Forum:Langtable templates

Forums: Index → Proposals → Langtable templates

This is a closed discussion about an accepted proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes. The closing administrator adds: "Serpent  King 21:01, June 24, 2020 (EDT)"

When browsing this wiki, I have noticed that we do lack something that is found across nearly every other NIWA wiki, as well as our Spanish affiliate Smashpedia. I am talking about language tables to list names used for various elements in other languages. I know Smashwiki does not have to always do what other wikis do, but I believe this is important and neat information that is currently missing in our wiki. An issue is that to fill up the wiki with this info would be a quite large effort, however we are currently in a bit of a dry spell due to no tournaments happening, as well as next to no details known about future characters (and we would make language tables for any new element anyway). We would also need editors that are proficient enough in the languages the Smash series has been translated in, Russian, Korean and Chinese in particular. My idea about how this template would be implemented is pretty similar to Bulbapedia's implementation, with optional two way entries (for English, Spanish, French and Chinese) and an optional "meaning" column (I want to discuss here in more detail where it would be appropriate to be used). I am eager to hear what do you all think. --Rdrfc (talk) 14:43, April 23, 2020 (EDT)

Support

• Heavy support, this is long overdue. I find myself sometimes using SmashWiki to get Japanese names for communicating with Japanese K. Rool players, so it would personally help me a lot. But naturally, there needs to be more than just a personal reason as to why I think the wiki could benefit. I think that this would add a nice bit of flair to the trivia sections of the wiki. There's often some nice factoids you can find just by giving those a look. And, of course, this helps with uniformity across NIWA. I don't really see much reason to not add it bar "it's unnecessary", but even that seems a bit of a reach. I am fully willing to help with Japanese names for moves, as well as in specific meta terminology (such as NAir -> SkyN, or 空N, etc). --Plague von Karma 19:12, April 28, 2020 (EDT)
• Support. It would help with communicating with other Smash players both competitively and casually. I wouldn't be able to help with translating or romanization, but I can definitely help with getting the words. I've already gotten all of the translations for Spirit skills, though it is 50+k bytes I don't think it would be easy to put on a page with other stuff. But getting the translations for more useful things I can do (for Ultimate). --CanvasK (talk) 20:33, April 28, 2020 (EDT)
• Support. As a wiki, we need to report things like that. CookiesCreme 08:47, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
• Support, As mentioned above, many other NIWA wikis also have these templates. Since not everyone is great with English. It would be helpful for Japanese and other foreign players to see the translation of certain terms. Also, I might be able to help with the Chinese translations. Naughty🐽GRAND DAD 自閉肥宅 09:35, April 29, 2020 (EDT)
• Support I have wondered why we don't have a template for this when all the other NIWAs I'm on have one, including WikiBound. When you take PAL regions especially Smash can be played in many other languages besides English and Japanese, and having only EN and JP but not the others looks very incomplete. Now you have Ultimate which is the first game to be region free, meaning any version can be played in multiple different languages. Such a thing should have been implemented long ago and if anything now is the time to add it in. OmegαToαd64 • the Best Kαrter 05:27, May 23, 2020 (EDT)
• Support per proposal and OmegaToad 46.229.158.109 05:36, May 27, 2020 (EDT)
• Support. As someone who enjoys adding localised names and their English translations (which I've done quite a lot of on MarioWiki, primarily for Mario Party mini-games), I'll be all-too-happy to make use of this template. RickTommy 07:40, May 27, 2020 (EDT)
• Support. I've always loved Bulbapedia's langtable implementation, and until seeing this proposal I hadn't even stopped to think about how interesting it would be to see the foreign-language names for certain things in Smash. We don't need to do what other wikis do, but I feel that this is an aspect of the series as a whole that has some level of merit being covered here. Acgamer28 01:12, May 29, 2020 (EDT)
• Support. Pretty surprised this isn't already a thing. Pokebub (talk) 03:56, June 22, 2020 (EDT)

Comments

Some personal thoughts on guidelines about how to use/implement this template.

• Everything that has officially been named is fair game. Aside from characters, stages, items and moves this might also include basic techniques such as "tilt attacks" that have been officially described by instruction booklets and such.
• Only names that have been used in the Super Smash Bros. series should be reported. This is probably a bit obvious, but it is worth mentioning; it is common for minor enemies and the likes to have had older localized names that fell in disuse before they got introduced to Smash Bros. These names are outside of our scope as a wiki.
• Meaning column should be optional. It should not be used on characters with proper names, but it should be used on characters with generic names (Villager), or with a translatable title in their name (King Dedede). It should be used also for moves, stages, items, and so on. Etymology of character names is not in our scope, with the obvious exception of characters original to Smash such as the Subspace Army.
• Some wikis don't include a field for English names in their templates but I think we should, it makes it easier to incorporate regional differences as well as including the etymology of those aforementioned original characters.
• As I mentioned before, I like Bulbapedia's implementation with optional two way entries for languages with multiple standards (English, French, Spanish, Chinese). In the case of Chinese, though, I am not sure if Traditional and Simplified should be treated as two separate languages instead.
• Some stages, moves, and items mention characters or locations whose names are localized across languages. When listing the meaning, is it the correct form to write the localized or the English name? I think English name should be the correct form but I am not sure, it's worth noting that for Japanese names (unova Pokémon League for example) we currently do the opposite.

--Rdrfc (talk) 16:18, May 4, 2020 (EDT)