Talk: K'ara

Alternate Universe

ShellShockLive suggests that this page be renamed "K'ara (alternate universe)", to match other pages on Alternate Draenor topics. I'm not sure about that, since K'ara doesn't actually appear in the main timeline; there's no real need for disambiguation at the moment. On the other hand, if K'ara does show up in the main timeline, it would be nice to already have the disambiguation done. Thoughts? --Joyeusenoelle (talk) 14:46, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

There are speculations that Karabor is named after K'ara. In this case, this would mean that K'ara existed in the main universe too Xporc (talk) 14:48, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I think it only makes sense to use the "(alternate universe)" qualifier in case we're certain that the entity in question exists in the main universe too, and in this case we aren't. That's what qualifiers are for: disambiguation. Speculation is just that, speculation. - Linneris (talk) 15:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, the (alternate universe) disambiguation would be added if we get a main universe K'ara. No need to do it early, and it's be a bit of a pain to update all the links if we don't have to. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I agree. Also, there are an awful lot of pages (like Yrel) that would have to be renamed if we started the trend here. --Joyeusenoelle (talk) 17:44, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that not putting (alternate universe) means that the K'ara being talked about in the article has to be from the main universe. In addition, there are elements indicating that K'ara may have existed in the main universe : in the speculation part you can find that the name Karabor possibly came from K'ara, and that the Light-crystal from which the Ashbringer was forged possibly came from K'ara. I didn't put these here, but my point is that the people that come to this article will believe that the K'ara in question is from the main universe (not alternate) because : 1) there is no (alternate universe) to distinguish between the two 2) the speculation part is talking about the main universe K'ara with no distinction either. In the end, this article makes no difference between AU K'ara and MU K'ara. The solution would be to turn this article into K'ara (alternate universe) and to create another article named K'ara (main universe) and put the speculation part there (saying "K'ara MU may have existed, indeed the following elements suggest that.. etc."). Finally, the Yrel thing is not a good argument because as far as we know, we are certain that Yrel did not exist in the MU (well actually she did in WoD's beta but since it never went live it is technically not canon), whereas there are elements suggesting K'ara existed in the MU. There is simply too much ambiguity to keep the two inside a same article. As you said yourselves, the (alternate) parts are there to prevent ambiguity from happening, so they'd be perfect here. -- ShellShockLive (talk) 09:52, 16 October 2016 (GMT+1)

As said above, it'd be a pain to update all the links just for something that might never happen anyway. Why not just put in the header that he lives in the AU? Xporc (talk) 09:36, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

But could you remind me of the goal of this website ? Because I am certain that "it would be a pain" is not a good enough argument to go against it. Veracity of information is crucial, this is what separates wowpedia from wowwiki. As for "why not just put in the header", it's for consistency. There's a set model, a set way of editing, for all kinds of things here. Sometimes using "(alternate universe)" and sometimes putting "he lives in the AU" in the header breaks that consitency. But more importantly, there wouldn't be a thousand links to edit. All the important ones (Grommash, Blackhand, and so on) already have the (alternate universe) title, the only things that would need it would be the 5 zones (Spires of Arak...) and some other few characters. I would also volunteer in helping editing the links if you need help. -- ShellShockLive (talk) 13:20, 16 October 2016 (GMT+1)

Yes, but you are speaking of consistency. What about the hundreds of NPCs added in WoD that have no direct counterparts in the MU? To be consistent with K'ara they'd need to be changed too... Xporc (talk) 11:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

As you just said yourself, they don't have any direct counterparts in the MU, so there is no ambiguity. That doesn't seem to be the case with K'ara. -- ShellShockLive (talk) 13:37, 16 October 2016 (GMT+1)

If K'ara had a main universe counterpart, she would be at K'ara (alternate universe). She doesn't, so she isn't. All there is is speculation, and that's not enough to make a page around. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 18:31, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Alright then, understood. ShellShockLive (talk) 20:48, 16 October 2016 (GMT+1)

This page (and others) could be more clear that it is about an AU character, especially when the page title doesn't say "(alternate universe)." Nothing in the main body of the page actually says this, you have to get to Trivia and Speculation before it's even hinted. Sure, the links go to AU pages, but they're piped. --Aquamonkeyeg (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Chronicle volume 2 establishes that K'ara was aboard the Genedar in the main universe as well. - Linneris (talk) 05:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

This should be moved to "K'ara (alternate universe)" for consistency. Also for clarity as mentioned above. -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 07:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

It would be a bit of a PITA to update all the links, but since K'ara had a relatively minor role in WoD, it can still be done, I guess. Maybe this should be part of a broader discussion. With Chronicles 2 there A LOT of npcs that should be updated this way, even though the article about their main universe counterpart would be very short ... Xporc (talk) 08:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have one single article for both MU and AU counterparts for certain characters where one side doesn't have much lore, so instead we'd just have a short "Alternate universe" section, or was it decided that everyone had to have their own article? -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 09:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe. It's a hard question considering that Chronicles 2 confirmed that the so-called "alternate universe" was 95% identical to the main one besides the arrival of Garrosh and the death of ner'zhul's wife Xporc (talk) 09:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah that's exactly the reason, everything turned out to be the exact same, the only differences seem to have been caused by Garrosh's arrival (except for Ner'zhul's wife), and these changes can be summed up in single sections that could be incorporated into the main universe articles. Here in the case of K'ara for example, everything is the exact same up to the assault on Karabor: in the MU Gul'dan blows her up, in the AU Ner'zhul summons her, but she's purified by Velen's sacrifice. That's it. I don't think that's worthy of its own page. But if we do this for K'ara, we'd probably have to update many other pages too, so there's that. -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 09:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that not every page should be split either. Just have notes about what happened to them in the MU/AU, depending on which one they have a smaller role. If the differences between them are big enough, then they can have different pages. As for existing split pages, I honestly think Ga'nar and Romuul's split articles should be merged with MU notes in a section, considering we haven't even seen their MU versions, just heard of them. ReignTG (talk) 01:40, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

+ Garad being alive at the time of Iron Horde formation.

Tricky question. I'm leaning towards separate articles for MU & AU regardless of their length, tho, purely for consistency reasons, as it has always been done. Think also of the categories (and maybe take for considerations whether we want the links with # aka Kara#alternate universe. Also, is short length really so problematic? --Mordecay (talk) 16:34, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think # would be an issue, can't we just create redirects? As for length, I think it makes much more sense to have an article about K'ara, and then point out in an Alternate Universe section that in said universe, K'ara had a different end and explain the differences, rather than having a single-paragraph or single-line article. However, the consistency point is a valid one. I don't know. Also, wouldn't npcboxes be an issue, if 2 npcs have one article ? -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 16:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Just returned here to write about the infoboxes! Well, even the leak about K'ara wasn't one-line IIRC? :D Nor would AU K'ara remain as one-liner. --Mordecay (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

No I wasn't specifically talking about K'ara! There are alternate npcs that have literally only one line of description for example (and an infobox). But yeah I think this may be too much trouble. -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 17:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I definitely do think one-line articles are a bad thing to be honest. The article on MU Ga'nar is basically just a Stub and the only thing different about him is that he died earlier than the AU one. There really is no reason for the separate article to be there. And then at the opposite end of the spectrum we have an example like Rukhmar where if we have two articles for her they would be absolutely identical except for the AU one ending with "and then she became a world boss." It feels unnecessary. ReignTG (talk) 21:11, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Yup I agree. The admins could chime in and maybe decide. -- MyMindWontQuiet (talk) 21:33, 10 March 2017 (UTC)