AVID:Requests for Comment/Availability proposals

Removal of the Availability tiers.

Hello hello. I am back with a rather broad RfC this time. Before I start telling why availability tiers should be removed, I will mention what they are in the first place.

What are the availability tiers?

In many Availability sections, you would see a mark, such as "Common", "Rare" or "Extinct". And those are the things I propose to be gone for good. Why?

Why remove the Availability tiers?

• I have four reasons as to why they should be removed;

• They're subjective. Subjectivity was a huge issue in the old CLG wiki era, whetever it was the Scare/Cheesy Factor or the Nicknames. In the case of availability tiers, one could say that the logo is extinct, even though it ended up being a couple tiers lower, like extremely rare. For instance, the Fox World Productions logo used to be called Extinct due to the few programs it was known to appear on, but as more was discovered, its tier fell down significantly.
• It would help editors. How so? Well, editing an Availability section usually is stating where the logo can be seen and in some cases, what medium. The removal of availability tiers would not only make editing easier in terms of time, but also to not think as to what logo could be rare and whatnot. This would otherwise intertwine with the first point in terms of giving the editor a chance to.. opinionate.
• It's another remnant of the Americentric nature of the old wiki. We removed the Americentric natures of the wiki a while ago, but this seemed to just stay there. To clarify, a lot of the members of the wiki are from the West (the Americas) and it sometimes has caused issues in terms of availability. For example, there have been pages with "Rare in North America but common everywhere else" in them. Additionally, there have been cases where a foreign logo has been thought to be rare but only because the logo didn't show up in western media.
• The potential availability revamp could easily be worked further without the availability tiers, as it would make it much easier with those out of the question.

And with that, I will leave it here. Thoughts? RfC proposed by VPJHuk (talk) 19:15, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Support

1. Support The Americentrism point is not explained, but it is true - western editors are quick to label a logo rare for not appearing a lot in western media, even if it's common elsewhere. Chloafifteen (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

• I have now clarified that point in particular, as that one was definetly a rush job from me :P VPJHuk (talk) 20:15, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

1. Support These are useless ForcedExcess26 (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
2. Support Very good points. DisneyInternationalFan (talk) 19:52, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose I do not think it is wise to consider removing the tiers at this point in time, it should be reconsidered and implemented only when the alternative is put into place, as otherwise plenty of pages will be left as blank. No need to jump the gun so early. LoganStuff (talk) 22:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose If this happens to many supports, I better cry. TPatKB (AKA Mr Vadimon) (this is my talk page) 23:37, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Comments

1.  Comment: Considering this RFC is making a major change to the wiki, it fails to consider several potential outcomes:

• If the section only states the tier and nothing else, what will happen?
• Articles that fall under categories such as TV identifications and cinema trailers frequently fall under the above statement.

The issue is that by simply removing the tiers in the above cases, you will be blanking it and leaving empty space in the descriptions, which is obviously a violator of the "No blank sections" rule. That is where, if this proposal passes, then consider these ideas:

• You can't just replace them with "Seen on their releases" and nothing else. That would mean breaking the whole purpose of the section as stated in the tutorial guide.
• Moreover with the above, if the section does not state any examples, while considering that "Unknown" is a tier in the section, then use "It is unknown where this logo can be found".
• Considering there was a proposal a year ago that made the section optional on television ID pages, remove it unless it states where specifically it can be found.

Lastly, I want to comment on the "notable rarity" issue that has been floating on my mind since this proposal came to light. Well, we have the Legacy section, and there are plenty of articles that make note of that, so that would be a fair compromise similar to how a logo's reputation (if notable) can be kept in said section. Camenati (talk) 20:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

• Response; For a bunch of these, one can simply try and research information with it. This is going to be a bit of me throwing shade at the ones who threw in tiers only, as that's just adding in no information whatsoever, and therefore should be researched again. A disclaimer to add information can be added in to explain the lack of availability, similiar to those "stub" article disclaimers. TV idents can easily be mentioned in a similiar fashion as to test cards. One can add in where the ident usually appeared on and what time, and maybe a few exceptions. As for cinema idents, that's a hard one. The unknown logo tier could be one of the few exceptions, since that is one of the few valid tiers aside from. Maybe replace the "tier-only" availabilities with an unknown tier? Overall, the last point being the availability revamp could easily be worked upon these following issues with additional fixes, ones that I can't address as well. Great points though! VPJHuk (talk) 20:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)