Thread:Original TMNT Cartoon Fan/@comment-93957-20190121184656/@comment-995426-20190417044711

That's...a little more cerebral an explanation than I was expecting. I think I understand. So that means "version noun" would logically apply to version-specific buildings, characters, comics, issues, locations, objects, planets, species, story arcs, vehicles, weapons...

I see an issue with this, though. Beyond its non-obviousness to a lay person, what makes a distinction primary? (Rhetorical question.) Topics are often several noteworthy things at once&mdash;that's intersectionality. But just as a weapon or vehicle is an object that is notable as a topic for being a weapon or vehicle, a human or mutant may also be seen as a character that is notable as a topic for being a human or mutant. When pointing out a character, do you first think "that character," or do you think "that woman" or "that mutant?" There seems necessarily to be a certain level of subjectivity involved in making this determination of which distinction is more important than the other, and this extends in determining which categories are topical vs. supplemental and how to deploy them on a wiki.

Ultimately, you can decide specifically which distinctions are topical and which are supplemental, and lay it out as a list and codify it as a policy. You're the administrator, you're allowed that. But to some editors, it will still appear arbitrary, and the explanation you provided won't necessarily satisfy if another editor's good faith topical sensibilities are different from your own. These things can be learnt, but the "when" and "why" of it all may remain unclear without asking more questions on a regular basis.

This actually makes me think of an analogy, of when I speak in English to friends whose first language is Japanese. They may accumulate a great deal of conversational skill and vocabulary, but there are still points of grammar they struggle with and almost never learn quickly even after years. A big example is the difference between definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a", "an"). While it's certainly true that mastering that difference helps improve one's English skills, it's surprisingly difficult to learn the difference as an adult if your native language does not use or distinguish definite or indefinite articles at all. Even in trying to explain the differences to my Japanese friends, I myself struggled to clearly describe which circumstances to use one or the other, because, honestly, I'd seldom ever given it a second thought.

Get what I'm saying?