Forum:Wikia Anime (and Manga?) Project

I'm interested in starting a semi-large project on Wikia. Earlier I posted and have decided to adopt the English Anime, Naruto, and InuYahsa Wikia and I've been doing taging and editing to improve content while I'm waiting for the status so that I can do the proper cleaning of things (Forum:Anime Network) but now that I think of it, there is a potential for Wikia to be the best place for community wiki driven anime documentation.

Currently there are different Wikia for many of the different Anime there are. But there is an issue with some of the smaller anime. There are two categorys of anime to think about. Small and large, for example I'll use Chobits as an example as small, and Naruto as large. Naruto is an anime which is still running, and has many characters, episodes, and such. And because of this, it is large enough that we can give it a Wikia for itself. But unfortunately other anime such as Chobits only last a total of arround 26 episodes and because of this, don't have enough to them for them to be given their own Wikia. But does that mean they shouldn't get full documentation on every detail of them like the larger anime series do?

Currently the Anime Wikia is merely used for listing of anime, and may possibly have a few articles about it's characters. A big factor contributing to that is a limit in naming. Many anime characters may use similar names, and because of this they can't all have a single article in their name. Instead they either must have the name of the anime placed after them, or be placed in subpages. But doing that changes the title, and can also make linking to the individual pages tricky.

My idea is one which will allow easier ways for linking to individual anime pages within the anime wikia and the other individual anime wikia. And also let the title of a page better reflect the content.

Currently if you place a character page in a subpage of it's anime you end up with a odd title which can sometimes distract from the page (eg: Chii from chobits would be 'Chobits/Chii', but some anime use longer names and the combination of anime name and character name can be longer than the width of the normal page.) And because of this, that also means the same long title must be used to link to that individual page. You also half to take into consideration the fact that individual anime may either be in a seperate wikia, or in the anime wikia.

The idea is to setup a special system for linking and title display within the Anime Wikia and participating Wikia in the Anime and manga category. The idea is the use of a Specialpage, a table, and a special alteration which allows special linking in a way similar to interwiki. The specialpage would allow individual anime to be added to a list in a table. The information on this would comprise of a id for the anime (eg: naruto for Naruto, inuyasha for InuYasha, gundam seed for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED), the full name of the anime's main article, and a specification of the id of the Wikia it has, or none for anime which are only documented within the Anime Wikia.

With this system special linking could be done in which links would be made in the form Anime: animeid:articlename. This means that the formerly mentiond article on Chii from Chobits would be Anime:Chobits:Chii and because the table would list Chobits' main article at w:c:anime:Chobits, the link would direct to w:c:anime:Chobits/Chii and this could possibly work from all the different anime wikia. The other type of link would be for Uzamaki Naruto which is not located in the Anime wiki but instead in the Narutopedia. Linking to this article would look just like before and would be Anime:Naruto:Uzamaki Naruto. But this time, since the id of the Wikia for Naruto is naruto this link would instead lead to w:c:Naruto:Uzamaki Naruto. Also to note making a link without the name of a subarticle (eg: Anime:Naruto) would link to the Anime's page in the Anime wikia. And a blank page(eg: Anime:Naruto:) would lead to the Main Page of that wikia, or would stay at the Anime's page if there was no Wikia for that anime.

The last but simplest change would be that the title for pages in the Anime Wikia which have a main article listed in the table would display the name of the subpage, without the name of the mainpage. So 'Chobits/Chii' would only display 'Chii'.

In total, this would allow every large anime to be documented in it's own Wiki, and all small anime to be documented in the Anime Wikia. All without conflicting on naming, or on whether or not an anime has been given a wiki for it. That also means that links in a page on the anime wikia could link to the individual articles in a seperate wiki about the show and not be rewritten if the anime moved from the Anime Wikia to it's own wiki. And that individual anime wikia could link to references from other anime without even knowing if there was a wikia about the other anime or not.

It's also possible that the Manga wikia could be included in this because I notice that it to is inactive.

I'm not saying this is something to lay on the devs to do as another project, because if this idea is liked, it's quite possible for me to do the brute work of creating the code and changes needed to make this work. So this dosen't half to destract from the other projects going on at the moment. I've worked with the MediaWiki code before, and I know that this is quite possible. In fact, It's possible that to make the interwiki portion work, the only code edit needed would be the addition of a new parserhook into the interwiki link creation function.

Dantman (Talk) 09:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, I completely forgot to note that I've been getting tired of the people at the forum I usualy visit (Gaia Online). And while I would still pay enough attention there to keep up with working at The Gaiapedia, I'd probably continue watching through different anime so that I can further the documentation on them. Another thing I forgot to mention, is that a small image that flashed in my head while I was thinking of the system, was a way of having the theme of the Anime wikia change when the user went to a page on an individual anime. I could probably code that to. If I did, I'd probably have it added to The Gaiapedia to, because I've got something done in JS there that isn't that great. And if you're wondering, the reason I picked Chobits out for the example is because that was the latest anime I finished watching. I'm onto Elfen Lied and Death Note and when I get my status I'll probably go back and write up full documentation on Chobits for the Anime wiki. Dantman (Talk) 09:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, since there is bits on Manga on the Anime wiki where it's not supposed to be, it's inactive like the Anime Wiki, very similar, and I shouldn't exclude one. I think I'll add the Manga Wiki as another one to put me on as addopting. I'll probably mirror the rules, styles, and templates I make on the Anime Wiki onto the Manga Wiki as they are made and instead of just removing stuff on manga that people put in the Anime Wiki i'll just move it to the proper area. Not right now, but I have a feeling that I'll be requesting one or two new Wikia later on for the larger anime such as Bleach which have 100+ episodes and still counting. Basicaly, that is, the anime which are so large they wouldn't fit in the Anime and Manga Wikia and have enough content to have their own. Dantman (Talk) 09:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Nevermind, apparently the founder for the Manga Wiki has started editing again after 7 months of inactivity. It might be rude to takeover that Wikia for the purpose of the project, even though dealing with manga will be tricky because that is not the topic on the Anime Wiki. Dantman (Talk) 04:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(Per your previous ideals), there was some interesting talk last week of attempting to create groups of wikia that share an article database and are technically satellites of one parent Wikia, so that they could be merged and split as needed. More info later (or never, heh) --Splarka (talk) 09:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Interesting idea. I didn't suggest something like that because of how much work and modification could be done. But if that was done, then it would make moving a page from say, the Anime Wiki to the Narutopedia if someone decided to create a article on one of the characters in the Anime Wiki when there was already a wiki for that. My idea was a bit simpler, an advanced method of linking which would allow the same simple convention to be used to link to any anime, from any anime wiki to whatever anime page whether or not it was in the anime wiki or in another wiki. Also another part was a special addition to style in which a special subpage for each anime would create a style unique to that anime (Eg: Chobits/css would have a set of css which would be included into Chobits, and any subpage of it.) Which would basicaly cause each small anime to appear as if they had their own wiki space, even though they are all located in the same wiki because they are to small for their own.
 * If the devs are fine with the idea, I could actualy stat building it when I get home. All I'd do is just use one of the MediaWikia 1.8 setups already on my home computer for testing it out. I can usualy hammer out something simple like that in a day or 2, 3 if it's more than I thought. Though, I may need longer to get my computer up, because it just fixed at home while I'm here at dads. Thanks for the info. Dantman (Talk) 10:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Aparently I don't have the family computer back, but I got my other server setup on this computer finaly. I setup MediaWiki-1.9.2 for testing. It appears my plans may be a little different than thought. I thought I'd be modifying the interwiki functions, but I have a feeling a better option would be to do it the same way that it's done here in the central wikia. It's baised off the method the devs used to get arround the number of interwiki links which had to be put up and how long they took for the script to add them. Basicly to recap, from any wikia site (and anyone which sets up the single interwiki link to) using directs us to the central wikia. Then we use anime or whatever the name of the wiki is. It works because there is a system in place which takes any pagename starting with c: and directs it to the proper wikia site (just for those of you who don't get how it works.) So actualy, using http://www.wikia.com/wiki/c:anime will do the same thing as w:c:anime and anime. The idea works similarly for this idea. On the anime wiki a similar system will be setup where all pages starting with Anime: will go through the special little system being setup. First a animeid is searched for with the portion after the Anime: (if it can't find that, it'll also attempt to test with anime's mainpage article names) if it absolutely can't find any links, it'll pull the Anime: out and turn it into a normal page. So if we linked to Anime:Main Page from inside the Anime wiki, and it wouldn't have the ability to find an id called Main Page so it would pull out the Anime: portion and we would be directed to http://anime.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page . The only differences made before the installation is that the sitename of the wiki Anime needs to be changed (I'm thinking Animepedia) because other than that being a generic name (And an already existant interwiki link) the system needs that namespace for it to work. And the last change is that when installed the current Anime: interwiki link which points to http://anime.wikia.com/wiki/$1 would be changed to http://anime.wikia.com/wiki/Anime:$1 which would allow the system to work. And not only would it work on the anime wiki, no other wiki in the anime network needs any changes because the system is using the already existing interwiki system here at wikia. Now I just need to figure out how the devs set that system up so I can combine that with how my table works. Here's a simple shot right now. http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5905/animenetworkingpic1zf0.th.jpg Dantman (Talk) 11:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Goals
I know I've stated the large encompasing of all Anime Wikia and possibly Manga, but there are larger possibilitys and ideas further along in the future. I'd half to say that the long term project line goals are:
 * 1) Anime: To create a full enough listing of all anime in the Wikia about Anime and give the major anime with large enough size their own wiki (Naruto, InuYasha, and Bleach being good examples. Naruto and InuYasha having their own, and Bleach as a future possibility.) And to give all of them the ablity to network together.
 * 2) Manga: After the anime has grown to a full size, the second goal is to raise the Wikia about Manga and all the wikia which are about Manga to the same status as the Anime side (There shouldn't be need for new wikia in this step because most of the Manga which are large enough for a wiki also have a anime counterpart as large or larger.)
 * 3) Cartoons and Comics: While Anime and Manga are mostly considered to be Japaniese styled, there is also the other side of the Drawn entertainment, Cartoons and Comics. If you were to arrange it in a table you would see that Anime, Manga, Cartoons, and Comics fill in a perfect set. Anime and Manga are on the Japaniese style of the entertainment and Cartoons and Comics are mostly on the Western Style. And Anime and Cartoons are on the Animated side, while Manga and Comics are on the Book side.
 * 4) Language: Currently the 4 major categorys have wikia in multiple languages, but activity is not distributed properly among the languages, nor do the wikia in other languages actualy simply translate, they are just seperate wikia mostly with seperate goals. The hopes are that in the distant future that there will be enough in other languages able to translate and make the wikia in other language mimic the grown english wikia. But for now, the goals are primaraly for the english language.


 * Is it just me, or do I make everyone read to much when I try and type up something short.
 * What would other wikia consider a policy on userpages? I'm trying something new in the anime wikia which I would never consider in The Gaiapedia. The Gaiapedia is about a large site, with a large number of users who just wouldn't fit as an editor. What I mean is, in the Gaiapedia what we get from our most knowledgable source of editors is a large number of users who would instead of contributing to the wiki, attempt to use the Userpages as a way of turning the place into some big profile site where they'd try to advertise threads, guilds, and their own theorys. Which is why the wiki has the policy of only allowing userpages for editors (someone being considered an editor after they've made one or two positive edits to the wiki.) But I'm trying something different in the Anime wikia. The theory is that by allowing editors to freely use their userspace as a means of Listing what anime they are watching, what episodes they are on, and even journalize it. That it will promote activity in the wiki because while they are watching the anime, they are also returning to the wiki to note on what they have watched and since the wiki is in their minds, they may also decide to add some knowledge they have learned into some of the articles. The second part of the theory is that by letting people list out all the anime they have watched and are watching it will allow other editors to know what anime other users are knowledgeable about and what articles they can ask the other users to help contribute to. I did it again, 7x the typing I thought I'd try to do. Dantman (Talk) 14:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)