Talk:Kamea Arano

Sources and Canonicity[edit]

Anyone have any feedback or tips for creating character articles like this?--JesseTheHobbit (talk) 18:00, 21 February 2017 (EST)

I could use to know as well. PS: There is a button next to the minus on top bar named as sign - press it to know that you've written your part here. --ManganMan (talk) 17:41, 21 February 2017 (EST)

I'm not familiar with the game, but I can help on the technical side of things. I could do with a bit of information first, though, so I know what it is you want to do, and what you need help with. How significant a character is Kamea Arano? Does she occupy a position that comes with a title, like being a state leader, or a senior military figure, like the leader of a House military? Where is the information on her located? If it's inside the game, then how it's cited as a reference will be different to how it's cited if there's a written web page containing information on her, for example. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:10, 22 February 2017 (EST)
Well, as far as I know, the most known information sources for these informations are the BattleTech Video Game Kickstarter Updates & upcoming Michael A. Stackpole's ebooks for some backers. The rest of information as far as I know are the mixed fan/dev speculations on the official forums. --ManganMan (talk) 05:57, 22 February 2017 (EST)
Ok, that complicates things a little bit. Everything to do with the game at the moment is apocryphal as far as Sarna is concerned, but there's basically going to be two types of information - canon and fanon (with the caveat that I don't mean that in the traditional sense). If HBS have said something, or it's in one of Stackpole's books, then it's canonical to the game. If it's just speculation, then it's fanon. Fanon detail shouldn't be put on Sarna.
For the official HBS/Stackpole detail, we'll need a way of creating references, so that people reading the pages know where they can go back to the source material. We've had a lot of problems in the past with citing things from message boards like the official CGL forums, because every time the forum crashes or is relaunched, the material disappears. Normally, what we do is include a copy of the quoted post/ruling in the Talk page for the article, with a link connecting it back to the original post. That's not going to be possible if the only material available is online material though, because quoting large chunks of text directly would count as plagiarism.
Is the material in the Kickstarter updates open for general viewing, or are some of the updates backer-only? That'll create another wrinkle in how things are handled. Do you know if HBS will be producing anything in hardcopy format of any kind? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 06:05, 22 February 2017 (EST)
To the best of my knowledge, all this Kickstarter info is published as promotional material to the general public (as opposed to exclusive content, like Heir Apparent for example). It never occurred to me that it might not be. For the time being, given that it's still an ongoing Kickstarter project, I think the correct reference for this information would be HBS' BattleTech (Video Game) as the Kickstarter update presentation and the online forum are virtually the only official channels where information pertaining to the game is published. Frabby (talk) 09:11, 22 February 2017 (EST)
How do we future-proof the articles against that material being removed at some point? It's easy with canon sources, as the vast majority of the detail is in published texts, and where it isn't, it's been small snippets of information. I don't think we've had to deal with a large amount of information from a purely online source before... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 09:53, 22 February 2017 (EST)
Hopefully CGL will have some supporting products that will ease the burden a bit (they would be fools not to create some tie-in stuff considering what a run-away success it seems to be so far)--Dmon (talk) 10:14, 22 February 2017 (EST)
I'm not sure they'll be able to, as the BattleTech game IP and the electronics IPs are two different beasts. Unless HBS subcontract CGL to write supporting products? But I'm not sure where the advantage to HBS would be in that, in financial terms. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 10:52, 22 February 2017 (EST)
Don't worry BrokenMnemonic, we have in fact had to deal with "a large amount of information from a purely online source" before: LinkNet, which was even fully canonical. The site was taken down soon after MWDA was discontinued, but many fans had saved its content and CGL have since provided its content as downloadable files. Similarly, I'm in the process of saving as much from BattleCorps as I can while the site is still up and running (with CGL's recent new online store, I surmise the days of the BC site are numbered and if and when they migrate the site there's bound to be a data loss in the news and forum sections).
For the time being, the HBS video game only exists in the form of its Kickstarter updates and forum postings. Like I wrote above, I therefore regard the whole game project as one single resource that should be referenced in articles. For the Argo (DropShip class) I even referenced one particular Kickstarter update because it exists as a single URL. Perhaps that's the best way to go forward.
If and when the game comes out, we'll get a slew of information that will likely include all of the hitherto known content and add yet more. Then the articles will be expanded anyways. The bit that I'm anxious about is the canonicity. So far there's only a declaration of intent. Frabby (talk) 11:31, 22 February 2017 (EST)

I was mainly thinking the technical aspect. I tried to cite the sources or give links to them through the article. Just wondering about formatting and things like that. I am excited about the game and want to make sure that others who are interested have access to the information in a searchable format here on Sarna. The information is from the Kickstarter and their updates right now, this includes the images and biography info. They have other characters I was considering working on some pages for but wanted to make sure that they weren't just a mess. We may wish to add a minor spoiler tag to this as it was highlighted in the Kickstarter page. --JesseTheHobbit (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2017 (EST)