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[edit] "In Search of the Yello Dello" and "The King of Town DVD" naming and linking conventions

I've been editing old pages, dealing with the earliest history of the site in 2000-2001, and this issue of inconsistent and potentially poorly-chosen page titles is bothering me.

In 2000, the Telebision Toons Menu did not have an entry for "The King of Town DVD Old Version", that toon was simply titled "The King of Town". It is not really correct to say that The Blacksmith's first appearance was in "The King of Town DVD Old Version"; he debuted in a toon that was titled "The King of Town" because there was no "New Version" in 2000. For comparison, look at Homestar Runner Goes For The Gold! and Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold — despite their similar names, the page names do not tack on differentiators like "Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold Unfinished Book Sketches" and simply uses disambiguation templates to make the differences clear.

The other issue is that these two toons have very similar structure but follow different naming schemes: one has "DVD" appended to all titles while the other does not. This should be handled in a consistent manner.

[edit] The King of Town DVD

Here are the ways the KOT toons have been titled. Notably, no version ever included "DVD", menus have always referred to it simply as "The King of Town" (regardless if this was just the olde toon or the special edition collection menu).

  • Title card: "The King of Town: Special Edition"
  • Filenames: "kingmenu"/"kingoftown"/"kingoftown2"
  • Page titles: "The King of Town Special Edition DVD"/"The King of Town"/"The King of Town"
  • Toons menus: The King of Town
  • Everything Else Vol. 2 menu title: "The King of Town"

Of course, we want to avoid confusion with the character The King of Town. I suggest a few moves here:

It may be worth it to make a "The King of Town (disambiguation)" page as well.

[edit] Yello Dello

These are a little more tricky. Notably, the hyphenated "Yello-Dello" appears more often than "Yello Dello" (it is also hyphenated in the onscreen captions in the original version, and Matt hyphenated it in a 2011 tweet). The page titles are jokier and therefore not as consistent as the KOT ones:

  • Title card (DVD menu): "In Search of the Yello-Dello: Special Edition"
  • Title card (new): "In Search of the Yello-Dello"
  • Title card (olde): "In Search of the Yello-Dello"
  • Filenames: "yellodellomenu"/"yellodello"/"yellodello-mark2"
  • Page titles: "LIMITED EDITION COLLECTORS' PLATE -- I MEAN DVD!!"/"In Search of the Yello Dello"/"IN SEARCH OF THE YELLO-DELLO v2.0"
  • Toons menus: In Search of the Yello Dello
  • Everything Else Vol. 2 menu title: "In Search of the Yello Dello"

I suggest these page titles make more sense:

This is more complicated. It's not ideal for the page title "In Search of the Yello Dello" (hyphenated or not) to go from representing the DVD menu to representing the original toon (not to mention I think it requires admin input for a move like that?)... but I think these pages are low-trafficked to the point where it's not going to add a bunch of confusion. I'd also argue for hyphenated "Yello-Dello", at least for the original toon, as that's how it appears in the toon itself.

[edit] Linking

Currently most articles link to the DVD Menu articles (for instance, in "appearances"). I think that's fine since so much of the toons are the same w/r/t cast, settings, plot, etc. But when discussing debuts we ought to link to the specific version of the toon.

Thoughts and input would be welcome! It'd be a bit of a lift to adjust links to these articles so I don't want to be too hasty in renaming things. -- Bleu Ninja 03:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't feel too strongly either way, but I do think a title like "The King of Town (toon)" begs the question "which toon?". These toons may not have been called "old versions" when they were released, but they are now, so the titles should probably reflect that. As for the hyphenation of Yello Dello, I'd err toward what's listed on the toons menus personally, but I don't care too much as long as it's consistent. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 23:02, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Generally the wiki goes by the way the toons are listed in the official menus, or what is between the hyphens (added in the 2020 site update) in the html title if it's absent from the site's menus. (e.g. the toon with the page title "Bless This Mess! - Needlepernt - Homestar Runner" is at Needlepernt. Some also have their toon type in the title, though these are generally also on menus, such as "Your dreams were your ticket out... - Toons Weclome Back - Homestar Runner" which is at Weclome Back.) I note this because these are the names of these toons, as listed between the hyphens:
  • KOT old version: "The King of Town (original)"
  • KOT new version: "The King of Town (new)"
  • Yello Dello old version: "Yello Dello (original)"
  • Yello Dello new version: "Yello Dello v2.0"
There are also similar names for the respective commentaries, and for the deleted scenes and trailer for the Yello Dello cartoon. What Bleu Ninja lists above are the page titles, not actually the toons' titles. I'd rather support these inter-hyphen names (at least for the KOT new and original toons), as it'd parallel a number of toons having been renamed after the 2020 site update. That said, there are some exceptions, mainly due to the new name being ambiguous (such as Fluffy Puff Commercial having its H*R.com name changed to Fluffy Puff Marshmallows, which on the wiki refers to the product), the old name being used on the in-toon title card or another official listing, or just due to there being an existing redirect that would need to be removed by a sysop.
The Yello Dello new and old versions I'm less sure on, since I find it odd that the current versions are missing the "In Search of the" from the listed title. That said, I'm leaning (though not strongly) against the "Yello-hyphen-Dello" title since it's absent from the page title between-the-hyphens names, and I'm more firmly against the old version of the toons being at the non-disambiguated title since they're now given the (original) parenthetical on the site.
As for the special edition menus, "The King of Town" and "In Search of the Yello Dello" are how they're listed on the TV Time Toons Menu, and I actually lean towards having them at The King of Town (toon) (or possibly The King of Town (special edition) and In Search of the Yello Dello for that reason. I don't think Homestar Runner Goes For the Gold is that fair a comparison, as the unfinished book and the toon are disambiguated by an exclamation point and not by additional words acting as a qualifier, but I do think "(original)" and "(new)" would be better disambiguators than the current non-parenthetical "Old Version" and "New Version" article titles, with the added bonus that they're being used as the titles on the site. DEI DAT VMdatvm center\super contra 19:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
The differentiators (new) and (original) are amenable to me. I tend to dislike using "new" as a differentiator for two reasons: as time marches on it becomes awkward to refer to something that's 20 years old as "new", and if an additional version comes out suddenly the name "new" is no longer appropriate (see awkward "Newest" and "Newerest" filenames). That being said, I doubt there will be another remake of either toon (and if there is it surely will have some funny, additional subtitle) so "(new)" is probably fine here rather than a more future-proof "(remake)" or such. I do think it would be funny to use the title "The King of Town (olde)" in reference to the cartoon, but it's probably not worth being inconsistent with ISOTYD or potential confusion just for a joke.
Using "(toon)" or even just an undifferentiated title works for the menu; like I mentioned above, the content of both versions is largely similar so articles can link to the menus as shorthand for "this appears in both versions of the toon".
Since all the way back to the Lava Lamp Toons Menu, no menu has hyphenated the toon's title so like you point out it makes sense to defer to that. Real-world movies often have minor discrepancies with onscreen titles (for instance, the title card for Dune (2021 film) reads "Dune: Part One" but video releases still call it Dune), this is sort of the same thing I reckon. The discrepancy with the hyphen can be noted in Remarks. -- Bleu Ninja 18:14, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
I am against moving the King of Town DVD pages. "The King of Town" is the character, and "The King of Town DVD" is much more readily understood that it's talking about the toon. Disambiguators like "original" and "new" don't suggest that the page is about the toon. And re: "no version ever included 'DVD'": Strong Bad does call it "The King of Town Special Edition DVD" in the commentary, and the Chinese food toons menu says that as well. If they have to be moved, I guess I wouldn't have a problem moving them to "The King of Town Special Edition DVD", but that seems less necessary when "The King of Town DVD" is understandable. The Knights Who Say Ni 20:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
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