Shortening enemy names
Hey there, regarding your recent edits on the boss articles, they're not bad, but I must warn you that it's not a very good idea to focus so much on shortening the names of the enemies.
For starters, it makes the article more awkward to read. The creature's name is "Armored Mawdad" (for instance). It's not the case that its name is "Mawdad", and "Armored" just happens to be flavor text. For some enemies it's not very important, but for others it's an important differentiator, like Caustic Dweevil vs. Munge Dweevil. That said, it is true that the first word of the names tends to just be an adjective, and explaining some behavior or something still works fine if you just say "Mawdad". But again: since that's not the "real" name of the creature, it's not fair to only call it "Mawdad". It makes it sound as if the article is calling it by a nickname, like a high-school friend.
The best approach is to write the full name sometimes. This not only keeps the vision of the documentation fresh, in that it should be objective documentation of the "Armored Mawdad" enemy, but it still keeps reading light and approachable by having all other instances just say "Mawdad". As a general rule, it's especially important to keep the full name in text that can be read in a vacuum. Like, if a reader shows up just to read some fighting strategy, they'll jump straight to the strategy section and start reading there. If they only read "Mawdad", that won't be very correct and will come off a bit casual and awkward, but if the section starts with "Armored Mawdad" and then shortens it from there on, everything becomes clear.
To note is that it's also dangerous to just blindly remove a word from the name, as was the case with the Vehemoth Phosbat. At best, some readers will be a bit tripped up by reading "Phosbat", but at worst, some readers (especially newcomers to the series) will interpret a sentence completely wrong, because they assume it's referring to the children Phosbat. In addition, something like the Scornet Maestro also comes off as very silly, since just calling a creature "Maestro" is like calling a famous person by their job. It's especially awkward for an insect, right? Also, citations from text that comes directly from the games or another source cannot be changed, though I can't remember if you ever did that, so it's fine.
So, in conclusion, please do not remove every instance of the first word. Moderation is key, as they say. — {EspyoT} 14:39, September 17, 2021 (EDT)
- Oh, other things to point out that I've noticed now: for something like the Plasm Wraith, it's really really weird to call it just "Wraith". In part it's because it's the final boss, and it's odd to just cut its name. In part it's because "Plasm" feels just as important to its name as "Wraith", whereas something like "Armored" in "Armored Mawdad" is less important. In part it's because there are other wraiths in the series, and it feels wrong to read a sentence that says just "Wraith", especially out of context. I'm honestly not sure right now if the article should be corrected to always say "Plasm Wraith" or not. In addition, I also noticed you replaced the Mysterious Life-Form with "creature" sometimes, but this further drives my point of being careful not to make these changes blindly. One of the sentences ended up reading "Every enemy in the tower is an illusion created by the creature; when killed, they disintegrate into plasm. If these creatures are not killed, the creature will envelop and digest them in its body when it reaches them.", with "creature" being there three times, making it ugly, but more importantly, making it nearly impossible to understand what each "creature" refers to (again, especially for newcomers to the series).
- Instead of seeing a flow problem with an article and instantly deciding the best course of action is to replace a word for brevity, you should make a more practical and informed decision. Like finding what the problem with the flow really is, and what tools are available to help with that. If you're ever in doubt, just ask someone on their talk page, or on the Discord server, and it can be worked out without these weird problems, next time. Thanks! — {EspyoT} 15:38, September 17, 2021 (EDT)
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