Forum:New Era and Appearance Proposal

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I pretty much explained in-detail what this was all about in an Admin letter a few weeks ago, and it worked then...here's my super copy & paste of this new proposal:

It should be obvious to everyone that with the amount of content that 343 Industries is putting out onto the shelves, that the "Era" boxes at the top of each page will soon go into two rows or expand the page far beyond it's content. I've always been quite against product-related era icons from the very start, as the above reason has always fluttered around in my opinions, and that's why i'm proposing something that many other wikis have already adopted. Actual era-related era icons. Seeing how most of the franchise has centered around 2525 to 2552, and more importantly, Summer and Fall 2552, it's quite odd to a dozen era icons above a single article, as the Halo original trilogy, including most of the novels and non-trilogy games have taken place within a short few months. What we have isn't truly an era template...it's an appearance section, something I put into some of my Featured Article projects, which most of you have seemed to take out. In my humble opinion, we need both an effective Era and Appearance section to note the inclusion of the elements within our universe. For those who don't know, an Era template should focus on specific years within the timeline of the franchise. For example, the years of 2525 to 2553 would obviously take up The Great War Era, and would include such things as the Human-Covenant War, Great Schism, various rebel conflicts, and Flood outbreaks, and would lay to waste most of the product-oriented era icons. The Appearance section would fill the role currently occupied by our era icons, and would be a more expansive and detailed list compared to the less-descriptive era icons. This list, which would be compiled into a scroll box to save space, would list every single product that an element was in; for example, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers would be listed under Halo 2 and Halo 3: ODST, and every level they were featured in would be mentioned. And if they were featured in a comic series, each issue they were in would be featured. A visual look at what it would look like can be seen on the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper article HERE. Since the appearance section is a pretty straight-forward thing to discuss, i'll go into detail into what time periods I think the Era icons should be split into: Forerunner Era (100,000 BC to 50,000 BC) - Includes the Forerunner-Flood War, activation of the Halo Array, and the depopulation of the galaxy. Rise of the Covenant Era (50,000 BC to 1500 AD) - Includes the San 'Shyuum Civil War, Sangheili-San 'Shyuum War, formation of the Covenant Empire, assimilation of species under the Covenant, and early Human history (such as the Battle of Thermopylae). Globalization Era (1500 AD to 2170 AD) - Includes pre and early industrialized Human history, formations of the key nations and empires, First World War, Second World War, formation of the United Nations, Cold War, Modern History (I Love Bees, etc.), early Human space colonies, battles and skirmishes of the Interplanetary War, and the formations of the Unified Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command. Colonial and Insurrection Era (2170 AD to 2525 AD) - Includes the Odyssey mission, early Human colonization of the inner colonies, Harvest, UNSC operations against Rebel/Insurrection Forces in the Outer Colonies, ORION Project (SPARTAN-I), and other less significant events. The Great War Era (2525 to 2553 AD) - Includes the Human-Covenant War, Great Schism, minor Human/Heretic/etc. rebel conflicts, Flood outbreaks, and Forerunner events. Post-war Era (2553 to ____) - Includes anything taking place after the end of the Great War.

Before a single vote is even given on this matter, I would love to hear any and all opinions & suggestions on this proposal! Thank you for reading this, and have a great day! Oh...and remember the Featured Article revival project is still in effect!

Rawr,
User:CommanderTony/Sig

Voting (Ongoing)

Support (19/3)

All users in agreement of this proposal please vote here with {{Support}} followed by a short message why and your signature.

• Support - As per my statements above and in the comments section. User:CommanderTony/Sig
• Support - Finally, something for me to edit whore do to better the wiki considering my recent inactivity. Ghost sangheili
• Support - Sounds like a good idea. - Halopediaman 03:01, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - ...And yet another solid plan for me to proudly support. =] --User:Blemo/Sig
• Support - No objections. - Nìcmávr ^(Tálk) 10:14, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Sounds good.--Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 12:05, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support. When updating Template:Eraicon, please use the link parameter to the standard image syntax (see example), because the current way is flooding Special:LinkSearch. :-) --Jack Phoenix _(Contact) 13:47, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Very VERY good idea. 7h3 Ma573r Chi3f (5par7an 117) (J0hn) (Ma573r Chi3f P377y 0ffic3r) 15:37, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - As per above. -- Lord Hyren 19:11, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Makes sense. With reference cleanups all the info given in the era boxes now should be found in the sources section anyway.-- Rusty - 112 19:20, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - As per above. --Kronos101 20:12, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support  DavidJCobb  20:32, March 29, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Has my continued support. Field Master Spartansniper450 04:25, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Makes sense. User:Sub-71/Sig 15:35, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - As per above. - Scot 113 15:45, April 2, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - As above. --Dragonclaws^(talk) 01:57, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Great idea. And I'm at a loss as to why I didn't see this proposal before. - Halo-343 (Talk) (Contribs) (Edits) 23:17, April 7, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - As per above --Staff Sergeant Darrell Mac, UNSC Air Force 02:42, April 8, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - This is a brilliant idea. It will really clear up an article and help new users and halo researchers to navigate their way around the different events in the Halo universe/time-line. The Parkster - (Chat Page|Contributions|Fan Fiction) - 09:08, April 21, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Very good idea, as per above, although do we really have to show all levels in games which things appear??--Bottletopman 09:14, April 21, 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I love it! It's great to see that features that work so well in other wikis are being implemented here. My support all the way. The Uberlite

• Support - Can't do any harm, and seems like it makes sense and is very straightforward. I wholeheartedly accept this plan, so long as they are protected from vandalism (protected pages and the like) . Master Chump 22:30, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

User does not have over 50 edits. ----> Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 ^{(Personal Favorite)}. 18:42, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

• Support - This is a great idea that would greatly help organize pages and timelines. MrMarine

Has only three edits. > Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 ^{(Personal Favorite)}. 11:38, April 18, 2010 (UTC)

Neutral (3/0)

All users in confusion/apathy/etc. of this proposal please vote here with {{Neutral}} followed by a short message why and your signature.

• Neutral - I'm not entirely sure. While I do agree that it would be a much better choice than leaving something like the ODST article as it is, I would like to see it properly being used before giving my support. Could you perhaps make a test page to set it out, just for a better understanding of what the new set up would be like? BLADEBANE Anti-Vandal 12:22, March 29, 2010 (UTC)Blade bane
• Neutral - <apathy>Whatevs</apathy> - S.B.44 ^[T] 03:38, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
• Neutral - Confused and apathetic. Kougermasters (Talk) (Contribs) (Edits) 00:45, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Oppose (0/0)

All users in opposition of this proposal please vote here with {{Oppose}} followed by a short message why and your signature.

Comments

Please keep your comments civil, short (five-word minimum), to the point, and good. Thank you!

• It sounds reasonable enough, for example the ODST article has so many era templates that the title is being crushed into the left side of the page. I am wondering though, how would you order the actual era categories? Alphabetically, chronologically, or something else? Just a bit of information I would like to know before voicing any more opinions. BLADEBANE Anti-Vandal 04:15, March 22, 2010 (UTC)Blade bane

It would be chronologically.- 5əb'7aŋk^(7alk) 19:41, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

• I would like to say that I agree with this proposal, the only question I have is how would we handle an appearance section on stub articles and things that have only made a single appearance in the franchise. Using a scroll box would actually be unneeded on smaller articles and single appearance items, as it would take up too much space. That is just something I think may need to be discussed. Placement I also believe is important to any article that you want to make presentable, the placement of the appearance section on the ODST article for example, was in my opinion not placed right and looked off. I would like to express that if this passes that the placement of an appearance section be above the trivia section, so that it looks like it belongs and doesn't look out of place. Other than that I believe a proper era template is needed. Durandal-217 04:38, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

Regarding stubbed/short articles: I would suggest avoid having such sections if that's the case. The "Sources" section would be sufficient to inform where they appear, provided they are sourced properly.- 5əb'7aŋk^(7alk) 19:41, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Kai on this one, though as we will put ALL apperance sections into a scroll box, even the smallest of pages will get slightly larger. But either way works. User:CommanderTony/Sig

I fully agree, I've seen this on other wikis and it seems to work better, the only thing is the images for them, but that can be easily solved. Field Master Spartansniper450 14:18, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

For the images, I'd recommend: The Librarian's icon (Forerunner); the Mark of Shame (Covenant); a picture of Earth (Globalization); Da Bomb (Halo 3 Emblem) (Colonization); a MJOLNIR Mark VI helmet (Great War); and a heart in a circle (Post-War). All of those can be done with a single color and transparency, and all (except for Da Bomb) have a roughly circular appearance.  DavidJCobb  04:58, March 28, 2010 (UTC)

• I think it's a good idea. If it works in other wikis, why not here. However, we should still keep the Realworld and such era icons so we don't need to return to those cumbersome box templates. It should also be made clearer where the Realworld icon is to be used: In articles that do not exist in the Halo universe, or ones that exist both in the real world and Halo as well. I've seen it being used both ways, so it should be clarified. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 14:40, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

Oh don't worry, we'll still keep the Era icons for the Real World and Bungie staff. User:CommanderTony/Sig

The realworld era is to be used on articles that take place from the real world perspective. These may include subjects that exist in both worlds, but should generally be on subjects that only exist in the real world. A strength of the box templates was that it said explicitly "This article is from the real world perspective". Unfortunately, now people add the realworld era to articles describing all sorts of fictional things because some part of it (e.g. Mars) exists in the real world. Maybe something else entirely should be used to indicate perspective, like coloring the frame if such a thing is even possible. --Dragonclaws^(talk) 02:03, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly what I've been taking note of. People add the RW era to articles where it doesn't belong. However, it was sort of the same thing with the realworld template sometimes. It should be clarified somewhere that the RW era is only for articles that describe explicitly real-world topics, not things that also exist in the fiction.--Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 06:51, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

• Why are Games, Books, and comics eras when something like 2552 and the Human-Covenant War are proper eras. -- 7h3 Ma573r Chi3f (5par7an 117) (J0hn) (Ma573r Chi3f P377y 0ffic3r) 15:52, March 29, 2010 (UTC)

• This is a good idea, but if the Standards Council wasn't disband, this would be a great thing to discuss there. - Scot 113 15:44, April 2, 2010 (UTC)

• When is the deadline? Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 (Personal Favorite). 16:43, April 10, 2010 (UTC)