User talk:Ficboy

Welcome to the Order, Ficboy!

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Multiple edits

Hello Ficboy,
I notice that you've edited the House of Wessex page a current total of 30 times within 2 hours of your creating it, and that most of the edits are relatively minimal in nature. While we appreciate your contributions, I'd like to remind you to that it is preferred for editors to have as thorough an edit as possible before publishing. Usually, edit spams would be considered a bannable offense as per our Policy's (linked above) Achievements subsection, but since your edits—while numerous—are ultimately useful to the page, I'm acting in good faith by giving a pre-emptive warning before Staff take notice. I see you're using the Source Editor, so that reduces the confusion the Visual Editor typically has for new users, but I still strongly advise you to please proofread your work before saving and posting here, and to properly source your work where/when you can, as outlined in our Policy's Sourcing section. Thank you. – Darman (talk) 03:05, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, I can't not have taken note of this, and Darman is right to take the initiative to notify you about this. We have a rule against excessive chain-edits because this can cause unnecessary clutter (i.e. spam) the feed and can also be indicative of badge-hunting. For this reason, it is strongly recommended for an editor to proofread their work before publishing. I myself frequently have a bad habit of forgetting to proofread (due to enthusiasm) or proofreading but still catching mistakes and ways to revise my work just after publishing. So I would definitely be lenient with a few minor edits to a page chained together, but thirty chain edits is way too much. If you were making major edits section by section, this also makes chain-edits more appropriate because sometimes editors want to work on sections one at a time throughout a day, but your long series of edits were all very minor. Please remember to consolidate your edits in the future together and plan fully ahead of time what you want to change in the page. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello again, Ficboy.
I see that you've recently made a number of multiple edits to pages that would have been better if they were done together in a more thorough, single edit, such as your 8 changes to the "Assassin's bureau" page within 10 minutes. I'd just like to remind you again to please proofread your work before publishing, and to minimize your chain-edits by writing your changes all at once when possible. Thank you. – Darman (talk) 03:05, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Ficboy, I do not wish to make a big deal out of this, but I must remind you yet again that we do have a rule against long chains of minor edits. Witnessing the ten that you made to "British Rite of the Templar Order" today, I was still on the fence about letting this slide. But pile that on with the fourteen to "Japanese Rite of the Templar Order, and it is really just too egregious. If you just have a bad habit of noticing more things to correct after publishing, I understand that because this happens to me a lot as well, but there is a limit to that excuse. At some point, you should be making the effort to scan the article for most of the changes you wish to make. When this is happening more than 9 times in a row in an article, it is hard to keep giving the benefit of the doubt that it's not deliberate. It is a matter of not spamming the system. I think that you have the potential to be a good contributor to the wiki, but rules are rules. Please make an effort to condense edits in the future, or we will have to start enforcing those rules. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 23:00, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Given your recent dozen edits to the British Templars page, even if the two main clusters are spaced 3 hours apart, I would just like to reiterate Sol's warning to you about chain-edits from a week ago, and note that if one absolutely had to do these edits individually, almost all of them should have been tagged as minor edits in the summary due to how little was changed; there's a small check box in the lower left corner when using the source editor that reads "This is a minor edit". Thank you. – Darman (talk) 04:40, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Ficboy, I see a that number of your consecutive page edits lately—namely to Ale, Vanir, and Norse mythology—are relatively minor in nature and should have been marked as such. While your edits are broadly beneficial to the Wiki, you have now been advised at least three times now to fix your editing style and proofread your work before saving it, and have also been informed in my comment above from 2 months ago on how to mark edits as minor when they constitute only minimal changes. I ask that you please reread this chat log and work on implementing the suggested changes. – Darman (talk) 01:30, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Assassin Order

Just checking, but you do know that "Assassin Order" is not wrong and is the way they referred to it on older titles, right? - Soranin (talk)

Although, the Assassins are referred to as the "Assassin Brotherhood" and that's the official name. Therefore, we should at least use it for any Assassin-related articles - Ficboy (talk)

Not necessarily. I get where you're coming from, but we don't have to change all usage of "Order" to "Brotherhood". Firstly, not only is using Order shorter, but it's also gender-neutral, allowing for the inclusion of women and other sexualities. Rebecca Crane herself bemoaned the all-male focus of the word "Brotherhood" in [Database: The Assassin Brotherhood]. The same applies to Templars / Templar Order, which I see you've also edited a number of times, but that group doesn't have such a gender focus in its name. – Darman (talk) 01:25, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, Brotherhood is within the name of the Assassins and we use it very frequently in almost all articles related to the group. Ficboy (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but Order and Brotherhood are interchangeable in their meanings. There is not one word that supersedes the other. Even the intro paragraphs for Assassins and Templars note the alternate name they had for themselves. We don't need to replace every instance of one word for the other if both are listed as possible titles for the same thing. – Darman (talk) 01:35, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I see - Ficboy (talk) 01:48, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Wanted to add to this, but Darman's response was great. I am uncomfortable with being too pedantic about using "Brotherhood" over "Order" because of the former not being gender-neutral. However, the other matter is that even though there is an implied retcon for "Assassin Brotherhood" over "Assassin Order" since we no longer see the latter used, there has never been an explicit statement on this matter. For all we know, "Assassin Order" is simply a more antiquated name that fell out of practice but is still viable. Finally, I think if you're citing to an older source which uses "Assassin Order" rather than "Assassin Brotherhood", depending how closely you're referencing it, it can be incorrect to change "Order" to "Brotherhood". Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:01, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

To clarify my previous comment, "Assassin Order" and "Assassin Brotherhood" are 100% interchangeable, but it's marginally better to use the variant as used in a source, not that it's downright incorrect to use the variant not used in the source. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:04, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Timeline

Hey Ficboy, I saw your recent edits to the Timeline article. Please pay attention to the commentary I listed at the top of the page when editing the article. I incorporated several notes to ensure the article remains consistent. Namely, to keep the article in past tense. The rest of the article is in past tense, making the recent additions in present tense inconsistent. Additionally, when revamping the article I made sure to keep every bullet point short and concise, both to make everything easier to read as well as to not repeat the same in-depth information you can find on other articles. The Timeline article only needs to list the most important points, not the entire chain of events that led up to it or the motivations for said event. When doing this I made sure to never have the text for one bullet point exceed four lines, preferably three, as displayed within my browser. -- Master Sima Yi _Talk 10:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Chain Edits

Hey Ficboy, just a reminder on what Sol Pacificus and Darman stated about excessive chain-edits in a span of a short amount of time, especially in regards to this recent edit you made. Please try to proof read your edits and condense them in at least 1 or 2 edits, because 10 edits in a span of half an hour is way too much. I really do appreciate your contributions and I don't wish to remind you again. XOdeyssusx (talk) 01:55, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Proto-Assassins

In regards to the individuals memorialized in the Sanctuary, like Wei Yu, Iltani, and Darius, the wiki community had an important discussion on this issue last year. We came to the conclusion that per strict sourcing policy, all the individuals so memorialized should continue to be referred to as Assassins, even those that predate the founding of the Hidden Ones by Bayek and Aya. Iltani, Darius, Wei Yu, Amunet, Qulan Gal, and Lucius are all referred to as Assassins in Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia, to name a few canonical sources. No source ever refers to any of them as proto-Assassins even if it can be surmised that the former three are not properly called Assassins due to the retcon moving the founding of Assassins to 47 BCE. We are not at liberty to decide how we designate Iltani, Darius, and Wei Yu "proto-Assassins", a significant term, based on the implication of the retcon. Rather, sourcing policy dictates that we have to take both AC2 and Origins at face-value, meaning that Iltani, Darius, and Wei Yu were treated as Assassins long after their time despite predating the official founding of the Assassins. For more information, please refer to this forum thread: "Proto-Assassin vs. Assassin & Proto-Templar vs. Templar" Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello again Ficboy, I just wanted to remind you that Hidden Ones are Assassins, just by an earlier name. Please refer to the linked thread directly above. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:27, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Disruptive edits

Ficboy, I understand that you never mean any harm in your edits, and you're only trying to do the best to help as you can, but your edits for these past couple of weeks have honestly tended to be counter-productive. Last night, I had to stay up past midnight fixing the article "Silk Road" that you created and everyday I find myself having to vigilantly monitor edits of yours. To the extent that it's important to proofread everyone's edits, that's fine, but many of your edits are unnecessary alterations of other people's work which would be trivial in nature if not for the problems they create.

Here are some following problems of late:

• Creating articles by plagiarizing from Wikipedia.

I know this is a temptation that many editors have fallen into, but I have mentioned a few times already in the edit summaries that you should avoid this. It is fine to consult Wikipedia for help getting started, but starting an article based on copying and pasting Wikipedia's article sets you moving in the wrong direction. Many subjects we deal with can be explained just as well and more uniquely using what information we have from Assassin's Creed sources. Wikipedia should only be used when needed to supplement our writing based in Assassin's Creed not as the primary source.

• Editing without familiarity with the source

Editors should be familiar with the sources that they are editing from. Whenever you're editing Dynasty content, it's evident that you haven't really read the actual comics. You may be getting some information second-hand based on what we already have on the wiki, but when you haven't actually dealt with the source material, you need to refrain from making major edits and numerous revisions in regards to it. Case in point, I would prefer it if you left the creation of Dynasty-related articles to me. I understand that you just wanted to help by making pages which haven't been covered yet, but because of your unfamiliarity with the subject, it actually creates more of a burden for me. When you created the pages for "Western Regions" and "Silk Road", I had to divert myself away from working on other Dynasty pages just to immediately correct those. Otherwise, it is just disingenuous to write about content you're not actually familiar with.

• Edits should be supported by citations

As an extension of the above, I had to note here just now why editing the sentence I wrote to include Japan is not acceptable. Your edit is factually correct because scholars and entertainers from Japan did come from abroad to live in Chang'an but it is not supported by the citation that I used. Hence, you changed the sentence based on what knowledge you already have in your head, but our work needs to be strictly supported by sources. You can't just jump into a sentence and alter it without taking into account the source it cites. If you do that, you also have to update the citation to make sure that it is still properly supported by the citation.

This is not the only instance that I have seen you do this, and it is a result of, once again, editing material without familiarity with the actual sources. When I rewrote the article, I made sure to stay within the confines of information given by sources I was working with as much as possible. I only add more information from my own background knowledge when I think that it is absolutely necessary to improve the article's quality.

• Why is "Mandarin" a problem?

I noticed your back-and-forth edits on "Suyab and "Western Regions", where you seemed to obstinately object to simply indicating that readings given for their names in Chinese are Mandarin. You first tried to change it to "Mandarin Chinese", which I changed back because as a native Chinese speaker, I know that we never ever actually refer to the language as "Mandarin Chinese" in English. It is always just "Mandarin"; "Mandarin Chinese" is wordier, unnecessary, and actually even awkward, and I think Wikipedia's article only has that as its title to disambiguate with "mandarin orange" and other uses of the word mandarin. But there is only one language in the world named Mandarin, so that disambiguation here is not necessary.

For some reason, you kept modifying this, whether shifting "Mandarin" to precede the hanzi or removing it outright. I think that it is necessary to specify that the reading given is Mandarin while it would be incorrect to indicate the hanzi as Mandarin because they can be read in other languages, like Cantonese, which is the language I use to read the comics. I appreciate that you weren't making straight reverts at least, but you also weren't providing explanations in the edit summaries. If you did provide some argument, that would have made these edits more appropriate, even if I were to continue to disagree, and I might not have had to protect the pages.

• Misc. disruptive edits

I don't like how even as I was writing this message, you reverted back 'Western Asia' to 'Middle East' in "Silk Road" again in spite of my explanation in the edit summary. 'Middle East' is a Eurocentric term which, by popular usage, is still favoured in the context of modern geopolitics but not for the 8th century, when it is important to emphasize the region's cultural connection and exchange with the rest of Asia. More importantly, the source material happens to use the name 'Western Asia' in the line I based that sentence on. Once again, this is an example of editing without familiarity with the source material.

Everyone makes editing mistakes, but at a certain point, it just becomes too overbearing when they repeat themselves over and over again. There was a certain point the other day where I started to get the impression that you often edit for the sake of finding something to edit rather than because you were proofreading and found an actual problem. This is a subjective perception on my part that could totally be wrong, and it is derived solely from seeing a pattern of low quality edits, fixing things that don't need to be fixed, chain-edits, and repeatedly inserting new things onto sentences until they become run-on sentences. I think that the fact that I didn't have this observation about your pattern of editing until just the other day after months of this behaviour is indicative of how I have assumed good faith.

And as someone who struggles with ADHD myself, I will continue to do my best to assume good faith, but I need to inform you when your edits are really more counter-productive than constructive even when well-meaning and what impression that gives. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 18:16, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Moving pages

Ficboy, when making major page moves, you are expected to consult with the community by opening a discussion about it in the relevant talk page(s) to verify that it is correct. Your page move of "Roman Hidden Ones" to "Liberatores" may very well be correct, but the title of this page was the subject of extensive debate among editors previously and so should absolutely not be moved unilaterally and suddenly by any single editor. Only minor page moves, like correcting typographical errors or bringing article names in line with standards are allowed to be conducted without consultation with the community. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 00:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)