YumeWiki:Community

Welcome to the community hub, a place to discuss the wiki and ask questions related to the dream games.

You can ask for help or make plans here. This might be easier for you than reading a long help page or editing the to-do list.

This page isn't only for the wiki. You can also have a discussion about the games, such as technical support or how to find a certain item.

Anyone with an account can participate in discussion.

• Create a ==Header== for a new topic
• Use one or more colons : to indent replies
• Sign your message with four tildes --~~~~
• Be respectful and avoid editing the messages of others

Alternatively, you can talk to editors using the YumeWiki Discord server. Any consensus reached on Yume Wiki takes precedence over those in private chats such as Discord.

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Discussion

New section

Should we have a forum

Might as well make the example topic a meta one. We have the DPLForum extension installed but it's unused. Would anyone be interested in that? We're trying to branch out from private discord servers but we need a solution that can stick. Keeping in mind that everyone needs an account to edit still. --ZASNK (talk) 00:03, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I like the idea. The way the extension does forums doesn't interest me as much (essentially just a talk page directory), but I'm not opposed to it. Potatoidea (talk) 11:53, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

One of the things making me hold off on setting it up is that the wiki has no notification system, and even watchlist emails are broken, so you'd have to be pretty active to even see a reply. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of it but I feel like notifications are pretty necessary --ZASNK (talk) 22:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I forgot to say, a little while ago I discovered user messages do still exist, but not on the default skin, for whatever reason :-/ I think the "echo" extension could help with that but Im not sure if we want to use more extensions after last time XD --ZASNK (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

BGM changes

{{BGM}} has been changed to pull title, speed, and author information from {{Infobox file}}, if the infobox is used in the BGM file page. If a file is used in multiple locations, this would let you avoid redundant info, as only filename, label, and soundroom number needs to be put in. Of course, if there is no infobox on the file page, whatever input for {{BGM}} gets used instead.

The reason for this change was to avoid duplicating any information by using a central location.

The new format for BGM in {{Locationbox}} is more of a draft. There were complaints that having all info visible made it cluttered, so I moved speed and author into an icon hover (or tap on mobile). If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear it (or be bold and change it yourself, although the template is even more of a mess to read than usual). --ZASNK (talk) 03:00, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

CSS changes

There's been quite a few changes to wiki CSS in the past few days. Here's the most relevant parts:

1. A proper "article-table" class has been added for styling tables like in YNFG Wiki
2. You can use "explain" for hover text/tooltips
3. There's an "infoicon" class for icons like connection ones Locked🔒
4. Empty table cells can use class=empty| to become dark. This is preferable to using strict colours like #ccc because it can be changed at any time, for example to tweak how empty cells are colored in Cosmos. (I forgot to add this point initially)

Cosmos has had several updates as well, mainly to stuff like menu dropdown colours and wikitable. Image thumbnail captions now also use wiki colours, which might be a problem in some cases, tell me if you think so.

Citizen skin (the one that was used as default temporarily when the wiki broke) now has proper dark mode support as well as a lot of general fixes. The colors of each wiki still need some tweaking, and wikis with a normally dark scheme (like muma rope) don't work in light mode. If you actually use this skin, let me know so I have incentive to fix it ;-)

(I think I'll keep using this page as a sort of noticeboard in the future)

--ZASNK (talk) 06:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

There's now a template for hover text: {{tooltip|<Display text>|<Hover text>}} --ZASNK (talk) 03:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

New image class for sprites

If you have a pixel graphic — a character sprite, CharSet, FaceSet, whatever — you can add the class "pixel-perfect" to make it look nicer. This is being used in the Yume 2kki:Construction Signs page.

For files:

[[File:Example.png|<whatever>|class=pixel-perfect|<caption if needed>]]

For galleries:

<gallery class="pixel-perfect">

All this class does is add the following CSS. You can add this CSS style to galleries manually using "style", but you cannot add styles to individual images.

image-rendering: pixelated

Please don't use this class for anything else like screenshots, because it'll end up looking worse. Trust me (or Show preview and see for yourself). --ZASNK (talk) 21:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Titles in italics

We should have a rule for whether to put game titles in italics. It seems there is no agreement on whether to write "Yume Nikki" or "Yume Nikki" and I think this should be sorted out. If anyone has a preference please do write it here so we can adopt a single style. --ZASNK (talk) 03:09, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I definitely think we should always put titles in italics, especially since we have a game like If which is such a confusing title if you don't put it in italics. This rule should apply to YumeWiki and YnfgWiki in both page titles and whenever a game title is referenced in body text, etc. I think this would be proper encyclopedia writing if we did this. --Nexrob010 (talk) 03:41, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't sure on this so I looked it up. Different English style guides seem to all agree that titles of creative works should be italized whether it's a book or a video game and if it's a smaller work within a larger work it should be in quotation marks instead. If so, game titles should always be in italics.

• Daily Writing Tips - Formatting Book Titles in the Digital Age
• Kent State University - Using Italics
• Grammarly - When to Use Italics, with Examples

--Uksi (talk) 04:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be quiet. I think I'll soon port the usual italic title templates and whatnot so we can properly move to this new style. Although I'll wait on putting it in the style guide. --ZASNK (talk) 14:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay, been a while and so far all I've added was Template:'. This let's you add a proper, unitalicised apostrophe next to game titles: Yume Nikki's instead of Yume Nikki's.

In other news, I've added the fact we oughta make these changes to the new todo page, so hopefully it doesn't get swept under the rug (by me). --ZASNK (talk) 06:43, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Theorycrafting on the Wiki

Writing theories on wiki pages is fun, and due to the mysterious nature of Yume Nikki and its fangames, it's become a fundamental aspect of and holds much sentimental value to the users in our community. However, many users on the YumeWiki Discord server have raised several concerns about the problems that theory-crafting on the wiki creates.

1. Organizational issues
The theory sections that users on YumeWiki create are, in general, not very well-organized, and they have highly inconsistent formatting from page to page. For example, one game could have its own dedicated theories page (Yume Tsushin), while another game's pages (Yume 2kki's Shimako and Urotsuki come to mind) could have anything speculation-related in a Theories section instead. Sometimes theories are even hidden as bullets in the Trivia section, such as those listed on Dark World. Still other pages are bullet points listed in no particular order with little elaboration or compelling evidence to back them up. These are particularly common on the Yume Nikki Fangames Wiki, for example, on the Theories pages for -1 -Minus Ichi- and yuque. Older revisions of the Yume Nikki Wiki's Theory page are simply a list of sections with poor internal coherence, and little tying them together. All interpretations of Madotsuki were and still are wildly different from each other. Nearly any given theory page on the Yume Nikki Fangames Wiki is still organized like this as well.

2. Issues with “ownership” of pages and edit warring
Numerous theory pages are almost entirely maintained and written by a single editor or only a few editors. This is true for Yume Tsushin's Theories page and many theory pages on the YNFG Wiki. As a result of this, these theories read like persuasive essays written by one or two people rather than a collective effort by a group of editors, which is the norm for other pages. Because of the personal nature of maintaining these essays, there is also the potential of an editor feeling entitled to "own" the page, policing the content of the page based on their own interpretations and discouraging other editors from contributing. For example, on the Fandom version of the Yume Nikki Theories page, one editor in two separate edits deleted over 21KB of theories that they felt were “fetishistic”. This editor also had a prolific history of deletion or reversion of contributions by other editors, regardless of their merit. To be clear: nobody owns any page.

Edit warring is also a common issue found on speculation or theory pages both on this and other wikis. Due to the opinionated nature of most theorycrafting, the chances of disagreement are much higher than on pages covering other topics, which promotes edit-warring. For example, there is evidence dating to the Fandom days that the aforementioned Yume Nikki Theories page was protected by an administrator from anonymous editors in order to win an aggressive edit war between themselves and some anonymous users. The page was also extremely prone to vandalism. As a result of these developments, and at least two separate edit wars on the page, it has since been greatly condensed.

3. Issues with undue weight being given to a single opinion
Tying into the previous section: if a theories section is limited to a particular topic and they follow the usual trend of a page being maintained by a single user, they give undue weight to a single user’s opinion. The first person to write down their theory on a page has an outsized influence and sometimes a monopoly of interpretation on a given subject. There are also issues with these heavily weighted claims being unsourced.

4. Issues with unsourced claims
Most theorycrafting on the wiki is highly speculative without evidence or sources, and frequently features spurious, associative, anachronistic, or simply inaccurate claims with limited or no support from in-game content. Many such examples can be found across the wiki. Some theories involve uncorroborated claims about a character or setting with limited or no in-game support. For example, the Debris, Yume Graffiti, and If Theory pages contain theories that invent elaborate backstories for their protagonists with little textual support, and the -1 -Minus Ichi- page invents relationships between the protagonist and other NPCs.

Free association underlies many theories, regardless of how tenuous some of these connections might be. For example, one theory argues that the Pink Sea represents a party, with the conical structures found throughout being argued to resemble Japanese party poppers. The basis for this connection appears to rest solely on the fact both objects are conical, as they otherwise bear little resemblance to each other. Anachronism also appears in many theories, one particularly notable example being a theory citing the use of “eggs” to represent dropped effects in the Nexus as evidence for Madotsuki being transgender, arguing that the use of eggs refers to the slang term used to refer to a closeted or questioning transgender person. This usage is not in the Japanese lexicon, and furthermore would not have been used by anyone in the mid-2000s, only entering usage in English a decade later. A theory associating the closet on the Checkered Tile Path with the English-language idiom “closeted” has also appeared.

Some claims are also incorrect or demonstrate a limited understanding of the evidence they are citing. For example, one Yume 2kki theory analyzing Urotsuki’s gender expression claims that there are no women’s bathrooms in-game, which is not true; the Highway has contained both a men’s and women’s bathroom for years. Another theory claims that “SYA”, the background music used in the White Desert and the Uboa event, might refer to the Japanese word for “person”. In actuality, SYA (シャ) is onomatopoeia for the sound used in the track, and the word being referred to as the Japanese word for person (者) is only pronounced as “sha” when part of a compound; moreover, there are 107 kanji that are pronounced this way, making this claim feel arbitrary and based on a poor understanding of how the Japanese writing system works.

The above examples are far from outliers, and unfortunately, these practices appear to be the norm throughout the Game Theories category.

5. Issues with endorsement and mixing of fact and opinion
By hosting a theory (or refusing to host a theory through deletion, whether it's because it's poorly argued, obviously a joke, because it's a sensitive topic handled poorly, because an admin or another editor just didn't like it, etc.), it makes the wiki appear to endorse or reject a theory through association, which undermines the wiki’s ability to remain neutral and fair about the topics it covers. When the Yume Nikki theories page was entirely reworked, condensed, and locked to anonymous editors as mentioned earlier, some editors wondered if it was done due to questions about the wiki’s stance on certain theories’ validity, rather than due to edit warring or appropriateness.

Many theories state their claims as indisputable fact, without qualifying terms like “might”, “may”, or “possibly”, such as the theory found on Annabelle’s Theories page. One theory for Yuque claims to be “proven”. Other theories bolster their unsourced claims by using weasel words claiming that “many fans” believe a given theory to be true, or use the passive voice (“it has been speculated that…”, “it is suspected that…”, “it is believed that…”, and so on) to create the impression a specific claim has been made and accepted without having to provide evidence. Language like this makes it difficult to distinguish between well-established aspects of a work (or “canon”) and opinions, interpretations, embellishments, or speculation (“fanon” or “headcanon”). Additionally, because we are a wiki dedicated to factual information, people may read these theory pages which are meant to be subjective interpretations and take them as fact simply because they’re on the wiki. Thus, there will be situations where arguments begin on- or off-wiki about the factual nature of a theory being hosted on the wiki, or issues where theory pages themselves are being cited as if they are factual evidence.

6. Issues with clarity of purpose
When considering the above concerns, it doesn't seem clear to us what purpose theory pages actually serve, nor what value they bring to the wiki, nor that whatever (if any) value they do provide outweighs these issues. They are often hard to read due to their poor organization and inconsistent structure. They are usually a single person's reflections, observations or personal essays, some of which happen to become accepted as fact or the “appropriate” way to interpret Yume Nikki or a fangame. They’re maintained by a very small subset of editors (if maintained at all). They tend to be lightning rods for conflict. And they usually contain little in the way of information. Sometimes it seems like they’re inappropriately using the wiki as a way to push their point of view. We have to consider whether this content serves an informational purpose for the Yume Nikki fangame community, or whether it is designed to serve a small subset of editors as a blogging platform instead.

7. Conclusion
After discussion, we feel that this type of content would be more appropriately hosted elsewhere. The drawbacks do not appear to outweigh the benefits of their continued presence on the wiki. They conflict with the wiki’s mission to inform and instruct, and we cannot be responsible for curating this kind of content, nor do we think it is possible to do so in a fair manner. To begin this process, Mt. kiki's theory pages were recently deleted by myself, after a discussion within the YumeWiki Discord where multiple editors reached a consensus that there was no reason to keep them around. Our reasoning for this decision is that a) the theories were incoherently organized and written, making them difficult to parse; b) the theories were based on spurious, almost freeform, association of concepts with little elaboration; c) the evidence provided, where it could be understood, often did not corroborate the claims being made; d) the pages acted as a method for one user to push their viewpoints using the wiki as a platform, rather than a communal effort to inform built by consensus; e) the pages were vandalistic in nature, having been created on the Fandom wiki without permission or a clear reason to exist; and f) due to these factors, they undermined the wiki’s commitment to professionalism and informativeness. We found it difficult to understand the usefulness of these articles, nor could we determine who the target audience was. Despite several links to sources on the pages themselves, and some attempted cleanup of several instances of unattributed direct plagiarism from Wikipedia articles, we ultimately agreed it would be for the best to remove them altogether.

8. Proposed solutions
Regarding other speculative content, we have come up with two proposals: Proposal 1: We completely remove from the wiki all speculative information, such as theories pages and speculation in article trivia. We will add clarification on acceptable editorial practice regarding speculation to the Style Guide, which is currently in the process of being updated, and possibly to our general policies as well. This approach is the most wide-ranging option, and our currently favored one. So far, we have not heard a compelling reason not to go with this proposal. Proposal 2: We remove speculative information from most of the wiki, like in Proposal 1, but we allow theories pages to stay on the Yume Nikki Fangames Wiki as a containment measure on a trial basis. For examples of these theory pages, see this Category. If this measure proves ineffective, or if issues like edit warring, quality issues, or disciplinary issues persist, we will move to Proposal 1.

9. Feedback
We believe that although this is a big change, this is what is best going forward. However, we also recognize that this is a large change. We would like to give the community a place to ask questions, give feedback, or raise concerns about this change, rather than suddenly pushing this on everyone with no recourse or warning. If there are any questions, concerns, or objections to this proposal, we would like to hear them. If you have objections to our proposal or would like to propose an alternative solution, please provide a compelling reason. We kindly ask that you please reply in good faith. We also ask that discussion on this topic remain civil. Thank you for your time and attention. Nexrob010 (talk) 07:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)