Board Thread:Questions and answers/@comment-31355033-20170220200614

I want to preface this with the fact that I'm posting as a reader, not an article editor or anything like that. I don't even come here THAT often, but I do come when interested in a particular topic strikes and I want to know more. I don't own all the games or even have time to play them all, so this wikia has long been a handy resource for me. I'm just an average joe who occasionally plays though the story modes of the main games once or twice with his localized copy because he can't read Japanese. I actually only just made a 'fandom' account so I could post this here so I could get this perspective out there.

Now, I've been coming here occasionally for a few years, sparsely as I mentioned, and imagine my surprise when I have a hard time finding information I know was here before. Specifically, I was looking for the 'Azure Grimoire' article, which is now the 'Blue Grimoire' article. The title change alone was a little surprising but I understood the change and didn't think of it beyond that until I loaded up the article and noticed it was pratically empty and not at all what I was looking for or expecting. I was looking for the memorable activation line Ragna says, because somehow it got in my head but I knew I was remebering it wrong so I wanted to correct myself, but to my confusion and slight dismay the localized line I was familiar with was entirely absent. In fact, the only mention of localization on the page was at the top mentioning the name 'Blue Grimoire' is localized as 'Azure Grimoire'. There were several terms on the page I was unfamiliar with because the localization is all I know.

It wouldn' take me long to figure out what's what, but beyond what I'd occasionally read to be the original Japanese names of things, the localization is all I know, and I have no doubt that that's also the case for a lot of people who read wikias like this and others for other Japanese media. As someone who only knows the Localization, it now can be confusing to find some things where I didn't have a problem finding most things before, and I personally think that's a HUGE problem considering this is an English-speaking site.

A lot of the people coming here aren't going to be people who know every single thing about Blazblue. A lot of the people coming here aren't going to be 100% familiar with the original Japanese terms and/or direct translations. A lot of the people coming here are likely people like me who want to know more about this series they have an interest in. For us, the localization is all we know. The localization may not be an accurate translation, but it is the official one and the one many people will be familiar with. I not saying which between direct translations or localizations are better, and I definitely think that the original Japanese and direct translations are valuable and interesting information to have in the articles here, but the localization should absolutely have more presence here. Like it or not, the localization is indeed the official English translation/adaptation of the series and should be more than an afterthought, '''ESPECIALLY ON AN ENGLISH SPEAKING WEBSITE WRITTEN BY AND FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS. '''I get it if you prefer the original Japanese and direct translations, I can appreciate accuracy in things like that, but almost completely removing localization from the articles here alienates a lot of people and makes it harder for those of us who don't know as much about this series to learn more.

TO SUM UP: I think it's a little foolish to replace all the localized terminology with direct translations. It alienates those of us who don't know better and makes it harder for us to learn more because who don't know what we're looking for anymore. I understand the significance of direct translations, but I personally feel like they should be kept to their own related articles instead of replacing ALL localized terminology on every page on this wikia so people like me who want to know them can find them if they want without being confused everywhere else. As someone who only knows the localization, the wikia was much better before and I think it made much more sense considering this is an English wiki for English readers and many of us English readers would only know the official English 'translation'.

I saw the forum post about making the change from localization vs translation, and it's disappointing that nobody brought up anything like "What about people who don't know anything beyond the localization?". I know I'm about a week late to this discussion, but these are my thoughts on the matter as someone who's more familiar with the localization than any direct translations. As I've mentioned I only occasionally read articles here and haven't payed attention the the community until now that the articles are changing (for the worse, in my opinion).

I hope you take what I've written here into consideration. I'm sorry this post is so bloody long, but I hope I articulated my point well.

Thanks,

Some average joe reader

Side note: I compared the 'Blue Grimoire' page to one I was familiar with (link) and I noticed it's not only scrubbed of localization but is considerably shorter and devoid of images. Ignoring the localization vs translation thing, the article in general seems like a downgrade from what it used to be. 