Board Thread:Wiki discussion/@comment-5019018-20170811014154/@comment-18014300-20170817164934

Going off on my last comment, I also wanted to point out that there is confusion and inconsistency over how much of an appearance of a subject in a work merits the inclusion of an "era" corresponding to that work to the subject's article.

As an example, we have the article ships where it has the "eras" of Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines. However, while ships did appear in these two media, they weren't actually a major gameplay element unlike their appearance in III, Black Flag, and Rogue. In contrast, the application in the article Forts seem to affirm that eras should only be included if the subject had a prominent gameplay role because only games where forts is a gameplay feature is listed instead of just every last game or novel or comic where a fortress has appeared (which is virtually every AC work ever).

While this wiki is meant to take a lore-based direction not a gameplay-one, I think an argument can be made that "eras" as they are used now is meant to refer to only truly relevant appearances. At least, that's how I always interpreted it to be. It would seem awkward to me to add a subject to an era if that subject only appears on the side or in the background for a brief moment. When our eras are based on games, it simply just does not feel like some things are relevant to a particular game to be said to be part of that "era". I've seen articles where the subject is included to an era (or work) when they literally received only a minor reference, and in such cases, I have a hard time saying a small reference justifies their inclusion to that era. (This is in contrast to an Appearances section which function as comprehensive and exhaustive lists which also clarify the extent of the appearance.)

This issue would entirely change if eras instead focused on settings and time periods since then the function would shift from relevance to a game to whether the subject applies to that time period or setting in general.