Forum:Articles with unlimited scope

Forums: Index > Wiki discussion > Articles with unlimited scope

I was wandering around the workshop and stumbled over the relationships article. The article seems to have practically unlimited scope, for example Dan. Any interaction between characters is a kind of relationship, which turns the article into coverage of every character interaction on (and off) the show.

I think the scope should be narrowed; "romantic relationships" is the obvious choice, filtering out most of the articles-within-an-article like the entire Twilight section that summarizes pretty much every major character article on the wiki. Throwy 22:56, February 16, 2016 (UTC)

Ironic, as a past forum discussion -- I forget which, but it was my original reason for moving the page here -- voted to increase the article's scope beyond romantic relationships. The new Workshop page Project:Workshop/Relationships/Twilight Sparkle was an attempt at consolidating this information.

I previously addressed the possibility of this page having an unlimited scope and proposed some sort of criteria or "relationship standard", but I see now that establishing such a standard would be impossible.

23:12, February 16, 2016 (UTC)

I think that, if anything, the page shouldn't focus on all relationships but specific ones. Family and relatives is already a page so we don't need coverage on that, but what I had in mind was romantic relationships (albeit how it originally started) and maybe also include major mentor relationships, such as Twilight and Celestia or Twilight and Zecora.

Lord of Shadows ^{Words mean nothing!}

04:41, February 17, 2016 (UTC)

Here are some suggestions to break down the article to more manageable scopes:

Suitors (for suitors whose romantic inclinations are not reciprocated, such as Spike)
Romantic couples
Teachers, mentors, disciples, and students
Employers and employees

But even so the article should probably avoid marginal "relationships" like "King Sombra and Rarity smiled at each other once in issue 18 of the comic book series", or this quip about Applejack from the Facebook page for a videogame, or Dan and Pinkie Pie having a "relationship" in a series of bumpers. Throwy 18:32, February 23, 2016 (UTC)

I agree on those suggestions. There are plenty of those kinds of relationships and it would definitely shorten the article a lot. I guess the next problem would be defining what a mentor/student relationship is. Cheerilee and school ponies is an obvious, but what I mean is should we include something like Iron Will and Fluttershy? Technically one mentored the other, but it was for one episode and it didn't event to much.

Lord of Shadows ^{Words mean nothing!}

02:24, February 25, 2016 (UTC)

I think, in terms of mentoring, Iron Will and Fluttershy's case was a bit impersonal -- Iron Will was more or less providing a paid service. More personal mentor/student relationships, in my opinion, would include the aforementioned Cheerilee/school ponies, Celestia/Twilight, Celestia/Sunset, Twilight/Crusaders, Twilight/Zecora, etc.

On the subject of romantic relationships, would married couples count as romantic or familial?

01:07, February 26, 2016 (UTC)

I agree with more personal relationships, I just wanted to make sure the distinction was defined. As for romantic relationships, I believe if they are major characters, like Mr. and Mrs. Cake or Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, then they have a section in romantic. But if they have only a minor role, like Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles, the info can be discussed on the family page since they are already counted as parents.

As I typed this, I thought about something. Maybe it could also depend on if they are parents of major characters or not, such as Rarity's or Twilight's parents. Just some suggestions.

Lord of Shadows ^{Words mean nothing!}

05:17, February 26, 2016 (UTC)

The article looks ready for inclusion in the main namespace. Throwy 20:44, May 30, 2016 (UTC)