Talk:Baby Pokémon

Pokémon again

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I find it hard to see the rationale for us having Basic Pokémon and Baby Pokémon (both hyper-specific terms within the Pokémon toy community) when we have long since removed the entry for Pokémon and turned it into a Wikipedia redirect. Comments? Equinox ◑ 20:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

How does this satisfy CFI? I am interested to know. Does this mean I can start include card types from w:Magic the Gathering as well? Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Words used in specific games are a confusing issue. Knight is included in the chess sense, but the entry does not have any of the senses of it being used in other games (w:Settlers of Catan, for example). I have no idea what would happen if I added the w:Xiangqi sense of elephant to the entry. We have three in-game senses of king (card games, chess, checkers), but there are probably many lesser-known games that use "king" for other things... --Yair rand 21:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that those are analogous. The name of a generic piece within a game (like knight in chess, or tile in Scrabble) is not the same thing as the name of a specific character within a game (like Pikachu in Pokémon, or Colonel Mustard in Clue/Cluedo). The latter are more akin to characters in books. Equinox ◑ 22:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Basic Pokémon and Baby Pokémon aren't fictional characters within a game the way that Pikachu is. They are types of cards, like a jack, only in a far lesser-known game. --Yair rand 22:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Okay. But they are respectively (i) Pokémon that are basic (simple or unexpanded in some way) and (ii) Pokémon that are babies (small or ungrown in some way). This can already be determined from our definitions at (deprecated template usage) basic and (deprecated template usage) baby. It is not for us to list every specific meaning of an adjective in every specific game: they are specialisations chosen by the game creator. Equinox ◑ 22:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I don't know. They are spelled with capital letters, so they might be similar to "(capitalized direction) (place name)", referring to a section of the place in the direction, but with specific borders... Or perhaps they're similar to the card game sense of hearts, which basically refers to cards with heart shapes on them, or revealed check, which also seems to be a specialization... --Yair rand 23:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Some people, in past discussions, seemed to give far more value to terms of chess, and card games, and other games, simply because they are mainstream, or very old, or something like that. This reasoning is worthy of being considered, either as a simple catch-all solution to this problem, or as a big bureucratic can of worms of "what" can be valuable that way. Tetris, Monopoly and Minesweeper are mainstream enough to me, for example; even though I don't know exactly why anyone would seek a glossary for the last one.

"Basic Pokémon" is not a character, in the sense that it does not have a role in a fictional story. It is an object of a game. To be fair, someone could conceivably utter a sentence like "My Basic Pokémon defeated yours!", that does seem to rationalize the game object as a character. However, that is not exclusively a privilege of Pokémon; for one can do the same thing with chess pieces, as well: "My pawn took your queen." --Daniel 23:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

RFV

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Baby Pokémon

Can this meet WT:FICTION? -- Liliana • 16:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

This isn't from a fictional universe, though. This refers to a real, physical object. WT:BRAND, maybe? --Yair rand 04:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No it's from a fictional universe; the fact that you can put this on a card doesn't matter. I mean books are written on paper and paper is a physical substance, but the ideas expressed on the paper can be in a fictional-only context. See Citations:Baby Pokémon for in universe cites, ironically enough. Never actually watched Pokémon, well ok a couple of times, but aren't Baby Pokémon in the show as well as the card game? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Here are two separate quotes from Talk:Baby Pokémon, chosen by me simply because I agree with them. See that talk page for the whole conversation, including other arguments and counterarguments.

• Basic Pokémon and Baby Pokémon aren't fictional characters within a game the way that Pikachu is. They are types of cards, like a jack, only in a far lesser-known game. --Yair rand 22:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
• (...) "Basic Pokémon" is not a character, in the sense that it does not have a role in a fictional story. It is an object of a game. To be fair, someone could conceivably utter a sentence like "My Basic Pokémon defeated yours!", that does seem to rationalize the game object as a character. However, that is not exclusively a privilege of Pokémon; for one can do the same thing with chess pieces, as well: "My pawn took your queen." --Daniel 23:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

— This unsigned comment was added by Daniel Carrero (talk • contribs).

So you're saying that they are a fictional breed or type, not a single specific character. The same goes for Pokémon, which already failed. Something similar might be Imperial Stormtrooper (a specific type of character in Star Wars, but not a single entity like Han Solo) — for which we do have an entry, presumably because it is used outside of that universe as a stock character type(?). Equinox ◑ 13:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was gonna say, a Baby Pokémon isn't a 'specific entity', but it is a fictional race/species/subspecies. Like I say, you can put a representation of anything on a card, it doesn't become nonfiction because you write it down or print it out. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

@Mg and Equinox:

I've seen some good, yet somewhat controversial, reasons for deletion of Baby Pokémon. For example, as I mentioned in another discussion, there are people who seem to give far more weight to components of chess and playing cards as "mainstream, or very old, or something like that" and apparently would want to see Wiktionary devoid of specific RPGs and whatnot. To some extent, it's reasonable to assume that people would want to see Baby Pokémon deleted on these or similar grounds.

However, I do defend that distinction: the card is not fictional, so please don't push WT:FICTION over it. "Baby Pokémon" is probably trademarked, anyway, so WT:BRAND would apply.

The single definition of the entry is: "A Pokémon card (of Pokémon Trading Card Game) that may evolve into a Basic Pokémon card."

It's worded not as a type of character (i.e. a fictional race/species/subspecies, like the well-known common nouns werewolf or mermaid; or an Imperial Stormtrooper), but rather a component of a game: It mentions "card", "game" and a single rule. We have one sense of "king" for the monarch and three senses for games (chess, checkers and the playing card). The playing card "king", just like any "Baby Pokémon" card, is not a fictional character, in the sense that it is not someone with a role in a fictional story.

Whether we will want to define just the best-known components of games, or all components of all games, or all compoinents of only the best-known games (for example, by defining even the most obscure concepts of chess) or use grey areas like WT:BRAND (that may or may not justify the inclusion of some terms of specific game franchises) is a separate issue. --Daniel 22:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Mglovesfun: No, they are not. "Baby Pokemon" exists, to the best of my knowledge, exclusively within the card game. There are no books, video games, movies, TV shows, or stories of any kind that include "Baby Pokemon", afaik (excluding the meaning of just baby+Pokemon, of course). It refers to a category of card, used in a card game, and nothing more. I don't see how this could be at all different from the situation of jack, queen, etc. (None of the citations at Citations:Baby Pokémon are from in-universe, btw; they all refer to people playing the card game.) --Yair rand 14:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Yair, do you then support having entries for all Magic: The Gathering cards, e.g. [1]? Or at least the capitalised "card types" [2]? Equinox ◑ 23:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

@Equinox: How is the trademark status of these terms? Shouldn't WT:BRAND apply to them all? While I don't know much about Magic, I assume it is indeed trademarked and therefore my best guess is that our restrictive policy would exclude most or all terms of that card game. The same holds true for Pokémon TCG. The initial question ("Can this meet WT:FICTION?"), and related statements about a fictional character or class of characters, are meaningless if we acknowledge that the card is real (not fictional). So, at least for now, I'd expect the entry to be kept per the lack of reasons for deletion, whereas I foresee that someone probably can elaborate better arguments to be discussed nonetheless. --Daniel 00:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, "Pokémon" (in "Baby Pokémon" or otherwise) is a registered trademark. It is inconceivable that the names of the many, many Magic cards are all registered trademarks; they might be written as non-registered ones (with the TM rather than (R)) but I haven't seen any evidence for this. Equinox ◑ 01:41, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

On the one hand, if jargon of Magic is not trademarked, then WT:BRAND does not apply and technically Wiktionary can freely cover terms specific to that card game (for example, by filling Planeswalker and others), just like we have a number of definitions for chess and playing cards and whatnot.

On the other hand, the lack of formal restrictive rules does not mean that the community would inherently endorse the preservation of entries for all untrademarked jargon of card games. Defining only a few terms of Pokémon TCG or Magic can be controversial enough, let alone engaging in the huge hypothetical task of "having entries for all Magic: The Gathering cards".

Deciding actual rules can be difficult, with grey areas and individual games to be considered. I am curious as to what would be the extent permissible for defining their jargon here, especially what to do with terms of poker as a mainstream game of playing cards; and terms of Tetris as a mainstream non-fiction electronic game.

The existence of entries like "Baby Pokémon", "Planeswalker" and "Battle Phase" (the latter is from Yu-Gi-Oh!) would naturally look inappropriate for someone who, for whatever reason, holds the belief that they shouldn't be in Wiktionary in the first place. I, however, would not object to having some of these terms, for feedback, contributions and discussions. Until big decisions are made by the community, I'd probably oppose any of these simple, catch-all solutions, among others: 1) indiscriminately adding all terms of Magic or another controversial game; or 2) indiscriminately deleting all terms of Magic or another controversial game. --Daniel 05:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• This can probably be verified, but I'd RfD it, personally Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 16:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

{{look}}

There's an even split above between those who think this fails FICTION (Liliana-60, Equinox) and those who think FICTION doesn't apply (Yair rand, Daniel Carrero). Mglovesfun agrees that it needs to meet FICTION but hasn't clearly taken a position on whether or not the citations do meet FICTION. Purplebackpack thinks it can be "verified" but should be RFDed. Those who think FICTION doesn't apply think BRAND does. Anyone (new or old) want to comment on whether the citations in the entry meet BRAND? - -sche (discuss) 21:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

• I think FICTION does apply and all the citations provided fail it. They also fail BRAND since they are not being used generically. SpinningSpark 12:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Deleted. - -sche (discuss) 07:39, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Just throwing this out here

Two points I'd like to make:

1. (Not sure how much this matters now) (deprecated template usage) Baby Pokémon is NOT simply a TCG term, it is a universal thing within the Pokémon universe. Cards that were made as Baby Pokémon were so made because that's what they were cards of.
2. If anyone wants to dispute or question the meaning of a Pokémon term being RFV'd/RFD'd in the future, feel free to ask me. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That point was made in the discussion above, and I raised Magic: The Gathering as comparable. Many games have "types of thing". Should we define hotel as "a unit of property in the board game Monopoly, worth four houses"? Equinox ◑ 21:26, 5 July 2012 (UTC)