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User:Kiefmaster99/Comments

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This section will house comments I have regarding wiki stuff, for the lack of a better name.

Touhou Wiki History

Disclaimer: Some information here may be inaccurate, in particular pre-split.

Pooshlmer (2005-2008)

Touhou Wiki was founded on 6 April 2005, although actual content was not added until a few days later. Back then, it was hosted at pooshlmer.com, also known for its Touhou image board, with Pooshlmer as its head admin. The wiki was much smaller back then, and was pretty limited to the Pooshlmer community.

The imageboard at that time had 100+ pages where half of the threads were doujinshi or doujinshi scanlation projects and the rest were imagedumps.[1] At that time, the wiki was used to track the translation statuses of each project. The wiki would continue to be used for this purpose, and the pages of doujinshi would be eventually split to Magic Archive Voile.

Over the next few years, the wiki grew, placing a greater burden on server resources as the wiki consumed more bandwidth, and so the wiki had to be moved off-site. It was in June 2008 that the community decided to move the wiki to Wikia, a wiki farm. Pooshlmer remained as head admin of the wiki.

Wikia (2008-2010)

While hosted at Wikia, the site continued to grow as Touhou's popularity increased. It was around this time that the wiki really began to take the shape and form that is most recognizable to its readers today.

(It was also around this time I began to contribute to the Wiki under my current name, partially fueled by my work on a mod.)

Beginning around October 2010, Wikia enforced a new skin policy on its wikis. This led to a major backlash among their editors, Touhou Wiki's included. The impact the new skin had on aesthetics and navigability drove editors to support a split from Wikia. The decision to split was made with unanimous support from its editors. The wiki as it is known now was opened on November of that year, and chief adminship was transferred from Pooshlmer to Momiji (formerly of shrinemaiden.org) and hosting was transferred to Chloe. The entire community, including translators, moved to the new site.

However, the actual move was made more complicated than editor support would seem to suggest. The staff at Wikia interfered with the wiki's autonomy by disallowing the old site to close or redirect. There was staunch opposition by Touhou Wiki's editors to this decision. Aggravating the situation, admins were appointed to head the former site, further stirring resentment in the community. Opposition to the old site still exists.

The old wiki remains open to this day under admins who were not part of the original community.

Touhouwiki.net (2010-)

The Touhou Wiki in its current iteration was off to a fresh start, with each editor having to re-register. As well, accurate records of old edits seem to be lost.

During this time, the frontpage underwent a makeover and a mainpage was created. Greater cooperation was encouraged among the different language versions, and guidelines were streamlined. Numerous translation revisions were also made.

The wiki has changed servers twice as a result of admin disputes. In August '12, hosting was transferred from Chloe to Suzuran. In February '13, it was transferred to Momiji; the IRC channel also transferred from PPIrC to EsperNet.

As of now, the wiki is a leading source of Touhou information and is a scanlation repository.

Canon/Fanon and OR Delineation

It's useful to define them.

  • OR - original research; *NOR - not original research
X Speculation, inferences Not speculation
In-canon section Speculation, inferences, analysis, or synthesis backed by editors (OR or NOR)
e.g. "Knowledge", appears to be a reference to her amount of knowledge.
Facts cited to canon material (NOR)
e.g. Patchouli is the fourth stage boss of EoSD.
Fanon section Observed (OR) or cited (NOR) speculation noteworthy in fanbase, but not backed by editors.
e.g. (none; there probably are examples but I couldn't think of one)
Observed (OR) or cited (NOR) Fanon cruft
e.g. "Patchy" being used in Western fanbase. (OR)
e.g. "Mukyu" being used in fanworks, citable to external sources. (NOR)

Polling

A method to try to break deadlocks in consensus-making. It was used to resolve the Yuurei naming issue, but it was not the first time this has happened (see here). Ideally in consensus-making, a common solution exists that all editors can agree to, sometimes with compromise from both sides. One side tries to persuade the other that their position is the right one with evidence and reason.

The key word here is ideally. In reality, editors may hold mutually exclusive views, where a common solution simply doesn't exist. Direct polling then becomes an agreeable method to resolve disputes. Due to the potential to exclude dissenting viewpoints in the solution, this solution should be used as a last resort. See Wikipedia:Voting is not evil for other details.

For the purposes of decision-making by polling, I would consider a 60% supermajority sufficient. It's better than a simple majority of 50%+1. Simple majority may be needed though in prolonged cases.

As for the Yuurei issue, I find it preferable to establish some consensus over the issue rather than no consensus, one likely to remain stable for some while. By no means should the current result prevent any future changes - consensus can change.

For future polling, I would like to establish some sort of framework.

Voting editors - able to vote in polls; has an editing history (10+ edits at time of poll)
Non-voting editors - cannot vote in polls; may still comment
Polling duration - maybe two weeks

The editing history is intended to prevent sock/meatpuppeting. This may have been suspected in the recent Fairies issue.

(Of course, polls, consensus, and whatnot are of no use and effect when veto power is exercised.)


Main Page Designs and Obtaining Consensus

It is unfortunate that the latest debate regarding the main page design ended, in my opinion, rather prematurely. I use that word because, unlike any other previous contentious discussion, consensus effectively doesn't exist.

Some background is in order. Previously, when the fairies were introduced, my reasoning went like this: Based on my previous experience with the main page design, any staunch, vocal opposition would certainly materialize within a few days, if not a week. Thus, as there was no staunch opposition within that week, I assumed that everybody either liked it, or was indifferent to it. Boy was I mistaken.

Fast forward to six months later. The topic was revived by an editor who recently just signed up. As consensus was previously established, I was reluctant to bring it back up again. That being said, there is absolutely nothing that prevents editors from reintroducing topics if they so wish. This very commonly applies to translation changes. Not only the yuurei/bourei issue, but Loose Rain and Sumizome/Ink-Black as well. Spoiler policy is an example of a non-translation change. In this case, as long as one other editor seconded it (plus myself being the third), there would now be enough support to move forward with actual discussion.

When discussion is restarted like this, one of two things must happen: Consensus must either be reaffirmed, or it must change. If the majority of editors think that any further action is unnecessary, then it is reaffirmed. On the contrary, if they change their minds, perhaps due to new evidence, then it changes.

Part-way through the process, a unilateral decision was imposed by the main administrator. Among the reasons given were that editors held a personal grudge against the artist, and that we were dealing with Internet trolls. This raises a whole new slew of problems.

The first problem was the unilateral decision. One person does not make a consensus. As consensus was effectively prevented from ever forming on this issue, as far as the state of the discussion is concerned, consensus does not exist. Whether consensus was previously established is no longer relevant as a full-blown discussion took place, and as mentioned before, it must be reaffirmed. This also marks the first time that a discussion of such was suspended like that.

Next, the question of personal grudges against the artist. To use personal grudges against the artist as a reason is not a very good one I find. For one, it's hard to prove. Second, at best, it could only apply to a very small minority, and would certainly not apply to every person opposing the art.

Then we have trolls. I find it preferable to assume good faith". With no substantial proof that there is a troll, it's dangerous to assume that there are. But let's take a step back - let's assume that there were, in fact, trolls. In that case, the solution is to insulate the discussion from trolls, not to preclude the opposition. Let the editorship make decisions independent of trolls. If the trolls 'win', so what? Big deal. Rather than being preoccupied with them, the wiki will decide what's best for itself.

As mentioned in another entry, there is a method to measure opposition, as restrictive as it may be. This is polling the editorship. This is the most troll-proof method, but comes at the expense of representation from the readers. Why even this method was precluded from being used, I don't know.

With all due respect to the admins, it is in my sincere opinion that, were the discussion permitted to resume, the best course of action would be to poll both the editorship and the readership. Simple "like/dislike" question.

Of course, the admins are free to do so as they choose. But I worry.

Naming Conventions

The current naming standard seems to be the following:

Rules

Japanese names

Common English use
Use the English name sans macrons (e.g. Tokyo, Osaka, Tono)
Fictional
Possibly based on common English use
Use Hepburn sans macrons (e.g. Gensokyo, analogous but not quite to Tokyo; may explain Gensoukyo alt. spelling)
Everything else
Use modified Hepburn-wapuro
Hepburn (e.g. Sanae Kochiya)
Wapuro (e.g. Hieda no Akyuu, Hakugyokurou)
Preserve obsolete kana (e.g. Tewi, Hinanawi)
Even if no romanization exists (e.g. Renko Usami)

Chinese names

Common English use
Use accepted name (e.g. Chen, Taoism)
Inconsistent (e.g. Path Sign "Dao Fetal Movement")
Fictional
Use pinyin
Names in family-given order (e.g. Hong Meiling)

For both Japanese names and Chinese names, ignore ZUN's romanization

English names

Judgement call
Adopt ZUN's romanization (e.g. Alice Margatroid, Cirno)
Most common usage, generally favouring earliest (e.g. Flandre Scarlet, Luna Child)
Ignore blatant spelling errors (e.g. Elly)
In spite of katakana dissonance (e.g. Nazrin)
Even if no romanization exists, guess (e.g. Maribel Hearn)

Also see: Spelling discrepancies, Touhou Wiki:Guidelines#Translations

Comments

As for preferences, I personally use Gensoukyou as the name is fictional and fits within the Hepburn-wapuro style.

Nazrin's katakana rendering makes me want to hurt someone.

As for oddities, perhaps Path Sign should be Tao Sign (道符「タオ胎動」). Although literally path, Tao makes more sense in context. Also, Chen and Meiling's names are kind of inconsistent. Probably because "Cheng" and "Meirin" are eyesores to anglophones, who are much more familiar with "Chen" and "Meiling" as Chinese names.

Manual of Style

One of these days we'll need to develop an MOS. Or at least affirm using Wikipedia's.

Titles

1. All titles are in title case
1a. Use Wikipedia's MOS. In particular, capitalize prepositions with at least five letters, and if involved with a phrasal verb (e.g. Walk On). Treat each word in a hyphenated term as if it were an individual word.
1b. In addition to 1a, keep Japanese honorifics and such sentence case.


Touhou Music

For whatever reason, I'm going to document songs with odd time signatures here. Maybe other oddities too. All pieces with any segment not in common time (4/4) will be documented here.

  • Title/credit themes will be excluded. Song names may be outdated.
Name Time Signature
Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 3/4, 4/4
Voile, the Magic Library 3/4, 4/4
The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood 3/4, 4/4
Luna Clock ~ Luna Dial 4/4, 3/4
U.N. Owen was Her? 5/4, 4/4
Crystallized Silver 3/4, 4/4
Ultimate Truth 3/4
Night Falls ~ Evening Star 4/4, 3/4
Oni's Island in the Fairyland ~ Missing Power 4/4, 2/4, 3/4
Retribution for the Eternal Night ~ Imperishable Night 11/4, 4/4
Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon 3/4, 4/4
Voyage 1969, Voyage 1970 4/4, 3/4
Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon 3/4, 4/4
Gensokyo Millenium ~ History of the Moon 4/4, 3/4
White Flag of Usa Shrine 3/4, 4/4
Poison Body ~ Forsaken Doll 3/4
Gensokyo, Past and Present ~ Flower Land 3/4, 4/4 gap
Higan Retour ~ Riverside View 3/4, 4/4
Fate of Sixty Years 3/4, 4/4
Candid Friend 3/4
Mysterious Mountain 3/4, 4/4
Faith is for the Transient People 4/4, 2/4 gap
The Dark Blowhole 3/4, 4/4
Green-eyed Jealousy 3/4
Lullaby of Demonic Hell 3/4
Hellfire Mantle 5/4, 4/4
Last Remote 3/4, 4/4
Hartmann's Youkai Girl 7/8, 4/4
A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander 3/4
The Sealed Cloud Route 4/4, 3/4 gap
Beware the Umbrella Left There Forever 4/4, 3/4
Rural Makai City Esoteria 11/4, (?)
Welcome to Youkai Temple 10/4(?), 4/4
Legend of the Great Gods 3/4, 4/4

References

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