Bulbapedia talk:Project CharacterDex
Detangling notability requirements
So this is the first part of a two part improvement project I hope to try to be pushing forward with soon with the community. The first is when Pokémon are significant enough to be given their own page independent of their Trainer. The second is when it is reasonable to divorce a Trainer's page into independent pages instead of a section, but that is something I would like to cover at a later date.
I would also like to indicate that I have tried to keep this as free from my own personal bias as possible, despite my own feelings on the matter. However as a note, responses to questions will be my personal opinions on matters.
The Problem
There's been a non-insignificant push back and forth between staff and users as to when Pokémon should be considered notable. Among the arguments presented by both sides are that we tend to have a very anime-centric view in these cases, the pages don't actually add any extra information other then what is already presented on the Trainer page, and just because a Pokémon is seen with it's Trainer that doesn't mean it is actually doing anything of note.
For reference here is a summary of our current (relevant) notability guides
- For anime:
- - Main character Pokémon are notable if they appear more then once (with a brief amendment for Goh given his journey)
- - Rivals and recurring characters may only have signature Pokémon articles unless there is another Pokémon of particular note
- - Gym Leaders may have an article on their signature but only if it did more then battle.
- For manga these are a bit messier due to the dependence on when and how they are appear but generally:
- - Requires significant impact and reappearances
- - Starter Pokémon of the main characters
The current situation
Now looking at the pages for mainspacing, a lot of draft articles currently caught up are "signature" Pokémon of Leaders, Elites and Rivals, or Pokémon that appeared multiple times throughout series that belonged to Rival Trainers but didn't do a lot outside of battling. Occasionally you also get Gym Leader secondary Pokémon here too.
Defining signature Pokémon is something the series has been a lot better at doing for these Gym Leaders recently, however historically there will be some issues where we have the Gen 1 issue (lots of appearances across media, different representations) or where pre-evolutions are the primary Pokémon over final evolutions, Erika is one such example. We also have some cases where the signature Pokémon can flux between media types. Which is where thankfully, Pokémon Masters has been coming in use lately since it seems to be helping us pin point some of these mystery cases. There's also the Gotcha music video and another (albeit older) source we can sometimes use for these is the Adventures art for the key Trainers.
Working towards a solution
I want to talk about media agnostic views of the franchise, or trying to push for a more wholistic view of pages.
Although I won't linger too long on this point, unfortunately only one section can be the top section and their is frequent disagreement on what that section should be between users, staff and viewers. There are projects in the works to try and work out ways to change that. However, in the interim and to help us start this conversation there are three main categories of appearances for the most part that the staff have identified.
- Story - Usually Animated and Manga series, occasionally can include Games (think AZ's Floette or Jasmine's Ampharos).
- Data - Primarily this is seen with the games. Think things like Party Pokémon data, Master's links, Contest Data, and side game appearances.
- Visual - This is where the appearance is primarily in a visual medium on the page, think things like TCG appearances and Merchandise. This can also occasionally involve other mediums especially in blink and you'll miss it appearances, such as Gotcha.
Using these guidelines if we set a minimum amount of appearances between these three areas, we could potentially develop new guidelines that should see us able to have more Pokémon with pages that have been identified as important by the community, as well as help build a stronger Bulbapedia. --Spriteit (talk) 13:17, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- I realized this hasn't been linked, but there's a Discord convo here too. Tiddlywinks (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
- This is for anyone reading this post, but the intent of linking the discord channel is not to force people to contribute their opinions by using a specific method over another. It is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, for people here to respond to the talk page messages here, and there is no expectation to join to discord server in order to post your thoughts. MaverickNate 01:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
Character ages
We've been workshopping some guidelines for handling character ages on pages. Here's the current revision:
The following guidelines should be followed for displaying age information in the infobox of character articles.
For clarity and accuracy, include the exact age, range, or description with citation when official sources give specific age information, using the latest confirmation where applicable.
If an age is not directly confirmed, use terms like "Presumed [age range]" or "Unconfirmed, presumed [age range]" with a clarifying reference note; descriptions like "Teenager" or "Middle-aged, exact age unknown" are preferred over just "Unknown". Keep descriptions in the infobox brief, with a link to the body of the article for full details. Information should not be synthesized from multiple sources to determine specific ages or age ranges.
If no official age information exists, the infobox will display "Not stated".
Other considerations:
- As needed, include context such as the source of the age information, e.g. "11 (as of Gen I)" or "16 (according to [character])".
- List different ages across media separately, treating different games and series as distinct. Only ages from the language of origin or English release go in the infobox, with others mentioned in reference notes. Include differences between the original and English releases, if applicable.
- Use definite age ranges with a known start/end point, or based on character-related factors (e.g. Trial Captains quitting at 20), and mark them "presumed" if needed.
- Handle indefinite ranges cautiously (e.g. [character] "looks around 15").
- For contextual info, prioritize: external official sources (e.g. press materials), internal official sources (e.g. narration), internal unbiased sources (e.g. Trainer's Eyes), then dialogue.
- Avoid comparative descriptions like "older than [character with no stated age]."
Note that exceptions to these guidelines may apply, and that edge cases can be handled individually with respect to their specific circumstances.
Feel free to share any feedback or suggestions on this and discuss any potential adjustments. Landfish7 23:32, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
- I personally think indefinite ranges ("looks around 15") can be a very slippery slope. Like, I'm assuming characters like Tate and Liza are probably meant to be young kids, but "looks X age" can be very subjective and lean into some... weird assumptions (i.e. "short people are children, tall people are adults", which is also unfortunately an issue in real life) and baseless assumptions ("why did you say character looks X age" "because they look X" "how" they just look it"). Descriptions like "middle aged" should probably also only be used if they're mentioned in universe/dialogue (ex. "the middle aged Trainer" as a title or something), because we're a wiki, and I think as such we should avoid speculation as much as possible. Welkamo (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
- The indefinite ranges is intended for official usage, such as Cyllene describing the player by stating "You look to be 15 or so." I agree that these guidelines could be adjusted to make it more clear that descriptions should primarily be based on official text. Landfish7 22:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
- Here's an adjusted version of the relevant paragraph.
- The indefinite ranges is intended for official usage, such as Cyllene describing the player by stating "You look to be 15 or so." I agree that these guidelines could be adjusted to make it more clear that descriptions should primarily be based on official text. Landfish7 22:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
For clarity and accuracy, include the exact age, range, or description with citation when official sources give specific age information, using the latest confirmation where applicable. If an age is not directly confirmed, use terms like "Presumed [age range]" or "Unconfirmed, presumed [age range]" with a clarifying reference note providing evidence from official materials. Descriptive terms like "Teenager" or "Middle-aged, exact age unknown" are preferred over simply stating "Unknown", but must be based on official text. Minor adjustments like changing "of middle age" to "Middle-aged" are acceptable, but avoid altering the meaning, such as changing "kid" to "adolescent". Additionally, keep descriptions in the infobox brief, with a link to the body of the article for more detailed explanations.
- - Landfish7 15:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think the estimated age range in that context should be restricted to game statements. Tag365 (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
Hey there! As you’re all probably aware, there’s a lot of leak stuff going around, including character ages from anime model sheets. Given the nature of these leaks, the information was likely never meant to be public, and we don't know if these are discarded leftovers/experiments from development, or still used for creating official materials today. As such, we consider information from the recent gigaleak, including character information, to not be canon. We likely won’t be documenting information released by the leaks in general, but this may be reevaluated in the future, and we just wanted to clarify how this affects the age policy. We ask that you please not add information from the leaks at this time. Thanks! Welkamo (talk) 01:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)