Semi-major revision on an important facet of the official materials - Need Input

[Nobody]

Tengukami: it only takes a few seconds to register, though.

[haoreos2]

Alright, at this point, I think we know where you, me, and a few others stand with regards to the infobox, so, unless there's something new to add, maybe we can stop repeating ourselves for the sake of having the last word.

Indeed, it's too late for that (lololol imperishable night joke lololol)

Tengukami, why not just go in and implement your changes? We're never going to get 100% consensus on anything, ever, at all, and yours is the most rational proposal.

It's generally considered good form to wait for a consensus when you're talking about making changes to a wiki, when said changes encompass dozens of seperate pages.
Disregarding this can easily result in edit wars, where people keep reverting the changes or making their own because people tend to consider their own viewpoint to be the most rational. If they didn't, they'd probably have a different viewpoint to start with.

[Tengukami]

Tengukami: it only takes a few seconds to register, though.

I do appreciate that, but I think what C27 was suggesting was that I go on ahead and edit the wiki to suit this suggestion before we have some kind of agreement. I think this would be bad form, especially as someone who newly registered.

[homing curvy laser]

"Ability to be able to do something such as _______________________ in case they feel like it, which doesn't imply that's all they can do, just that they can do it and is by no means a way to measure their power."
Well yeah scratch that. I like "Capable of _____", because it's short, explains what they do well, doesn't look or sound horrible (seriously, try saying "ability to the extent of" out loud without feeling weird) and doesn't imply there's a maximum "cap" on their power (I'm capable of breathing, but that isn't all I do). It's not too ZUNkward, but English translations don't really need to incorporate as much of that as they can just because.

Then again, I think the current "Ability on the level of _____" is not that bad either. It sort of implies they're strong or capable enough to do something such as manipulating fate or boundaries or bananas, but that isn't all they can do. It also seems like a better direct translation of ZUN's words than the extent of the extent.

Sorry for dropping in late like this.

[Nobody]

One objection to "ability on the level of" that has been pointed out to me is that it is not an ability, and for instances such as Yuuka it implies that she is weak. I can't say for sure, but I do think that most people think of these abilities as individual abilities (through glances of various Japanese discussions I have found) rather than statements on the character's general power level (although it has also been noted in several discussions that the 程度 implies a wide variation of what the ability really is, and in discussions like these, it has been commented several times that having a 程度の能力 doesn't imply they can do it, especially for Remilia's case). Simply adding an "an" would probably refocus it better, though: "an ability on the level of" or, if more clarity is desired, "an ability that is on the level of." If this sounds long, keep in mind that if abilities is not going to be included in the infobox, this will only show up as translations in the official profiles and in Perfect Memento and Symposium, so length shouldn't pose too much of a problem in those contexts.

Edit: A recent suggestion has been made on the wiki here, and I found it to be very much a decent suggestion that captures the meaning: "a capability to ~" such as "a capability to fly in the air." I still don't think ability should go in the infobox, but I think this should be good enough for the official profile translations as well as Perfect Memento and Symposium. What does everyone else think?

[Firestorm29]

Personally, if we agree on moving it to a new paragraph, I think it opens up a whole lot more possibilities. Such as saying that their powers includes abilities such as X and then go into more detail with using the games as examples.

Much easier than forcing a template.

[Nobody]

Firestorm29: I was talking about how it should be translated for instances where they occur in the original work. Those are the official profiles, Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, and Symposium of Post-mysticism, as well as several other locations.

[Drake]

I've still been contemplating Capability, although it was actually suggested early on in a few different contexts and was just seemingly breezed over in the stead of adding random words around it. As noted on the wiki, "A capability to X" is not quite grammatically incorrect, but is very unwieldy and doesn't really mean what you want. You do want "The capability to X", as later mentioned, but even still using an article at all is a bit weird. Without an article, you have "Ability:" being the title or section, but with an article you then parse it as "Her ability is the capability to X" which is still a bit odd. Haven't posted in a while but I'm still in favor of "Ability: Capable of X".

However I'm also in favor of killing the ability listing out of the infobox, and this phrase only being used in instances where you would link to the full paragraph such as the translation of the character profile. Also as an aside, there used to used to be more information in the infobox and it's looking pretty bare right now. Wonder if we could tackle that somewhere.

[Nobody]

The thing is that "capable" is not an ability; it is simply a description, an adjective. Abilities are things that characters can have, and can use; in other words, they should be nouns. "Capability" should be a simple enough way to put it.

Also, I think that at this point there is enough of a consensus to take it out of the infobox that this change should be done by somebody. I wouldn't want to be the one to do these changes myself, since it seems like I have my fair share of animosity whenever I do anything.

[Drake]

Hrm, I can see that. I suppose the problem of putting "Ability: Capable" is that you are expecting an object of sorts after "Ability:". However, I'm not sure that "The capability to" also fulfills that requirement, since the capability they possess is not actually their ability. The issue here, rather, might simply be the usage of "Ability:" in the first place, since it does imply that you want a concrete object after it, but we instead want to give something ambiguous and sort of insubstantial. I wonder if it might be possible to tweak that wording as well, since it does seem to be important to how people parse that small phrase.
I was also thinking of "Possesses the capability to X"; while it is a bit long, it isn't overbearing or wordy, and connects "the capability" to something other than the "Ability:" title. This is what you mentioned when you were talking about 持つ, since then the suggestion of "The capability" actually works. Again, this is where the title of "Ability: blablabla" would get in the way. If you start the phrase with "Possesses", then from my point of view, it eliminates the imagined link between "Ability:" and the text, which is precisely what we want.

[Zil]

After looking at this from both sides, I'll also support taking the ability out of the box. Anyone with the power to change it may as well do so, assuming it won't cause some chaos with others at the wiki.

About the phrasing, it sounds to me like using the word "ability" at all is kind of misleading. Could that part itself be replaced with "Capability?" Unless I'm mistaken, it's supposed to imply a power level rather than a power, right?

[Drake]

I'd imagine the word ability is used because it's a literal translation and is very simple. I would try circumventing the attachment it has with the text before trying to change the word.

[Starxsword]

My input is coming from the point of view of someone who has had meetings about webpage design and how it affects readership, that go on for literally hours over the tiniest details. One thing I've learned is that sidebars, tables and pretty pictures are actually not the first thing most people's eyes go to. Sounds strange, I know, but myself and the folks I work with actually did studies on this (reader polls, to be exact). When people are going to a website for information, the first thing their eyes go to is the text "above the fold", i.e., the text you can readily see without having to scroll down. Secondly, people are more likely to catch information when it is presented gracefully - shoving text into the margin is a fantastic way to get it ignored. When you try to cram text into the margin, the reader's eye sees it as blurry noise, ignores it, and focuses instead on the nice sentences right in front of them.

Yes. Which is why I mentioned that the infobox is the most likely area people will look at. Infobox is at the top, no need to scroll, it is an image, it does not have texts surrounding it. All this is why I believe most people will look at the infobox. This is also why I mentioned that if a character has lots of abilities, only one should be listed. This is to not cluster the infobox.

Because the abilities listing with "程度の能力" just can not be translated in one sentence in English. Whatever we would be in the abilities box is going to be at least two sentences. This isn't a brief, one line description, even if you just put one whatever in it for everyone, it isn't a good summary at all. It just becomes very overcomplicated. Some things just can't be done in a single stroke and this is one of them. How else can I make this more clear?

Why is that? I recognize all those words and my question is why can't you translate that in one sentence?
It literally means "power to the degree of". Or ability if you wish to use that. All I see is there just needs to be a consensus on what the words should be.

A phrase like 程度の能力, in English, would be very unwieldy to capture perfectly and as user-friendly as possible, so there is some concern to be made in leaving it or putting it in the information box.

But the whole point is to think of words that can match that phrase. That phrase can be translated to something like:
Skill Level: <insert skill translation>

[Drake]

Yes. Which is why I mentioned that the infobox is the most likely area people will look at. Infobox is at the top, no need to scroll, it is an image, it does not have texts surrounding it. All this is why I believe most people will look at the infobox. This is also why I mentioned that if a character has lots of abilities, only one should be listed. This is to not cluster the infobox.

If you're only listing one of a character's multitude of abilities then you're losing accuracy, first of all. The new section we're suggesting contains the abilities and descriptions lengthy enough to bring across whatever meaning and that can't possibly be brought about in a single formatted blip of text. While I would like to include the phrase in the infobox and also link it to the paragraph, if someone visits the wiki and sees a short blip of a sentence that is inaccurate in certain ways for a given character, it is incredibly easy to just go "oh ok that's what it is" and then be done with it without further investigation. If the phrase is easy to see then it's even worse that if it were not easy to see. I don't think the infobox is cramped; the opposite in fact. I think you probably could fit more info in there. But that isn't an issue.

Why is that? I recognize all those words and my question is why can't you translate that in one sentence?
It literally means "power to the degree of". Or ability if you wish to use that. All I see is there just needs to be a consensus on what the words should be.

It's difficult to translate it into one phrase because it's an important phrase to Touhou and we want all of accuracy of translation, conveyance of meaning/intention, and proper english so that it's all easily understood with a glance. Trying to cram accuracy of the specific ability into this phrase as well (which is not a linguistic element, unlike the others) is why we've been so stuck on it, because the context the phrase is used varies wildly depending on which character you're talking about.

again though, why are you so intent on arguing this

[Nobody]

However, I'm not sure that "The capability to" also fulfills that requirement, since the capability they possess is not actually their ability.

That is why I suggested earlier, "an ability that is on the level of," which would explicitly be talking about an ability, but the concern with that is that it would be too long. Then again, this might not be a problem if it is just limited to translation pages.

[Tengukami]

Yes. Which is why I mentioned that the infobox is the most likely area people will look at. Infobox is at the top, no need to scroll, it is an image, it does not have texts surrounding it. All this is why I believe most people will look at the infobox. This is also why I mentioned that if a character has lots of abilities, only one should be listed. This is to not cluster the infobox.

No, you completely misrepresent my entire point, by omitting the very long bit where I talked about people being less likely to read marginalized, boxed text in the studies my magazine has done - people who go to websites for information are going to look first at the main text above the fold. Not stuff in margins or boxes. We noticed this pattern repeatedly. I am in fact saying the opposite of what you're saying. I don't know if this is a deliberate misreading on your part or not, but either way, you're now kinda distorting what other people are saying in order to bang on this drum of yours.

[trancehime]

But the whole point is to think of words that can match that phrase. That phrase can be translated to something like:
Skill Level: <insert skill translation>

Good luck with that, because you're going to spend forever on it.

The point is you just can't do that so easily, not while trying to do a billion other things at once. Don't be absurd. Why else has everyone been arguing about this for so long now, struggling to come to a consensus?

[Firestorm29]

Why is that? I recognize all those words and my question is why can't you translate that in one sentence?
It literally means "power to the degree of". Or ability if you wish to use that. All I see is there just needs to be a consensus on what the words should be.

Drake caught it right on, but lemme elaborate on it. That "power to the degree of" indicates that some characters like Kogasa should had that capability to scare people. It comes with some slight implied lower limit. What's been going on it trying creating a catch all that can allocate both weaker powered characters without making they sound more beefier than they are or much powerful characters sounding like they can barely achieve the power stated. It's like trying to fuse greater than or equal to (>=) and less than or equal to (<=) in a single phrase.

[Momiji]

It comes with some slight implied lower limit.

This is kind've the problem, because a lot of English candidates for the term have some other implied connotation that breaks the translation (i.e. a denial with an automatic implication of guilt, degraded ability levels, etc.).  It's not about implying a limit of powers but a 'non-confirmation non-denial'-like ambiguity of an ability and it's attribution to a character.   It's like saying:

'The concept of this ability has a certain attribution with this character, although they may or may not necessarily be able to do it, claim or disclaim doing it or be proficient at it, or may even be lying (see: Remilia and Vlad Tepes), misleading, and/or under/overestimating about it, intentionally or unintentionally'.

So was that obtuse enough Touhou legalese?  Try compacting that whole concept into a couple words.

[K]

Well, we have a conclusion now!
The conclusion?

Spoiler:

Character pages will just use "Ability" and the Characters/Abilities page will clarify the 5 worst characters in the entire Japanese language, "程度の能力".

(yes, yes, plenty of progress was made)

We can all go home now.

[Drake]

i am so exhausted right now

[DeltaSierra4]

Woohoo! Finally, after months of debate, it's about time lol :3
I'd like to express my gratitude to all of you who participated in this discussion. Was a long and arduous journey, but we've managed to reach the promised land.

[iK]

I can finally sleep warmly at night knowing this matter has been taken care of.

[K]

As part of the post-mortem celebrations, Choja jokingly suggested we feed "程度の能力" through Translation Party.

This is what we got.

The glorious machine has told us that it should be translated as "some degree". Upon further consideration, we realized that the machine may be smarter than us.

[Ibaraki Ibuki]

I was surprised this issue was resolved as quickly as it did.
But I can live with this nonetheless.

[Drake]

I was surprised this issue was resolved as quickly as it did.
But I can live with this nonetheless.

/me strangles

EDIT: ammy don't you think we realized that five times over before finalizing this lol

[Tengukami]

Since y'all are probably exhausted from this ordeal with nerves fried, I won't mention that you pretty much came full circle, apart from the addition to the Abilities page.

Looks like I mentioned it anyway - oops!

Seriously, good work. The important thing is you talked it through until you had an agreement. You should run for Congress or something.

[Starxsword]

Meh, weekends, so I was not here to comment, anyway, here are my comments on the matter.

If you're only listing one of a character's multitude of abilities then you're losing accuracy

Why would you lose accuracy? If you look at character profiles, they only list one ability. I believe this is true for all character profiles. The extra abilities that characters have are through story and the like. So, I don't see how it is a lost of accuracy to put it on another section.
Let's use Reimu as an example. Reimu's ability is to "fly into the air". None of her profiles mention any other abilities on their "abilities" section. On some profiles and mangas, you find out that Reimu can summon gods and do other stuff, but those would be extras.

again though, why are you so intent on arguing this

Ease of use and readability. I find that taking out abilities on the info box would be a negative. I view that infobox as a quick guide to characters for the lazy.
Those that enjoy Touhou will do further research, but in general, those that want to just have a quick snapshot, that is where you can get the information.

I am in fact saying the opposite of what you're saying. I don't know if this is a deliberate misreading on your part or not, but either way, you're now kinda distorting what other people are saying in order to bang on this drum of yours.

If that is what you are saying, then I request exactly how you did your study. What conditions, the type of readers, method of control and other conditions.
While I do not work on the same field as you do, I do work with people who do web design and if you insist that people do not look at a single image residing near the top of the of page, I must ask, how did your study group come to this conclusion?
Not only does this go against what I know and how I use the internet, it also goes against observations I make on how other people use the internet.

'The concept of this ability has a certain attribution with this character, although they may or may not necessarily be able to do it, claim or disclaim doing it or be proficient at it, or may even be lying (see: Remilia and Vlad Tepes), misleading, and/or under/overestimating about it, intentionally or unintentionally'.

Now, what you said is entirely subjective. We do not know whether Remilia can or can not use her ability. As for all the other characters, I would like a sample of one character who you can concretely prove that cannot use their ability.
That is your interpretation of what it is, it is not even a translation from the Japanese words. In fact, if that was written, that would be a false translation. All I see is adding subjective opinion in what should be an objective process.


By the way, what in the world? Did the Japanese text change or something? I only see 能力 in Reimu's profile. What happened to 程度の能力?

As I already said, this is my input on the matter, whatever you guys decide, I will be fine with it. I simply mention things I believe would be good for the site.

[Tengukami]

Holy shit dude, did you not just read the previous eight posts? It's over. The case is resolved. Settled. Done. Finished.

LET IT GO!

[Starxsword]

<Tengukami> Maybe you didn't understand me. I said the MATTER IS OVER. Read the fucking thread already.

Locking this thread, since it's served its purpose.

If you, the user, are worried about SJs possibly overstepping bounds, pretend I locked this thread instead of Sir Amat.