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Are skill books books? If so, we need to italicize them. 69.l25 (talk) 19:09, March 13, 2014 (UTC)
Comments/Discussion[]
Why is it a book?
- They are evidenced to have pages in the Fallout world; this is written on the Vault 101 classroom chalkboard, and all book models contain pages.
- They are classified as "book" in the GECK; of course, the GECK can call them "awduiaduawh" for all I care-- the GECK just looks at it from a technical standpoint; but no, it's not just a "consumable"-- even from a technical standpoint.
- "It's an item." Yes, books are items. Cook-Cook's head is an item too, but it's still a head. Nuka-Cola is an item, but it's still a soda. Are these things real? No. What difference does it make?
69.l25 (talk) 19:09, March 13, 2014 (UTC)
Book are books, fictional or not / readable or not. If we ignore English conventions over this particular subject, we would no longer have a sturdy foundation to protect others. I mean, if we stop italicizing books, we might as well and stop capitalizing people and businesses' names. And God knows it does not just find itself isolated within those few examples. Some Assembly Required! 19:14, March 13, 2014 (UTC)
I believe that we should treat them as books as well. This is simply because, even though we play these games on near-supercomputers with gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of disk space, there still has to be some information loss when transitioning from the real world to the virtual. Tradeoffs are unavoidable, and the devs have to decide what is worth dedicating space to when representing things. In this case, it simply seems that it wasn't worth it to add text to these books and represent pages turning (and I don't blame them—what percentage of gamers do you think actually read all those books in The Elder Scrolls games?) It is perfectly reasonable to posit that when a character "uses" a skill book, he/she picks it up, turns the pages, and gleans the info from the text in it, just like a real-world person would read a book, but that the process just isn't represented to the player. If this were a poll, I'd certainly vote "yes" although I wouldn't consider it a big deal whichever way it was decided. --FFIX (talk) 19:52, March 13, 2014 (UTC)
- I can live with both, italicized or not italicized. Wikipedia has it italicized, but we don't have to follow their every rule. On the other hand, the Elder Scrolls wiki has the skills books italicized, guess that makes me in slight favor of it. Seems to be common around wikis. (Skill books are classified as books in the <Item> GECK branch btw, and not as a consumable.) Jspoel 20:47, March 13, 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely agree that they're books and should be treated as such as far as the conventions of style go. In addition to the above arguments, there's Paradise Lost, which is undeniably a real book and pretty clearly intended to be a copy of said book in Fallout 3 (or, given Tulip's words, a copy of some book, at least), and it behaves exactly the same as a Skill Book when read. And speaking of that, there's the way the in-game language refers to Skill Books: they aren't "applied" or "used" like chems or stimpaks, they're "read". (Example: the wording of Comprehension.) Trying to say they aren't books is a pure pedantic rabbit-hole. Aristatide (talk) 04:40, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- Completely agree, books = italicize. Magazines too. I've had this on the backburner for a while, I wrote an italicization blog for things we aren't holding to italicization standard. A Follower Talk 07:48, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
The books' titles being in bold was just fine with me, and then we always have to be making new laws about this and that. They're still just "items". You still can't read on chapter two how to rewire a terminal if the power cord fails. Sure, it says on the Vault 101 blackboard that there's at least 900 pages or so in the Big Book of Science, but you still can't read each individual page. Leea (talk) 11:25, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- To be clear, we're not making new laws. You know a great deal about grammar; and you know that book titles are always italicized. If anything, we'd be making a new law by exempting skill books from this English-language rule.
- And you are you saying one can't tell if something's a book unless you can read every individual page? 69.l25 (talk) 19:03, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
We need to treat them both consistently, and how they appear in game. If it is a book in game, then its a book as far as the wiki is concerned - its not some other class of item.
Do we need to italicise it though? If we're going to enforce that we need to make sure its italicised everywhere. Agent c (talk) 11:32, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- I've already gone through and italicized page titles and notable loot, so that's done. Of course, we'd need to work through all the misc. appearances of the titles. 69.l25 (talk) 18:54, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
But what about what Kingclyde's point? The Wiki's italics rule doesn't fit this. The games fit them in both the "item" and "book" categories. The Wiki's rules for putting things in italics doesn't fit your idea. Are you saying then that those rules are moot? Leea (talk) 20:00, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- If our rules break English conventions, then it is our duty to overturn them, as Nukapedia has been declared by its community since 2005 as an English encyclopedia of Fallout knowledge. Can you please cite the policies/guidelines contradicting the English conventions found at play here? Some Assembly Required! 20:06, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- Books
- Cantatas and motets
- Comic strips and webcomics
- Computer and video games (but not other software)
- Films (including short films) and documentaries
- Long or epic poems
- Musical albums
- Musicals
- Named exhibitions (artistic, historical, scientific, educational, cultural, literary, etc.)
- Named orchestral works: Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection *Symphony ...
- Operas, operettas, oratorios
- Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art
- Periodicals (newspapers, journals, and magazines)...”
But the skill books and magazines have no content, and most of them have no "real-world" counterpart, so that would make them unfit for italics. Leea (talk) 20:38, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
Skill books are books. They have content, too. 69.l25 (talk) 20:43, March 14, 2014 (UTC)- The list indicates we italicize books. Skill books are books. We italicize skill books. 69.l25 (talk) 20:57, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
You're not listening to me. Skill books and magazines have no content. Prime examples:
- The "You're SPECIAL!" book from Fallout 3 : There's a title, a world model, and content. You can see what's in the book.
- The "Nikola Tesla and You" skill book: There's a title, and a world model. Is there any content? No. What's in the book? Can you see what's on the pages? No.
Going by Wiki's guidelines, the "You're SPECIAL!" book can be in italics, the "Nikola Tesla and You" cannot. Leea (talk) 22:17, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- Who said Nikola Tesla and You isn't a book? It's obviously implied to have content; the model has pages, and you read it when you activate it. And who the heck cares if you can't go through its pages anyway? Explain how that makes it not a book. 69.l25 (talk) 22:21, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
Two keywords here: "implied" and "read": The skill books and magazines are implied to have content, but they don't. There's nothing there except for a title and a world model. And for the skill books being "read," they aren't really "read." They are merely activated, at which point a certain number of points is added to the respective skill. You can't read them like the "You're SPECIAL!" book. Thus, they are not "books" in accordance with the guidelines. Leea (talk) 22:34, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
- This is what I mean by a pedantic rabbit-hole. Fresh apples have no calories; shall we declare they're not actually a food item and that we shouldn't acknowledge their obvious intent to mirror real-world apples at all? We've never seen the inner chambers of plenty of the Guns, so shall we say they aren't really guns? If we start down this path we start declaring that it doesn't matter how something is treated in-game (and again, Skill Books are explicitly referred to as "books" which are "read" in all in-game text), we as players know it's not really a book or a country or a food or a drug or an animal or whatever, and where does that end? "While the game makes reference to these maps and textures being California, they clearly aren't actually California, so we might as well call it california because we don't need to obey the conventions for capitalizing non-real states"? Aristatide (talk) 22:38, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
This is getting borderline stupid. So here is what I am suggesting: books are books. They are classified as books, look like books, and are regularly implied to hold content within them meaning they are acknowledged by more than just the PC. English conventions are clear that books are italicizes, fictional or not. Absolutely no contradicting policies/guidelines have been put forth, and it has even been confirmed that the editing software known as the G.E.C.K. classifies skill books as books. So what I am suggesting is that we continue following proper English conventions. We can still debate here, but at this point, I would like to mention that italicizing books is the proper way to go and anything otherwise should be reverted/edited immediately. Some Assembly Required! 22:43, March 14, 2014 (UTC)
You want to make this a new project? Go ahead, but you can count me out. Leea (talk) 21:30, March 15, 2014 (UTC)
- No need for a project. A bot can easily go through and italicize the key-words necessary in under a day. I am also under the impression that 69 has already made a considerable dent personally. Some Assembly Required! 22:12, March 15, 2014 (UTC)
Then it's agreed. The books are italicized at all points on the wiki. We just need to bot it on up. Now it's green beer time.--Kingclyde (talk) 20:34, March 17, 2014 (UTC)
- I am not absolutely sure what has been completed yet, but Skire left me a message earlier stating that he would get his bot to work soon. So to everyone interested in this, make sure to check in with him. Some Assembly Required! 21:00, March 17, 2014 (UTC)
- I'm working on FO skill books as of now, but I'm skipping First Aid Book (Fallout) since it is not a title. --Skire (talk) 22:25, March 17, 2014 (UTC)
I promised 69 I'd comment on this thing but I'm afraid I have nothing more to add. The other users seem to have come up with a unanimous decision on it using their own expertise. And I support their decision. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 19:04, March 19, 2014 (UTC)