evolutionary forms&mdash;they aren't all together in the Nat'l Dex&mdash;wouldn't it be beneficial to the reader to see those Pokémon next to each other in an article? As for the legendary Pokémon, many times, they have much to do with each other. Entei, Suicune, and Raikou each have to do with either Ho-oh or Lugia as the latter was guarding the former (I forget). There's also the connection between Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza as each controls a different place (the earth, the sea, and space or something).

Of course, there would be a few stray non-legendary Pokémon without any evolutions such as Seviper and Pinsir; I suppose they would have to continue to exist by themselves unless we would prefer to merge them together (perhaps by region). If it were completely up to me, I wouldn't merge any of the articles at all and let each stand by itself. Of course, I've noticed a growing trend towards mergism in the PCP and also see the benefits of not allowing each Pokémon its own article. I just don't see how merging Pokémon based on Dex number would have any specific benefits to the readers besides merely reducing the number of articles. --Brandon Dilbeck 04:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I find myself in slight agreement, as there might be some articles notable enough to stand on their own (I'm thinking Pikachu, Mewtwo, here). For the orphaned pages, would it be suitable to merge them into Legendary Pokemon articles?  For the first gen, that'd just be Zapdos/Articuno/Moltres/Mew/Mewtwo.  The Legendary Dogs/Gerbils/Cats/whatever the hell they're called and Lugia/Ho-Oh would go into a seocnd page, etc.  The "25 large pages" idea works for your groupings of the Legendaries - they are all grouped together, pretty much, all at the end, so most of them wouldn't be orphaned (except for Mew/Mewtwo).


 * Ah jeez, those things again (the lonely, lonely ones that never get an evolution). I say that we could group them by their dominant type, perhaps, which would be the first one.  Heracross and Pinsir could go together.  Solrock, Lunatone are primarily Rock-types.  I can't remember all the orphans now. Hbdragon88 07:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'd be fine whatever way they're merged, but evolution line merging was thought of in part in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Pokémon_Collaborative_Project/Archive_11#General_issue_with_many_of_the_Pokemon_articles... this archived discussion], and the three comments I want to point out from that thread I've reposted below:


 * Evo line merging seems the best start, but after that, I don't know. -Amarkov blahedits 03:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason why evo line merging didn't sound good when it was proposed on this page a while ago was that you are left with articles like Dunsparce and Illumise and Lunatone and Perap. AMIB didn't think that was a good way to do it. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 04:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And still doesn't. It doesn't really solve any problems; it's a pointless merge for the sake of appearing to be doing something about the actual problems. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Evo line merging was discussed sometime before the above comments, and I even tried it out on my sandbox, but typical MIB thinks evo-line merging doesn't take care of much of anything. Y'know, maybe it'd be a good thing to have Pokémon species #241–#260 with all those different Pokemon because it indicates Wikipedia is covering these Pokemon neutrally, or something like that. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 19:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I ought to point out that any decision should be the result of consensus and that we shouldn't put more weight on A Man In Black's opinion than anyone else's opinion. I'm not convinced that merging Pokémon by the 20s won't inherently reduce "cruft"&mdash;what's going to keep people from just adding that information all over again?  Instead of one "crufty" page, we'll have a "crufty" page twenty times longer than the former.  --Brandon Dilbeck 19:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That might be true. :/ Bear in mind that my ultimate objective through all this is not necessarily to implement my Lists of Pokemon concept as physical reality, it's to assist in finding a solution that will eventually prevent threads like this, this, and this (your thread) from continually popping up on discussion pages. It feels like for the past many months people keep complaining about the state of most of the species articles and how making them ideal will cause them to become stub-length, so it really seems a mega-merge of any sort (doesn't have to be done my way) is the only way to allay the general attitude many users have against so many species pages (A Link to the Past would rather see some sort of merge done too). And I'd be more hesitant about this if AMIB were the only admin repeatedly stating that most Pokemon specie pages can't ever become actual articles, but Hbdragon88 seems to be in on this too. Anyway, my main belief about Wikipedia that fuels my attempts to find a solution for what Hbdragon88 calls the "current mess of 493 articles" is that Wikipedia, as a general encyclopedia, ought to appeal to any reader with generalized and practical info about its subjects, and various wikis like Bulbapedia should be where the detailed info by the fans and for the fans resides in hundreds of specie pages. Most of the Pokemon specie pages on Wikipedia have a lot of info that appeals mostly to series fans and not very much to casual readers, and that seems to be the "cruft" everyone keeps talking about, so to satisfy a lot of Wikipedia policies and guidelines a lot of the cruft must be removed from the species articles, and those articles would be left in a state that would fit far better on list pages like my Lists of Pokemon idea. Overall, something somehow should happen that will cause discussions about a lack of notability and sources for so many Pokemon to cease somewhat, and I'm hoping I can help promote a solution that will achieve that goal and make the general wiki-project a lot happier. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 20:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge by National Order vs. Merge by Type
So at WP:PCP there's pretty much now a consensus that the mega-merge of specie pages takes place in the near future. However, there seems to be two valid ways to arrange the results: My plan to make them into a series of List of Pokemon pages covering 'em all in National Pokedex order, or a plan by A Link to the Past to make them into about 16 subseries of List of (insert elemental type here) Pokemon pages that covers Pokemon by their "primary type" - that is, the type the game lists as Type 1 for that Pokemon, so that for Dual-types, a Rock-Ground type like Onix would go into a Rock-Type list page because Type 1 is Rock and Type 2 is ground. Which is better? You decide. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 20:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm. Uniform lists with unambiguous organization criteria, or often over-long or exceedingly short lists that will often separate pre-evolutions from later evolutions and will lead to constant warring over where such-and-such Pokémon goes? I think it's an easy decision. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I assume your Uniform lists refers to the National Dex ordering; yeah, I tried thinking through the process and have found that it really will cause headaches to adopt a complex organization system based on elemental typing. Not only would doing it straight as 25 List pages in National Dex ordering be easier for users to create and think around, it would indicate Wikipedia is not showing bias in showing Pokemon in the official order. Erik Jensen (Appreciate 20:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)