Forum:Vote: Should We Change Tense in Articles?

It has recently been suggested that we change the tense of articles, particularly the Plot section, from present to past. We currently use present tense everywhere on the articles except for the History sections, which are past tense. The proposed change would convert everything but the lead paragraphs to past tense. I've looked around on some of the larger wikis, and the numbers that use either past or present seem to be fairly equal. I'm calling a community vote to decide whether or not we should make this change.

There can be variations of what parts of the articles are changed. For example, all of the sections other than Plot and the lead paragraph could be changed, or only Plot could be changed. If you support the change, please give your reason and exactly what part of the articles should be changed. Please sign your reply with four tildes (~) or simply click the "Signature" button. If you don't sign your post, your vote will not be counted. I must also ask that only registered members vote. Anonymous users will not be counted.

I have my own thoughts on this, but I won't say anything until a sufficient number of users have voted. Ultimately, Donuts and I will make a decision based on the community vote. Everyone's feedback is important, so please reply below.Turambar  03:11, June 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * My primary reason for proposing a tense change by using past as opposed to present tense in certain sections is because the most recent chapter is the "present" so to speak, making everything else that has happened in the past. I think the following would work well in past tense:
 * History and plot sections for living characters (not zombified): Both have already happened.
 * For any characters that are dead dead (didn't become undead): Past tense throughout. They no longer have an active role in the story.
 * Universe articles in which the ultimate fate of the location, vehicle or weapon was that it fell out of use, was abandoned, or destroyed: Past for the most part; if it was destroyed, past throughout.
 * For characters who became zombified: Past except where stating that they are now one of Them. They are not literally dead, but are figuratively, unless a cure for the zombification is found, reversing the status. However it appears that everyone who becomes a zombie does die physically before being reborn as a zombie, so they are effectively dead in this sense.
 * -- BrokenSphere (Talk) 21:32, June 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello folks! Sorry for the late addition~ I'm Donuts, the other HOTD admin. Oh and hi Broken Sphere. Anyways, let's cut to the chase.
 * Hello folks! Sorry for the late addition~ I'm Donuts, the other HOTD admin. Oh and hi Broken Sphere. Anyways, let's cut to the chase.


 * I do agree that tense changes should be required, but since we've gone this far, it's kind of hard to go back. Also, by going back, it would waste a lot of valuable time spent on miniscule details that are hardly noticed by average readers. Time is money, and we can't afford to divert any more attention away from the current problems at hand
 * The Wikia is not a publication. What I mean is that, the Wikia is not something people pay to read, it's an online wiki page where people can edit things. Of course there's going to be grammatical errors here and there, but I think they can live with the current way of how we're inputting in the tenses. Plus, aside from some content verification, we have yet to recieve any complaints on verb tenses. Not that it's perfect or anything, but I don't see why we would spend a lot of effort on something people will most likely not notice.
 * Our Manual of Style and Layout Guide is already hard enough to follow. If we were to add this new tense change proposition into those 2 things, then I think it would become a bit of a hassle for newcomers to this Wikia. We want them to be able to edit in a quick, efficient method and not consider the current "status" of each character. Obviously, some will pick it up, but not all editors of the Wikia pages are that precise now are they? In addition, the recurring editors might forget this verb tense as well. It's not like we have the MOS open everytime we edit something.

00:52, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * Note*: We aren't "against" your proposition. Don't get the wrong idea! We love to see new proposals as such, but this one is simply just too big and to an extent, extraneous. So, don't be discouraged! If you have any more suggestions, please share it with everyone!

Since no other users have responded, whether they are inactive or just don't care, I suppose I will be the tie-breaker here. Unfortunately for BrokenSphere, I agree with Donuts and don't think we should make this change at this time. My reasons are mostly the same as Donuts', but I have some reasons of my own to add.

Some series are quite long, chronologically speaking, and they can span many years with incredibly detailed back stories. It makes more sense to use past tense in these series as some events may have taken place long before the most recent event. HOTD is not like this. The entire series has occurred in the span of four days, and there is very little back story. It seems better to me to tell the story in present tense.

This brings me to my next point: The way the story is told. I know this is a rare case, but I consider some people may be reading the articles without having watched the anime or read the manga before, or they are reading beyond a point where they previously watched or read. For these particular users, their experiences reading articles would be enhanced by reading it as if it were happening before them. This is why I think everything that happens from the beginning of the story on should be written in present tense while everything that happened prior to the start should be the only thing in past tense for the sake of clarity. I know the thought of people reading through the wiki with no previous knowledge of the series seems unlikely, but, if you think about it, why would we need such detailed articles if our readers already knew everything about the series? We must remember the purpose of an encyclopedic database.

As Donuts said, it was good of you to make this suggestion, and you shouldn't be discouraged. We just don't feel that this is a practical change to make at this time.Turambar  04:48, June 29, 2011 (UTC)


 * Donuts and Turambar,
 * Thank you for the kind words, this was probably one of the nicest nos I've ever gotten for a suggestion on any wiki. :) I appreciate that the proposal was brought up to a vote and that there was some discussion, even if a little. I agree that going back through a developed wiki can be time consuming and takes away from other things - I'm in the process of doing so on my home wiki right now, which has just topped the 400 article mark, and I'm practically the only active editor on there at this time. XD At the same time I enjoy generating content, so going back to get individual articles up to a certain standard takes away from that. I don't mind working within the current parameters as outlined and Turambar is right - the timeframe of HOTD is very, very short in comparison to what I was more familiar with and was using as the bases for moving to a past tense, series that have have much longer timeframes going back years and years. I originally did start with a present tense style before deciding to switch over to past tense, so using that here isn't a problem.
 * BrokenSphere (Talk) 16:52, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for being so understanding. I would have liked for this to have been a larger discussion, but it seems most of the few active editors we had left have faded away over the past couple months. I'm sure they'll return when the second season of the anime is announced, and discussions will then become much more lively.Turambar  01:33, June 30, 2011 (UTC)