User blog:WoeisWingbat/NEW Updates to the Wiki

Hello fellow editors! It has been a while since last update, and since then we have been rolling out many new features and changes to how the wiki operates. Let's go through them all and if you have any thoughts or concerns please comment below.

Reminding everyone
For starters, I would like to remind everyone of the last update in question, where we had implemented the "Native name" template for the wiki in cases of non-Latin names.

Several articles since then have used the template, but there are still a few new pages that have been created that do not, so please ensure you are making this template commonplace from now on.

Navboxes
To start this off, we have now bought back navbox templates! A reliable example of how they work can be seen at the bottom of this page, for both franchise templates and media templates.

I want to stress big time that navboxes ARE NOT MANDATORY, so please do not add the template for them at the end of every single page you make unless you have the intentions of creating one in a timely matter. These navboxes are only to be used when one feels like they can create them. They are a tool, not a necessity.

Not every media is allowed to have a navbox either, we have set a rule for this:
 * For a franchise, if there is more than 3 media in the franchise a navbox can be created. Otherwise, use a "See also" section.
 * For the media itself, if there is more than 5 dubs of the media a navbox can be created. Otherwise, keep it all to the "International versions" section.

A few other guidelines I'd like to stress:
 * Organization and sorting is key. In the example used, you can see that when there are two language versions, it should be organized like so: Portuguese (Brazil • Portugal), and not European Portuguese • Brazilian Portuguese
 * However, in cases where there are more than one version for a single dialect, it can get messy. I would advise you specify the dialect/language only in those particular cases, like so: Brazilian Portuguese • European Portuguese (SIC • Nickelodeon)
 * When there is only one language dub, such as one Portuguese dub for an example, only write "Portuguese".
 * Please follow this code or this code (for a media) and this code (for a franchise) to a T. Please do not remove the "Nav Templates" category part as this is how we keep track of everything (and plus, why would you want to?)

Mandarin names
I have noticed lately that there has been a bit of a disagreement on how Mandarin names should be handled on the wiki, so I am here to clear up any confusion:
 * Chinese names must use Pinyin.
 * The romanization of such names can typically be found using Google Translate, most pages abide correctly by this so there is no problem there.
 * Taiwanese names must use Wade-Giles.
 * Pinyin names should not be used for Taiwanese names, the Wade-Giles system must be used instead.
 * Please place the Mandarin name in Google search and see if any English results come up if you are confused about how to render the name.
 * Cantonese names must use either the English name equivalent, or Jyutping.
 * Pinyin names should most certainly not be used for Cantonese names, the English name the actor has for themself, or in cases where such is not available, the Jyutping system must be used instead.
 * You can easily find English names for several Hong Kong-based actors on Chinese Wikipedia, where in the infobox of the actor in question it will say what the actor is called in English contexts. This should be used above all else. When this is not available, then convert the Chinese name to Jyutping.
 * Please place the Mandarin name in Google search and see if any English results come up if you are confused about how to render the name.

Recording studios
There was a brief, weird time where we were trying to force recording studios into categories only. I have since retracted that, since they are very helpful of a topic to have on a wiki like this. Please continue to make recording studio pages, however I have since updated the format of how they should operate.

Here is an example of how they should look now. The most notable changes are that these pages should have lists on them, and that these lists should be in English, using the original title (or in cases where the original version is not English, then the English titles or the most commonly widespread English title of the media) wherever possible. This has been done for ease, as this is an English-language wiki and just throwing out the dub title with no context (especially when the article does not exist, which will be often with lists like these) is absolutely not helpful.

Actor pages
Like recording studios, we will also be reformatting how we handle actor pages a bit. We will also be featuring English names for media on the actor pages no matter whether the page operates on a non-Latin script or not. This is, again, to make it way easier to handle, as the average viewer of the article will not know what they are reading without that push.

Here is an example of that, and here's another.

Please note that with this new system (for both actor pages and dubbing studio pages) the media must be organized by English alphabetical order.
 * When you are sorting the titles, you should be ignoring the articles "The", "An", and "A".

TV channels
Last comes probably the most controversial change, but you probably all saw it coming: we are not having support for TV channel pages anymore. Sorry. This is a wiki about dubbing and the most shortest and not helpful pages ever were in fact, the TV channel pages.

However, as you may notice we still link to them in nearly every page, ever. That may be a problem. So we came prepared with a system for how these channels should be treated on the wiki moving forward:
 * While the TV channel pages themselves are gone, the categories are not. Here is an example of how they should look, and this code should be copied verbatim.
 * PLEASE ensure that when you create categories with that format, that you are also redirecting the page itself to the category (for example, "Nickelodeon (United States)" is redirected to "Category:Nickelodeon (United States)", so that it does not mess up cases where the page links to the channel but not its category (which will be often).
 * Do not link to the category when you mention the channel in pages, as the redirect serves this purpose more than enough.

A friend of ours has began to make a wiki about TV channels that you may enjoy incase you're mourning them a lot.

Wrap-up
As I said, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, do leave them in the comments below and the administration team will be glad to answer them for you!

We understand that the guidelines page is a bit outdated on a few fronts so we will also be taking time in the next few days to update them with everything mentioned above and more, look out for that.

Stay safe!