Talk:Translated Official Documents/Redesign

Planned page structure

Here is a summary from the discussion below. The page structure is not set in stone but here is how we see it for now:

1. Pre-broadcast Interviews
   1. About the show in general
   2. About the story and setting in particular
   3. About the characters
2. Anime (and franchise in general)
   1. General
   2. Story and setting
   3. Characters
   4. Art style and animation
   5. Voice acting
   6. Soundtrack
   7. Blu-Rays and DVDs (incl. changes from broadcast)
   8. Other
3. Other works
   1. Sequels and spinoffs
   2. Madoka manga series
   3. Puella Magi Oriko Magica
   4. Puella Magi Kazumi Magica
   5. Madoka light novel
4. Tweets
5. Uncategorized/Work in progress

Empty categories are not displayed on the page itself.

Discussion

After spending hours sorting through Madoka scans, I've come up with some thoughts.

The table looks 90% there, but I would like to add a few requests.

1) Add a column at the start of the table with a number identifier, preferably auto-generated if that is technically possible. Easier to refer to #17 rather than that Gen article in March's Newtype about Homura. 2) Add as the second column, "Requests." Is there a way to make terms stand out...color, font style, font size etc? I'd like to see "Translation request," "Source ID request" or "Verify source ID" or "Verify translation" to be easily visible to the eye and be consistent. So at a minimum, this (and we can just use initials to save space and make a key for what they stand for at the top of each category table):

• TR - Translation request (but in bigger font--not sure how to do that within a table)
• SR - Source ID request (bigger font)
• VR - Verify translation (regular font size)
• VS - Verify source ID (regular font size)

3) Add as a last column, cross-references. This is to list all the categories we think the same source would apply. For space, we'd probably only list the source in what we consider the best category, but the last column tells you what other categories it covers. This is also if we decide to expand and list the same source under all the categories we think it fits. It could also double as a "See also" perhaps.

4) You can reduce the size of the translation column to fit the three new columns (they are all small). Short translations would fit fine and for longer ones, we can do a brief summary and link to a different page for a table that has two columns: 1) a link that references back to the original table's first column number and 2) the full-length translation. There's a few with really lengthy translations that will need that space.

As for categories, I've revised and added to the list (all categories default to anime, except for those stated otherwise as manga):

• Broadcast Production. Subcategories: General, Story, Characters, Art-Style/Animation, Soundtrack, Voice Acting, Other.
• Blue-Ray Disc/DVD. Subcategories: General, Changes from Broadcast, Drama CD, Other (note, we can expand these categories later, like voice commentary if we get anything)
• Sequels or Spin-offs. Things like interviews discussing any new sequel/spin-off possibilities and any initial news we get on them. If/when we do get something substantial, that item would be separated into a new category, like "Madoka Season 2" or whatever.
• Manga. Subcategories: Madoka, Oriko, Kazumi
• Twitters. Directs to twitters page, which should be reclassified to reflect the same categories as the Documents.
• TBD. Basically anything that's not translated and we don't know exactly what it's about or where it goes but we think it's a legitimate source and want to get it translated. --randomanon 15:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Quick reply because I do not have much time:

1. About the ID number: No problem, why not jus add it in the first column? I do not know of a way to do it automatically though. I'll look it up.
2. About the requests: that's basically what the color in the first column was for. The idea was to visually differentiate articles that still have requests from the others. I used colors instead of letters or notices so that it's less "visually intrusive" for the people who just want to read the articles and not contribute. It's inspired from emulators compatibility lists where game emulation status is identified by a color tag.
3. About the cross-references: why not, it may help having an overview of what an article is about. But I think it might be better to put in below the article, question of readability (I fear the translation column would become too small on small screens such as netbooks, plus you have more freedom if you have a whole row at your disposal).

--Homerun-chan 16:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

My point 4 got lost due to my bad formatting...oh well, that way is fine with cross-references, although I still think we're alright with space on longer translations by referring it to another page with a full translation or a link to a document, if we rather keep it in files. The tables will be long in length so I don't know if we want to make them longer by adding text inbetween entries. Also, I like the color coding for status, I was hoping for something like that. I'd put the key at the top of the table though, so people see it first before they start browsing documents.

Also, editors, once you've had a chance to review the zip I made, could you let me know what you want to do with them. Thanks. --randomanon 17:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Well my concern with putting the cross-references in another column is that it'll reduce the width available for translation too much. Actually, it's already pretty scrambled on small screens, so reducing it any more would be too much IMO. That doesn't exclude the fact that we can put longer articles on their own (sub)page though --Homerun-chan 18:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

It's looking good although there's an extra "n" in the additional header that well, I didn't know how to go about changing. Is it done now to work with or will there be other revisions? Also, because of space limits, we'll need multiple document pages. How do we organize/manage that? The current Documents discussion page is already giving me warnings when I edit it, FYI that it's too big. --randomanon 21:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Typo corrected, thanks for the feedback. Regarding the design, I'd say it's more or less complete; the page is now structured in templates anyway, so changes in the layout can be made (relatively) independently from the content. In other words, we can start moving all the documents here :)
Regarding page lengths, I wasn't aware there was a limit. Well, the easiest solution I see is to create a subpage per section (Translated Official Documents/Pre-broadcast, ...). Not so user-friendly but I don't see much alternative.
Also, what do you think of displaying the scan next to the text? When I edited the page yesterday, I thought it made it look a bit messy, so I considered replacing the actual thumbnail by a link [view source]. Opinions on that alternative? --Homerun-chan 09:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)