Forum:CT:"Owners" field of the Weapon infobox

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:"Owners" field of the Weapon infobox

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The result of the debate was Use "Owners" field for just unique weapons. Cavalier OneFarStar(Squadron channel) 19:05, August 22, 2011 (UTC)

There's a bit of discrepancy over the Template:Weapon Infobox's "Owners" field and when it should be used. While I was previously under the assumption that the field should be used whenever applicable, for both unique and general weapon types to say who used the weapon. However, others feel that we should not fill in the "Owners" field for general weapons, saying that some general weapon type articles, such as lightsaber and DL-44 heavy blaster pistol, would have "Owners" fields with 100+ entries and would just be too long. This issue has become especially problematic recently due to the second barn-burner, so hopefully we will be able to find a consensus relatively quickly. Kilson(Let's have a chat) 04:15, August 3, 2011 (UTC)

Use "Owners" field for both unique weapons and general weapon types

Use "Owners" field for just unique weapons

  1. Kilson, I hope you don't mind that I removed the word "types" from this option; I think the argument is that only unique weapons should have their owners listed, not types of weapons at all -- e.g., Lumiya's lightwhip, Exar Kun's lightsaber, etc. would get owners, but not lightwhip and lightsaber more generally. I think it's cleaner to reserve the field for these entries. The option above this one will become way too unwieldy way too fast on common weapon articles, and the option below this requires some compromising that doesn't seem to add much information to the article in my opinion (listing "many X's" for a weapon an arbitrary number of individuals who used that weapon type, for example). That said, I definitely prefer it as a second choice. :) ~SavageBOB sig 14:33, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
  2. Per above. Also I don't think "compromise" of some rather vague, artificial rules (my opinion, sorry) would do any good. –Tm_T (Talk) 15:19, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    • And to further messing the situation: I think there is cases when "Owner" or similar field would make sense with weapon types: For instance, if some weapon is exclusively used by a certain group. You get the idea, I hope. –Tm_T (Talk) 19:20, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
  3. After reading what the compromise entails, I think this is the only solution that is neither unwieldy nor reliant on, as Tm T puts it, "vague, artificial rules." Also, the compromise forces us to use weasel words in many of the relevant infoboxes ("most Jedi," "many Ewoks," etc.), a practice which I've always found somewhat unprofessional and best used only where necessary. jSarek 18:00, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    • Where are you guys coming up with this from? Nowhere in the proposal, as currently worded, does it ever say that the compromise would force us to use weasel words like "most Jedi" and "many Ewoks." Savage Bob made this incorrect interpretation in the Comments section below, and I have attempted to dispel this inaccuracy based on my original IRC discussion with Kilson, yet for some reason you're still running with it. I fully expect Kilson to come and clarify this at some point. Toprawa and Ralltiir 18:14, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
      • To be fair, that was the original compromise proposed at the barn burner page. But Tope's right that that's not what's currently being proposed, so I'll strike that bit. ~SavageBOB sig 19:08, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
      • I'm getting it from not reading clearly; disregard the second part of my vote. Still, it feels artificial to me that we should have an infobox list ten people long, and then when some book reveals that Bob the Gun Collector has one in his collection, we'd remove that list entirely. jSarek 19:15, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
  4. I am of the opinion that the owners field should only be used on articles about individual items. This has nothing to do with the wording of the compromise, but just a simple belief that the owners field is best used for tracking everyone who has owned that particular item, not for an indiscriminate list of everyone who's ever owned that type of item, regardless of whether that's 3 people or 300 people. Master Jonathan — Jedi Council Chambers Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 18:31 UTC
  5. I have to say that I have been swayed by jSarek's reasoning about not having an owners list for 11 individuals, but then having one for ten. Bob the Gun Collector made all the difference.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 19:59, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
  6. I guess we'll see how this works out. Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 22:17, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
  7. Voting here somehwat tentatively: I liken personal weapon pages and generic weapon pages to personal starship pages and generic starship pages (for example, compare Lumiya's lightwhip/lightwhip to Millennium Falcon/YT-1300 light freighter). There's no point in having an owners field in the YT-1300's infobox—even if we knew of only five owners, listing those five would be immaterial when hundreds of thousands of those ships were in circulation throughout the galaxy. Same thing goes for pages such as DL-44 heavy blaster pistol or lightsaber. It makes sense for articles on unique objects to have an owners field, but such a field in articles on the generic object is, IMO, unnecessary. Jonjedigrandmaster (Talk) 02:04, August 4, 2011 (UTC)
  8. Chack Jadson (Talk) 22:40, August 4, 2011 (UTC)
  9. The compromise was offered as a communal effort to bridge differing opinions and avoid the no-consensus, but since it's not taking, I'm satisfied with reaching standardization in some form. If this is what we want to do, I'm glad to support. Toprawa and Ralltiir 04:09, August 5, 2011 (UTC)
  10. grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 04:12, August 5, 2011 (UTC)
  11. Per the Savage Bob the Gun Collector reasoning. ;) -- Riffsyphon1024 05:17, August 5, 2011 (UTC)
  12. I think this is the sort of thing I would prefer. —NAYAYEN 13:59, August 5, 2011 (UTC)
  13. What Nayayen said. Corellian PremierRobotechAll along the watchtower 15:45, August 8, 2011 (UTC)
  14. I'm not sure I really have a "side" in this debate, but standardization is good, and this seems like a good enough option. I'm usually all for filling infoboxes up as much as possible, but I can see a lot of things going awry with the general weapons articles. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 13:40, August 12, 2011 (UTC)
  15. GTQ(Problems?) 03:55, August 14, 2011 (UTC)
  16. Totally necessary vote. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 00:20, August 18, 2011 (UTC)
  17. I think you could list them, but only a handful of well know users, or just don't list them. Darth Needham 01:32, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

Compromise

  1. I believe we should use the "Owners" field for general weapon types. However, I understand that in some situations, the field will become too long and would look unseemly compared to the rest of the article. Perhaps we should up with a rule that we use the "Owners" field whenever applicable, for both general and unique weapon types, but once the field exceeds 10 bulleted entries, the field with me ignored and not filled in. That way, most weapon articles we write for the barn-burner will still have the field filled in, and bigger weapon articles, such as lightsaber, won't have their Infoboxes' messed up. Kilson(Let's have a chat) 04:15, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    This seems like a good compromise to me.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 12:29, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    Pretty much what I was thinking of. I was thinking that we could put something like "Almost all the Jedi and Sith" for the lightsaber article, and then put something like "notable users of the lightsaber" and then list people like Obi-Wan or Darth Vader or something. I liked Kilson's idea about the ten bullet thing, but how would we decide who was worthy to be listed. We don't want some mynock-brain Jedi listed on the lightsaber article, but then leave Luke Skywalker out because we reached the ten bullet limit. So, how would we decide who was worthy to be put on there? Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 14:21, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    I'm voting in support of the compromise based on my original understanding of the intention behind this proposal as established during my IRC discussions with Kilson. Which specifically means filling in the field for both types of weapons articles, with the caveat that general weapon type articles only have this field filled in if there are 10 or less individual owners (and is not filled in if there are more than 10), a method that is well detailed and discussed in the Comments section below. This also specifically means, according to my understanding, that there will be no use of "many Ewoks" or "most Jedi" just for the sake of filling in the field. I find this method neither vague nor artificial, but rather a reasonable compromise that is fair and accommodating to everyone's interests while making the best effort to keep the scope of information presented in these infoboxes practical. I strongly suggest to Kilson, as the original nominator, that the exact mechanics of this proposal be specifically spelled out for everyone's clarification. If my vote needs to be changed once that is done, so be it. Toprawa and Ralltiir 18:28, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    • I apologize for not being that clear when I wrote my intentions for the compromise. I agree that using generalizations like, "many Jedi" or "many Sith" should not, and will not, be accepted in the "Owners" field just to reduce the number of entries in the field. If the "Owners" field will be used when there are ten or less bulleted entries in the field. That way, most weapon articles will still have the field filled in. Also, I doubt that there will be many weapon articles that will not have an "Owners" field because they have eleven or twelve entries in the field. Most will have one to five. I chose ten just because it makes the field neither too long nor too short. I hope that helps clarify things. Kilson(Let's have a chat) 01:23, August 4, 2011 (UTC)
  2. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 18:42, August 3, 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

To clarify, here are three examples of what the three voting options mean for the infobox:
First choice (all inclusive):

Second choice (unique weapons only):

Third choice (compromise):

  • E.g., list Han Solo in the "owners" field of DL-44 heavy blaster pistol and heavy blaster pistol only if the "owners" field does not exceed a reasonable number of entries
  • E.g., because there are so many users of spears in canon (more than a reasonable number), list something like "Many Ewoks" in the "owners" field of Spear. do not list anyone under "Owners". ~SavageBOB sig 14:29, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    • My following comment is partly in response to Cal Jedi's voting comment above as well. With apologies to Kilson, I'm not sure the intended "compromise" was clarified as well as it could be. I discussed some of this with Kilson on IRC beforehand, and I believe the idea was to only use the field for general weapon type articles in the instance that there are 10 or less examples of owners/users, as will be the case with the majority of these articles, so that the field doesn't become too unwieldy and impractical. In the instances that articles have more than 10 owners who could be listed (like lightsaber, DL-44, etc., which would become too lengthy and impractical for the infobox), then the field will not be filled in, rather than creating an arbitrary and subjective list that isn't comprehensive anyway. I believe what you're getting at is mostly correct, Bob, but I disagree with your second point of the compromise, in which something like "Many Ewoks" would be listed (and which I see, as I'm tying this out, seems to be your primary point for objection). I believe the idea is to ignore this field completely in these instances, rather than typing in something as general and unspecific as "Many smugglers," etc., in which case I agree with you, as you say in your voting comment above, that it's a pretty pointless addition. Perhaps Kilson could clarify this for us in the formal proposal for procedural sake before we proceed further. Toprawa and Ralltiir 14:43, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
      • Yeah, that's right, Tope. I wouldn't mind listing owners for general weapons provided the list doesn't get awkwardly long, so I could support a 10-user limit (or whatever number we agree upon). I agree that "Many Ewoks/smugglers/Jedi/short-order cooks" is kind of adding a field for the sake of adding a field. ~SavageBOB sig 14:47, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
      • And I've struck that bit. ~SavageBOB sig 19:10, August 3, 2011 (UTC)
    • My only problem with doing the unique article one, is what's the point in saying that Han Solo owned Han Solo's DL-44 blaster pistol when it's plain that Han Solo owned it? The only time that this could be avoided is if someone stole his blaster and it became theirs. But, then it's not really Han Solo's blaster pisotl any more so it would have to be moved to DL-44 blaster pistol. Does that make sense? Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 20:56, August 3, 2011 (UTC)