Hi, thanks for posting here. I’m the translator and fact-checker over at Kanzentai, so if you’re concerned about Kanzentai not considering your wiki a reliable source of information, just follow my advice. If you get your wiki reorganized to adhere to the following standards, I can promise you that Kanzentai will have only positive things to say about your wiki. Now, Kanzentai has always been based on the Japanese version of DragonBall, while you said you wanted your wiki to be based on the English version. I respect this difference, and do not want you to simply turn your wiki into a clone of Kanzentai. However, for various reasons I consider your wiki as it currently stands to be a failure as a guide to the English version of DragonBall, or any other version of DragonBall for that matter (if anyone thinks this evaluation is too harsh, read my
analysis of the wiki's page on Namekians). Admittedly it's been awhile since I last visited your wiki, but I often see people post quotes from it on these forums, and judging from those it seems to still suffer from the same problems it had the last time I saw it. Here are what I consider to be the most important rules to follow when improving the accuracy and overall quality of your wiki:
1.
Cite your sources. OK, so this is pretty basic when it comes to a wiki, or any piece of writing in general, but I’ve seen it rather flagrantly violated on the DB wiki. Simply put, if a claim doesn’t have a reliable source, get rid of it. You say that you’re trying to crack do, and if so that’s great. Keep at it! In particular, if a quote is attributed to Akira Toriyama and doesn’t have a source, take it out immediately. There are countless bogus Toriyama quotes and baseless rumors about what Toriyama was originally going to have happen in the series floating around the internet, and frankly most of them have found their way to your wiki. Get rid of them. Again, it’s been awhile since I last visited your wiki, so maybe you’ve improved in this area, but you can really never be too stringent about citing sources, especially when it comes to as rumor-heavy a series as DragonBall.
2.
First, place the utmost importance on the Viz translation of the DB/Z manga as a source of information. Citing sources is vital of course, but it won’t help you much if the sources you use are inaccurate or illegitimate. When it comes to “in-universe” information in DragonBall, the manga is the source you should cite. The manga is the original version of the story, and therefore the most authoritative. Just as any Harry Potter wiki would naturally place far greater importance on the Harry Potter books than the Harry Potter movies, any respectable DB/Z wiki should place the equivalent amount of respect on the DB/Z manga’s version of events over those of the DB/Z anime. Furthermore, the Viz English translation of the manga is far and away more accurate than Funi’s dub of the DB/Z anime. Viz’s DB/Z manga volumes are readily available in the United States, Canada, the UK, New Zealand…pretty much any English-speaking country. There is no excuse for anyone working on your wiki to not be familiar with Viz’s DB/Z manga. If they aren’t, they should familiarize themselves with it as soon as possible. Would you want someone who had never read the actual Harry Potter books and only seen the movies writing articles for a Harry Potter wiki?
Yes, there are some weird things in the Viz translation like “Vegerot” and other inaccuracies, but they’re extremely slight compared to the nearly endless amount of inaccuracies and random changes found in the Funi dub of DB/Z. I suppose it would be ideal for you to cite the original Japanese manga, but I realize this is simply not feasible for a wiki written by and for English speakers. The Viz translation is not perfect, but it is more than good enough for general reference purposes, and is widely and legally available in English-speaking countries. The Viz translation is also more accurate than any fan scanslation that you’re likely to find. While fan translators do generally strive to be accurate, they are seldom as knowledgeable or competent as the Viz translators. Viz’s translations are done by a two-person team, one a native Japanese speaker who does a direct translation, and the other a published author who rewords the direct translation to make it sound more natural in English. So while fan translators aren’t burdened with the (slight) censoring found in Viz, they also tend to be full of simple translation mistakes which Viz avoids.
In short, the Viz translation is an accurate, official, and easily obtainable English translation of the original DB/Z story which Akira Toriyama created. If you want to quote a line from the series, use the Viz manga. If you want to reference a scene or event, make sure you’re talking about how things happened in the Viz manga, and not the anime. The Viz manga should be the universal standard for your English wiki. If something in the anime, or a videogame, or some other secondary source contradicts the Viz manga, you should consider it wrong and the Viz manga right. Use the names for people, places, and things which Viz uses. If people complain that these aren’t the names which they’re used to, just say that they should read the Viz manga until they are used to them.
I recognize that this can be a very difficult hurdle to get across, because most of the English-speaking DB fandom is more familiar with the anime than the manga, but it’s a hurdle that you’re really going to have to cross if you want your wiki to be a respectable source of DB information. Again, would you take a Harry Potter wiki seriously if it only used the movies as a source? A DB fan who hasn’t read the manga is not informed enough about the story to write an accurate DB wiki. Remember, the Viz translation of the manga is freely available. There is no valid reason for anyone writing for your wiki to not be familiar with it. If someone doesn’t want to go through the trouble of familiarizing themselves with the manga, they’re certainly free not to, but they are not qualified to write for your wiki.
3.
If you absolutely, positively have to quote a line from the Funi dub, use the Funi dub of DBZ Kai rather than the old DBZ dub. Funi’s dub of DBZ Kai is much more accurate than their dub of Z, and should be the new standard when discussing the English version of the DBZ anime. Admittedly this could be a bit problematic for the immediate future, since the DBZ Kai dub isn’t even halfway through the series, but at any rate your most important concern for the moment should be changing all quotes and references to the Viz manga where applicable, and not the anime. I can’t stress this enough, but manga should be your primary reference. You should only quote the anime for things which are only found in the anime, ie filler scenes, movies, and the like. And again, if something in the anime contradicts the manga, the manga is right and the anime is wrong, and you probably shouldn’t even bother quoting the anime.
Meanwhile, for the original DB anime and DBGT, the Funi dubs for them aren’t as accurate as the DBZ Kai dub, but are still more accurate than the old Funi dub for Z, and are good enough for your purposes. The Funi dubs for some of the movies and TV specials can be extremely inaccurate (particularly the one for the Bardock special), but I guess you’re pretty much stuck with them. The Funi DVD subtitles for the Japanese voice track are extremely accurate (and available to anyone who has legally purchased the North American DB/Z/GT DVDs), but I get the impression that you want to stick with dubs whenever possible. If so, then you’re going to get stuck with some really inaccurate lines for the movies and the TV specials, and for DB and DBGT to the lesser extent. However, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you stick to the principle of holding the Viz manga as the ultimate standard (I really don’t think I can stress this enough). Again, lines in the anime TV series, movies, and specials are at best of secondary importance, and should be completely ignored if they contradict the manga.
4.
Strive to improve the quality of your writing. From what I’ve seen, the articles in your wiki are very poorly written. They are filled with spelling mistakes, un-capitalized words, missing punctuation, poorly organized paragraphs, and other problems. Again, it’s been a long time since I looked through your wiki, so maybe you’ve improved on this, but just like citing your sources, it’s something you can never be too careful about.
I wouldn't have said it if I had seen your post before I wrote mine.
