User talk:Dmon

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Quintus Allard

Hi Dmon,

Why do we not consider the head of the espionage of House Davion as an spy?--Pserratv (talk) 08:22, 2 January 2020 (EST)

Because we have no known cases of him acting as a spy. He was a diplomat and then minister of intelligence, they are both roles as a goverment official and who he is and what he does would be matters of public record.--Dmon (talk) 08:32, 2 January 2020 (EST)

MechForce (Video Game)

Following your decision regarding Titans of Steel, do you feel MechForce (Video Game) should also be dumped? It doesn't appear to be a BT-related game, canon or fanon, and is far from a useful article, as it presently stands.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:20, 20 January 2020 (EST)

The article itself suffers pretty badly from the "data dump" that video game articles seem to aquire and as such needs a massive cleanup. I have a suspiccion that the article does belong here but possibly more in the way that we have articles about the Unseen and the ELH copyright case. From what I can tell the game was something similar to what MegaMek is today with the main difference being that CGL/Microsoft allow MegaMek to operate but FASA apparently at very least threatened the creator of MechForce with legal action.

I have a friend who is big into the retro games scene who I have asked to put some feelers out and see if he can dig anything up for us.--Dmon (talk) 11:35, 20 January 2020 (EST)

Excellent. Thank you.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:13, 20 January 2020 (EST)

Star Lord notes

Hiya, wanted to ask why you axed the Notes section in the Star Lord (novel) article? I agree that details on Dawn's future may not be relevant, but I thought the part about "Thomas Marik" in the book being almost certainly the double is worth mentioning. Frabby (talk) 04:59, 21 February 2020 (EST)

Hey Frabby, I removed the note about Dawn pretty much for the reason you stated. The part about using the head to test the DNA of Stefan Amaris VII is interesting but also utter speculation. "Thomas Marik" for the purposes of the story is Thomas Marik with no indication that he is acting in any capacity other than as the ruler of the FWL. In universe the other characters consider him to be Thomas Marik and the revelations about him being a plant are largely another decade off. As such I felt that the note had very little relevance to the book.--Dmon (talk) 09:34, 21 February 2020 (EST)

Nominations

Thanks for the nomination!! What I would love would be to one day this year if possible write or reddo an article which I really feel is a very good improvement as and stand alone contribution. I have one in mind, complex and that might well spur some interesting "discussions". I'll just need to find the time. My daughter wAS BORN Premature this past year and its being hard, hapyilly hard, but nevertheless hard (the capital letters here are her doing as its helping me write :).--Pserratv (talk) 06:15, 22 February 2020 (EST)

My pleasure PS, you deserve all the nominations for all of the awards :-p. I am really bad at writing articles myself so I totally understand the desire to make a stand alone contribution like that. Kinda why I put so much time into digging out all of the noble families and titles. Over time I think it has started to become something useful to people.

I am so glad your daughter is doing well, my sisters youngest was a month premature so I understand some of the issues you must of faced. Even more respect my friend!--Dmon (talk) 06:45, 22 February 2020 (EST)

House Steiner Family Tree

My physical of House Steiner family tree from House Steiner and from House Steiner (The Lyran Commonwealth) are very different as we are seeing. Which is the good source?? I do not want to start changing without first asking.--Pserratv (talk) 13:02, 27 February 2020 (EST)

I think it might be a case of checking as many sources as we can and build a tree based on evidence from multiple sources where we can. So I think a good starting point is finding the differences as it will give us an idea just how much we need to check.--Dmon (talk) 13:07, 27 February 2020 (EST)

There's also a pretty clear guideline for cases of directly contradictory information, namely that later sources trump earlier sources - but only if they truly contradict each other, and only in the absence of other rulings or information. Frabby (talk) 16:36, 27 February 2020 (EST)

I started on the House Davion family tree and have run into the same problem right away. It's going to be a deep dive into several books to truly make sense of the inconsistencies. I agree with Frabby, though, newer sources supersede old unless specifically ruled otherwise.--Cache (talk) 10:44, 28 February 2020 (EST)

If you have scans of those family trees, I'd love to get copies of them... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 15:48, 28 February 2020 (EST)

Character Articles

Hi Dmon,

I'm a bit slow these days, but I just noticed when digging out a minor character article I'd put in (to use as a template for the next) that where I've been listing people's professions (MechWarrior, military officer, etc) you've been swapping them instead to their most recent rank. I just wanted to check the reasoning, because I'm a little nonplussed - to me, a rank isn't a profession or an occupation. In my line of work, a General's profession isn't being a General, it's being an Army officer - being a General is just one particular moment in their overall career. In theory, where we've got people mentioned in multiple sources over the course of their career, if I'm to list their current rank as their profession, the articles run the risk of being out of date. Gavilán Camacho is a Major in the novel I'm data-mining at the moment, but I know from other articles on Sarna that he later becomes a Lieutenant Colonel, and then a full Colonel. To me, his profession is the same - he's a mercenary officer - but his rank changes with each source, so it makes more sense to me to keep his profession as mercenary officer. What're your thoughts? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 07:55, 2 March 2020 (EST)

Hey BM,

The short answer to the question is that I use the characters highers rank / position or what ever their career high point mostly out of personal preference. Longer answer is that the character infobox needs updating to include titles, ranks and positions because profession on it's own is borderline redundant when boiled down to things like Noble, Military officer, mercenary, politician and Mechwarrior. Due to the nature of the BT universe we could probably use the Mechwarrior profession on 95% of all character articles, I do not think that would be of any use to anybody. At the same time updating the infobox for every character article would be a titanic task and would likely be quite time consuming. So instead I have chosen to take the attitude that the content of the profession listing is a flexible thing.--Dmon (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2020 (EST)

I'm personally not all that bothered by so many MechWarriors appear on here (although, if we ever do actually generate an article for every character ever mentioned, there should be a fair number of nobles, pilots et al to go with them) … in part, I'm not bothered, because worrying about lots of 'Mech jocks being listed on a wiki that's predominantly all about 'Mechs feels a little like worrying that a wiki about plumbing mentions a lot of plumbers, tap-fitters and sanitation engineers... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 15:33, 6 March 2020 (EST)

Thanks for deleting what I detect from time to time

Just that.--Pserratv (talk) 06:07, 2 April 2020 (EDT)

The wiki is a team effort man, helping each other out is what it is all about! --Dmon (talk) 07:29, 2 April 2020 (EDT)

Planets Category

Hi Dmon - I just wanted to ask, is it worth asking Nic if he can run a bot to replace Category: Planets with Category: Systems in all the planets articles, rather than doing them all manually? It might save a bit of time... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2020 (EDT)

It certainly is. But then there's the faction categories which still go for "planet" instead of "system" - the idea of automating the process is one of the reasons I had raised the point. I don't see how we can automate the updating of some 157 sub-categories. Many (most?) of these will be smallish categories that could be done manually, but combined it's a big workload. And more importantly, there are significant overlaps, so when manually doing a system article you can fix all its categories. Not sure if that's easily possible with a bot. But that's for Nic to answer. Frabby (talk) 04:35, 3 April 2020 (EDT)

I was thinking about asking him but have realised that we likely have no way of getting a bot to do the planet redirects with roman numerals so it would partially render the change pointless. I am ok to do it manually as long as people don't mind me doing it at the rate of a few a day rather than trying to do it in one go and losing my sanity!--Dmon (talk) 06:45, 3 April 2020 (EDT)

Np, I'll check the double redirects as I've taken this as my personal control zone trying to avoid them. Good luck and patience.--Pserratv (talk) 10:16, 3 April 2020 (EDT)

Clan Engines

I have been thinking on how to tackle Clan Engines. Most of the time they are not branded, so for example 305 XL, but there are a few cases were they are branded... and of course without any kind of rule or logic that I can see. How would you do this for the Engines project.--Pserratv (talk) 07:42, 15 May 2020 (EDT)

Hey PS, at the moment I think any unbranded engine Clan or IS would be ok to simply link to for example 250 Extralight Fusion Engine rather than the branded Magna 250 XL sub-section. At some point I do intend to create an engine specific infobox that will have details of IS and Clan versions. I just need to sit down and figure out the best way to make it work.--Dmon (talk) 08:21, 15 May 2020 (EDT)

Ciro Ramirez

I do not own the english version of the Lethal Heritage books, but being spanish I know how we organize our surnames. Ciro Oquendo y Ramirez is indeed a full name, usually meaning Ciro's father's surname is Oquendo and Ramirez being the mother's first surname. I know he is in the 1st Somerset Strikers (sourcebook) named as Ciro Ramirez... but I can tell you that is not the spanish way to build the surnames.--Pserratv (talk) 13:32, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

I did not know surnames where handled differently in spain, so thank you for correcting me. 1st Somerset Strikers does list his full name as Ciro Oquendo y Ramirez in the text of the profile if not the main title. But this does mean that the name becomes quite long and distorts the infobox a bit. So what would be the correct way to shorten a name in spain?--Dmon (talk) 13:39, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

We do not shorten them to be sincere now, but nobles of the past usually highlighted their first surname as in Medieval ages, the male's surname was the most important. The spanish version of the book names Ciro as Ciro Oquendo when reducing his name.

Historically speaking, if the woman was of noble born and her family had money and titles, surnames were linked by the "y" or "-", but this is not even happening now. Indeed now, when your first son/daughter is born you can select the order of his surname. By default is 1st father and then 1st mother, but you can order them the other way around.

Everybody in Spain, and also central and south america has the two surnames.--Pserratv (talk) 14:13, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

Cool info, thanks Pere. May be worth getting an official answer on the BT Forum's Ask The Line Developer section. Frabby (talk) 14:33, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

A ok, so it is essentially the same thing as the British hyphenated name but reversed, the "traditional" way it is handled in england is the womans name first and the males afterwards and any shortened version would just use the male's name as it is mostly taken in order to preserve a family name which would have become extinct due to the absence of male descendants bearing the name, connected to the inheritance of a family estate. Outside nobility such names are unusual.

Also just checked Lethal Heritage and Ciro's name is shortened to Oquendo in the english version too.--Dmon (talk) 15:10, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

Checking his biography, it is a Ramirez who got the medal from Kerenky, so he and his famili would like to make that relevant.Pserratv (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

Moratorium Policy

Regarding the Moratorium Policy, shell entries can be created as long as no narrative information is included, correct? An example being Marotta Kerensky right after the publication of Divided We Fall. Thanks. --Ebakunin ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:00, 26 May 2020 (EDT)

The policy itself does not actually say anything about shell aricles beyond creating an article for the product itself. Up until now I had not actually realised that this is not specifically outlined in the policy. I tend not to create them myself for fear of giving the wrong impression to editors who might go onto violate the Moratorium Policy by mistake, but that is just my personal take on this aspect.--Dmon (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2020 (EDT)

Fwiw, I never considered shell articles a problem and even think they're good to have, to show users that yes, we're aware of this issue but refrain from covering it in detail just for a bit. Keep in mind that the Moratorium policy is a self-imposed policy with the goal of not spoiling info from new commercial releases, nothing more, nothing less. Shell articles don't spoil anything. Frabby (talk) 00:58, 27 May 2020 (EDT)

Moratoriums on 'Mechs

Divided We Fall includes the complete technical readout of the brand new Dominator 'Mech. Are those specs also covered by the moratorium policy? Thanks. --Ebakunin ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:09, 31 May 2020 (EDT)

There will be people out there who would buy the book just for those stats so I would say the stats are very much under the moratorium.--Dmon (talk) 17:46, 31 May 2020 (EDT)

First names vs. Last Names?

Dmon - Did they change the policy regarding using a character's first name as opposed to their last name? Thanks. ClanWolverine101 (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2020 (EDT)

I didn't actually know it was a policy, most of the time I have just been doing what feels best as I am writing. I am a pretty weak article writer, I just stitch together little factoids and it can feel a bit odd repeating their name in every one.--Dmon (talk) 17:50, 31 May 2020 (EDT)

For what its worth, i like most of your writing. I was just asking because when i read your articles, it seems to be a lot of first names, which isn't standard on other wikis. ClanWolverine101 (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2020 (EDT)

I shall try to mix it up a bit better in future! --Dmon (talk) 19:52, 31 May 2020 (EDT)