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Author Topic: Past Tense?  (Read 3471 times)

Felderburg

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Past Tense?
« on: July 02, 2013, 05:27:16 PM »
So I've been clicking "Random Page" a lot these days, and discovered http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/NoFX . It says "The following sets currently have a NoFX option available: "

Should it be "The following sets had a NoFX option available: " ? And the same for other articles with similar wording?
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TonyV

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Re: Past Tense?
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2013, 07:12:05 PM »
Quote from: Felderburg on July 02, 2013, 05:27:16 PM
Should it be "The following sets had a NoFX option available: " ? And the same for other articles with similar wording?

No, we're not going to change everything to past tense in the wiki, for several reasons:

  • It would be a pain in the butt.
  • There's no real need to.  I think that anyone reading it will realize that there's an implicit "as of shutdown..." on every article.
  • If the game is ever sold and/or revived in some other manner, we don't want to have to go back and change everything again.
  • It would be confusing, especially when reading articles that had to do with stuff that was historical as of the time of the shutdown (for example, the Paragon Dance party).
  • For game mechanics that might work, but what about game canon?  Were the members of the Freedom Phalanx the members of the Freedom Phalanx, or are the members of the Freedom Phalanx the members of the Freedom Phalanx?  It depends on your interpretation of the game's shutdown, whether you think that it was a cataclysmic end to the City of Heroes universe, or if you think that those people are still out there doing things, and we as players simply don't have access to see what's going on any more.

But really, the first reason is the determining factor for me.
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Codewalker

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Re: Past Tense?
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2013, 07:49:52 PM »
That particular article is actually a bad example anyway, since those sets still do have the NoFX option available, when creating characters offline with something like Icon.
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Felderburg

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Re: Past Tense?
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2013, 08:09:02 PM »
Yeah, I was just wondering how the meta-knowledge we have from outside the wiki should affect things within the wiki. I'm with TonyV in that I don't want to because it'd be a pain, plus it's kind of depressing.
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I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

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eabrace

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Re: Past Tense?
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2013, 08:16:57 PM »
And I don't want to have to go back through and change everything back to present tense later.  You know, just in case.  :)
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Blondeshell

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Re: Past Tense?
« Reply #5 on: July 03, 2013, 02:46:37 AM »
As per this previous discussion, http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,7514.0.html, I agree that the only things that should be past tense are meta-related articles. Everything else about powers, contacts, enhancements, story arcs, bases, and all other in-game content, should be left as is, whether as present tense or with historical notes.

'Cause it'd be a real PITFA to change everything else.  :P
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