User talk:Waterdrop95

wanted articles
well, besides some minor manga characters who don't have pages yet, like the Military Policeman Douglas and the Fuhrer's former secretary Storch as well as Yakoklev from Internal Affairs, I can't think of any articles that have yet to be created. if you remember a minor character who does not appear on this site, then I'd suggest starting there. otherwise there are several small towns that were named that don't yet have pages; Pendleton, Riviere and I think Xenotime needs a page. We are also lacking in articles regarding the people and places from the Fullmetal Alchemist video games and the video games themselves are underrepresented. CorbeauKarasu 18:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Other Brothers Elric
I'd say leave them as they are for now. I know i've seen both spellings, plus I'm pretty sure the translation of the light novels is done by in-home transliteration. I'd wonder about it if the books included some artwork of Russel and Fletcher with their names printed on as part of the image, but as I doubt that's the case, there's enough to suspect that the novels may include errors (For example, I remember noticing that the prologue sample I read mistranslated "gold" as "silver" when describing Ed's eyes - as the Japanese words for gold and silver sound very similar). However, if you've read the light novels, the site could definitely use articles about them. I don't think we have a "Land of Sand" page. CorbeauKarasu 19:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Spellings and Translations
We've been trying very hard over the last few months to rectify all the spelling inconsistencies according to what the official and correct transliterations are. In some cases, it's become somewhat easy because the Japanese manga includes English text for certain names or bases names on existing words, but sometimes it's a shot in the dark that can only be fixed when the new anime series comes out with an eyecatch that spells a name properly. Another obstacle is that the Viz manga is often wrong in its spellings; many of the images in the manga that contain English text have been altered in transition so that Viz may cover up their transliteration mistakes. With help from the new anime's eyecatch official spellings, "Ran Fan" has been officially switched to "Lan Fan" in all instances on this site. If you see "Ran Fan" written anywhere, I'd appreciate it if you fixed the spelling. However, it is clear that "Ishval" and "Xerxes" are the correct spellings. As for the Red Lotus Alchemist, there are many spelling discrepancies that have yet to be clarified, since his scant appearances in the new show have not warranted a named eyecatch so far. Personally, I believe the proper spelling of his name to be Solf J Kimbley, but I can't make that change until I have some evidence.

And this brings to mind another strange notion: should the spellings in the eyecatches always be used even if they don't make sense? Ishval and Xerxes are one thing because they are words Arakawa spelled out herself and there is no reason so suggest they have been misspelled. However, the Red Lotus Alchemist's first name is clearly based on the German name "Solf", though pronounced "Zolf". If an eyecatch appears bearing "Zolf", should we take that as the true spelling? The character Mei Chang's name in the eyecatches has been spelled "May" even though, as a character from a culture based on the Chinese, it would make more sense to spell it "Mei". Rose's home town has been called "Lior" by FUNimation, has been spelled "Reole" when Arakawa wrote it down in the manga, and appears to have been spelled "Liore" on the map in the first episode of the new anime series. We've come to a bit of a compromise regarding Reole and Ishval, leaving the spellings as "Lior" and "Ishbal" on pages that speak only of the first anime, but on pages that discuss multiple incarnations of the series, Ishval is the proper spelling. Reole, we're still on the fence about until the town's name appears on the map when the Elrics go north. I hope that cleared some things up. CorbeauKarasu 11:43, October 8, 2009 (UTC) p.s. additionally, "Cselkcess" is the worst and most glaring transliteration mistake Viz has made. It boggles my mind how they refuse to change it when it's obviously wrong. Fifteen minutes of internet research on the origin of country names in FMA would have saved them a good few years of fan disdain.

Editing infoboxes
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what the deal is myself and I've spent a lot of time fixing infoboxes that go askew in this manner. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has something to do with the new, more streamlined page editing format. it erases categories that are left empty and that messes with the infoboxes, which are designed to recognize those categories whether they're there or not. aside from maybe putting a blank space into empty categories, all I can suggest is that you maybe switch to the standard "code view" editing style as opposed to the "Frontpage" style. I use the code style where all the effects and html has to be entered manually and it never screws up for me.

As for the images, I do like to have infobox profile pictures updated when characters appear in the new series, but I usually wait until a sufficient picture has been found - i.e. one that shows the whole face from the front, sometimes striking a pose or making a face consistent with their character. Since the only picture we have of anime Olivier is the one from the OP with Japanese credits over her face, I'd say we should wait until she makes an outright appearance, which should only be in two or three episodes. CorbeauKarasu 06:18, November 13, 2009 (UTC)