Talk:Resident Evil

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[edit] Disambiguation

I'm aware that the series article covers all the movies and games. This dab page, however, is here to deal with the fact that there will be incoming links from [[Resident Evil]] that are referring to the specific video game or specific movie. Without this dab page, those links will continue to incorrectly point at the series article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 18:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

What will happen is that this page will once again become a shallow copy of Resident Evil (series) as people add the other video games, movies, books etc. This has happened once before already. A disambiguation page is supposed to provide a branching point for different subjects with the same name.

If people add sequels and such, I will cheerfully revert. This is only for things that are actually named "Resident Evil" without any additional numbers, subtitles, and so on. We already have similar dabs at Mega Man, Mega Man X, Ridge Racer, and others. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not the case with Resident Evil as the books and games etc. are obviously all part of the same world. If people want to link directly to a specific game or film in the series they can do that already - linking to a DAB when they meant the first game or first movie is bad practice and should not be encouraged. DamienG 09:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

People shouldn't be linking directly here, no. But, if Resident Evil is just redirected, then those links will never get fixed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

A further note. Resident Evil is also a book and a comic and they are not covered here in any form. If you think the Resident Evil (series) page is too heavily focused on the video games at the expense of the film etc. then I'd be more than happy to re-edit the series article to balance it a little better so it can return to where it should be - here. DamienG 09:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a dab page; strictly a tool for dealing with possibly-vague links. Is there a Wikipedia article for a book or comic named Resident Evil (without any subtitles)? It should be added if so, if not then not. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Finally take a look at Star Trek. This is another fictional world that consists of books, movies, TV shows, computer games. I don't see a disambig page sitting in it's place. DamienG 09:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Those various things have subtitles; there are only two things actually named "Star Trek," and that's the series as a whole and the original series (which is subtitled in conversation so often that it might as well have a subtitle). In this case, we have three things named "Resident Evil": a game, a series, and a movie. Three things (with no overwhelmingly-more-likely target, not really applicable here) means it's time for a dab. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Resident Evil franchise? The game spawned the series and the movie - it's all part and parcel of the same thing and not seperate things with the same name. The rationale on the Wikipedia Disambiguation page says only to create DAB's where confusion would arise and that would not seem to be the case here. Anyone typing in resident evil and being presented with the summary and the contents to jump-off to a game/movie/book/comic would certainly not be confused as it is a totally logical introduction and branch out to the topic. If anything putting a DAB page there that doesn't even acknowledge the relationship between the game and the movie is more confusing. DamienG 10:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quoting-lines-from-memory familiar, but I'm passingly familiar with all of the games in the series.

There is a 1996 game (with a half-dozen remakes) named Resident Evil. There is a series of games following it, known as "the Resident Evil series." There's a 2002 movie named "Resident Evil." These three things are discrete; while both the game and the movie are part of the series, it's still reasonable that an incoming link or typed-in search is only looking for one of those two specifically.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the relationship between the game and the movie;" the movie had fuck-all to do with the first game, and just reuses some characters, locations, and elements (e.g. Umbrella) from the series as a whole. I'm not sure what more elaboration you want than "the 2002 film based on the game series of the same name."- A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to resort to swearing. The first film whilst not canonical shares many elements of the game and fits nicely between the games Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 1 bar some minor errors. I think to come into a subject you admit you only have a passing knowledge and shift 2 years of hard work by myself and other regular contributors to fit with your own personal idea of what should be sitting at the entry page is somewhat short sighted and egotistical. DamienG 15:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I see from your edit history you edit the Pokemon page which summarises the franchise and provides links. Perhaps this too should be moved to Pokemon (series) and in it's place a disambiguation page put that states; "Pokemon could refer to; Pokemon: The First Movie (1999), Pokemon the video game for the gameboy advance, Pokemon: The animated TV series, Pokemon: The trading card game" DamienG 15:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

For one, give me a break. I don't have to have a PhD in the RE series to know how to use a disambiguation page.

As for Pokémon, all of those things are subtitled. There's no "Pokémon (video game)"; they're all Pokémon Red and such. There's no "Pokémon (movie)", just Pokémon: The First Movie. Not so with RE, where there are three different things named RE. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The previous attempt at a disambig page that started to turn into a shallow copy of the Resident Evil (series) page can be found at Resident Evil (old disambig). We can no doubt expect this to happen all over again. It is very frustrating to see two years of hard work on this page by myself and many other contributors suddenly deemed an invalid summary of the Resident Evil franchise by an individual who has previously contributed nothing to the subject and continually reinforces his change without prior discussion from interested parties. I guess thats the power of ops for you. DamienG 01:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Then don't let it. Just delete anything that isn't just named "Resident Evil," and otherwise follow the standard Wikipedia:Disambiguation style. It hasn't been a problem at any of the other dab pages I pointed you to. (You may want to look at Mega Man, Mega Man X, and Ridge Racer, again.)

This isn't a summary of the franchise, and it's not supposed to replace the series articles. It's just a disambiguation between three things named "Resident Evil", and, browsing whatlinkshere, I see a number of incoming links that refer to both the individual game and the series as a whole.

And spare me the "without prior discussion" nonsense. I saw a need for a dab page, was bold and corrected it, and you reverted. This is the discussion, and you seem to be under the mistaken impression that anyone is going to allow anything that isn't named "Resident Evil" and "Resident Evil" only to be listed on this disambiguation page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Resident Evil is a franchise that like many others started with the name of the first in the series (Star Trek, Star Wars, Silent Hill, ). All the elements on this disambig page belong to that franchise. The disambiguation guide states those pages are for disambiguation between unrelated things with the same title. Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result? (For example, when someone looks up 'Joker', would they find information on a comedian? On a card? On Batman's nemesis?) When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate nor add a link to a disambiguation page. A reader entering this page is more likely to be confused than if they landed at Resident Evil (series) - they would wonder where the other films, games, books, comic series and perhaps even the action figures are. They might also wonder why there is no reference to the original Japanese title Biohazard.

All these issues have already been discussed, edited and polished on Resident Evil (series) which is now marked as a good article. To put a disambig page in it's place when that article already does a much better job makes little sense. With regards to your examples of Mega man well there are plenty of examples there not related to the Mega man (series) whilst here there are none. As for Mega Man X just because you made a similar change elsewhere still doesn't make it a good idea. DamienG 09:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that there's even odds that they want the 1996 game or the whole series. The movie is more or less here because it's a not-unlikely secondary possibility.

Since there's two equally-likely possibilities to be the target of a link or search (look at how many pages still link to "Resident Evil" and mean the 1996 game, when up until recently this was a redirect to the series article), we need some kind of disambiguation. The existence of a reasonable third possibility means that the form of disambiguation should be a dab page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a lot of consistancy elsewhere in the project. I tried surverying various sizable franchises (meaning at least four games and oen other-media appearance) and found the following: Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Metroid, Pac-Man The Legend of Zelda, Spy Hunter, Rayman, F-Zero and Doom go to the first game in the series. Sonic the Hedgehog, Alone in the Dark, Dead or Alive, The House of the Dead, Wing Commander, Mega Man and Metal Gear go to disambiguation. Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong, Tekken, Fatal Fury, Double Dragon and Castlevania go to series pages. Should we try to establish a common standard? Ace of Sevens 10:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I find DamienG's argument here to be more compelling. Disambiguation pages should be used primarily to distinguish subjects that are significantly different to the point where they do cause confusion, not pages that spin-off from a single franchise, even if they are different films and media. The main link should go to the series page in this case. Ao7s mentioned Wing Commander and Dead or Alive examples, which are probably fine as DAB pages, since there are significant things on the DAB page that refer to things outside of the video game franchise - not the case here.

A good example is the skeletal Æon Flux (disambiguation). Several media use the same name, but all of them stem from the cartoon. So, the primary Æon Flux page covers the original animated series, with a link to the DAB page at the top. --SevereTireDamage 11:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Many of those cases only have two possible disambiguations.

Pac-Man, [The Legend of Zelda]], Rayman, F-Zero, Doom, The House of the Dead, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tekken, Fatal Fury, Double Dragon, and Castlevania only have two things to (usually the first game and the series as a whole) to disambiguate between. They wouldn't have dab pages in any case.

The Aeon Flux case isn't particularly compelling to me, because, while the original cartoon is far more prominent in that case, incoming links or searches for "Resident Evil" are just as likely to be for the first game as for the series as a whole. Dab pages are also useful because they make it easier for users using popups, AWB, and similar tools to make the links more specific (pointing links referring to the series to the series article and pointing links referring to the game to the game article).

I don't think there's any risk of serious confusion, but dab pages are a useful tool for fixing links and correctly directing users. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not actually the case. See Pac-Man (TV series), The Legend of Zelda (TV series), Doom (film), House of the Dead (film), Street Fighter (film), Tekken (film) and Castlevania (2007 film). Double Dragon and Rayman both had shows of the same name, though those don't appear to have their own articles. At any rate, I agree that the guidelines say dab are for unrelated things. For instance, we don't have one for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even though that was the title of a movie, a show, the franchise as a whole, a character and two video games. It just goes striaght to the show page. Ace of Sevens 11:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)