Allow foreign characters in dragon names

[AnanoKimi]

I do understand.

However, this is not going to stop me from suggesting things I would like to see.

 

I can read Japanese, I want Japanese characters - and I do not have to justify myself to anyone for wanting it. And if I want Japanese characters, it would be only fair to allow other foreign characters (where I probably also would have the problem with characters not showing).

 

That's all I am going to say for now. I made my points, yet they keep being ignored for most of the time & now I am even being accused of saying things I've never said. I have no interest in taking part in such "discussion" and leave this thread and decision to TJ.

 

But thanks to the people who at least considered it or showed an open mind.

Just because you can, and just because you want it doesnt mean it is needed. It also does not mean it has to happen. I think you don't really understand. You are suggesting this for your own personal use and gain, not to help improve game play or site features. This will only satisfy you and maybe the small percentage that knows Japanese. Everyone else will be sitting here confused. Not to sound rude but you are not that important that we should add Japanese characters to satisfy your personal need to use the characters. I can understand not being able to get your point across in romanji since words can mean different things, but that is something that must be taken into account when you sign up an agree to play on an English only site.

 

Again it is an English only site. pointing this out doesn't make us any less open minded than those who partially agreed. Being open minded is having the ability to understand the other point of view not accept it wholeheartedly without questioning how this will benefit or hurt us.

 

To me this seems like nothing more than a personal want without the consideration of how this will affect non Japanese, non Arabic, Non french, and/or non German speakers. AS many have pointed out, we came into this site knowing it was English only, knowing that we had to know how to write and understand English, that any language outside of that would leave room for circumventing certain rules. As such we must abide by that.

 

If I knew Japanese and went to a Japanese site I would go in knowing it is a Japanese only site, with only Japanese characters, and that me using English or Spanish within the site could earn me a warning and my posts to be deleted. I will not join a site that is not in my native or comfortable language to try and make them change to conform my language.

[Ruby Eyes]

That's all I am going to say for now. I made my points, yet they keep being ignored for most of the time & now I am even being accused of saying things I've never said. I have no interest in taking part in such "discussion" and leave this thread and decision to TJ.

 

But thanks to the people who at least considered it or showed an open mind.

THAT statement was NOT necessary. Obviously, we did consider your idea, and we found good reasons to NOT want this. None of your reasons have been ignored; they have been discussed, and by some of us they have been deemed less important than playability of the game - and we tried to explain our reasons to you.

 

Having an open mind does not mean we need to swallow everything we get served.

[Fawkesian]

Not too sure about entire foreign alphabets, but being able to use the expanded roman alphabet would be great! I'd love to name a couple of my dragons using umlauts (ä/ö/ü). I don't see any huge issues with allowing accented letters and other variations.

 

True, users could try to get around the name restrictions using them - but surely a system could be put in place to prevent that? I can't imagine that would be too difficult…

 

Anyway - a big yes to the expanded alphabet, but bordering on no for Kanji and the like.

[olympe]

We can already get around restrictions regarding unique names with alternate spellings.

 

For example...

Windwalker

Wind Walker

Windwalk3r

Wyndwalker

Windw4lker

WindwaIker

W1ndwalker

Windwa1ker

 

And these examples only change one sign apiece. You might even go all the way with W1nd W4Ik3r. Add Suffixes to the mix - or just plain strings of letters like these:

xox Windwalker xox

xxx Windwalker xxx

ooo Windwalker ooo

(And so on. You get the idea.)

 

So I don't really see diacritical marks as any kind of problem since it doesn't really change the existing restriction.

 

[LibbyLishly]

We can already get around restrictions regarding unique names with alternate spellings.

 

For example...

Windwalker

Wind Walker

Windwalk3r

Wyndwalker

Windw4lker

WindwaIker

W1ndwalker

Windwa1ker

 

And these examples only change one sign apiece. You might even go all the way with W1nd W4Ik3r. Add Suffixes to the mix - or just plain strings of letters like these:

xox Windwalker xox

xxx Windwalker xxx

ooo Windwalker ooo

(And so on. You get the idea.)

 

So I don't really see diacritical marks as any kind of problem since it doesn't really change the existing restriction.

This. To me, it seems a bit silly to oppose including the "expanded" alphabet just because "Oh noes people will use it to get around the unique-name rule!"

Edited January 9, 2015 by LibbyLishly

[Ruby Eyes]

Argh, page wrap ... *adds quote*

To me, it seems a bit silly to oppose including the "expanded" alphabet just because "Oh noes people will use it to get around the unique-name rule!"

Is it actually a rule? I thought it's more of a technical restriction, since you can address dragons by name if you keep names unique, like https://dragcave.net/lineage/n/Pseudobushiahugiflora which you could not do so if actual duplicate names were allowed.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Ruby Eyes

[Mondat]

THAT statement was NOT necessary. Obviously, we did consider your idea, and we found good reasons to NOT want this. None of your reasons have been ignored; they have been discussed, and by some of us they have been deemed less important than playability of the game - and we tried to explain our reasons to you.

 

Having an open mind does not mean we need to swallow everything we get served.

It might be better if you change your "we" because I know who or what I meant with my statement. I feel I have every right to stand up for myself if I deem it necessary, I can do it without being rude.

And it is also interesting to see that with many things on this forum I say, that even if I do not mean it negatively, they're understood negatively. I was actually trying to be nice when I said "thanks for considering and showing an open mind".

But now it´s "Mondat thinks we have to swallow everything when she talks about being open-minded".

[Lesson learnt, I will never try to thank people for their input regarding my suggestions ever again.]

 

And no, I personally feel that I addressed/mentioned at least two points where I think people could have made more effort in trying to understand what I mean.

People think associating sounds with dragon names is important, yet I very much doubt you do that with unnamed dragons. People think checking inbreeding in case of foreign characters is difficult, yet I know you can use the codes & tools - and I know I can use my mouse with short lineages without having to go to another site. People think codes are different and have a meaning, yet nobody could tell me the meaning of the lineage (while, if I were to insert Kanji it would give me meaning at least => so in case of getting foreign characters, the result in terms of "understanding" would be the same). People who think it is ok to compare reading romanized languages to reading Roman alphabet letter languages without diacritic marks when the base setting is "Roman alphabet letter words" in this game anyway make it very easy for them in my opinion (if I were to tell you the difference between similar looking Kanji in a Japanese game although you do not use Japanese much in daily life would be the same situation to me) -> the Japanese use Katakana for foreign names/imported words, I have problems reading/understanding "katakanized" words at times, so I can imagine it a bit even from the standpoint as a foreigner (who can read/write Japanese) with my native language.

People say that not many will be able to read/use the foreign characters anyway and I wonder "when the chances are low that you'll be seeing such lineages why make such a big deal?"

 

People say "you are suggesting this for your own personal use and gain" and I say "Damn right. This is what suggestions are for, for things I can use"

 

Jokes aside, do your thing people.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Mondat

[Ruby Eyes]

It might be better if you change your "we" because I know who or what I meant with my statement. I feel I have every right to stand up for myself if I deem it necessary, I can do it without being rude.

I won't change my "we" because I saw others agree with me. "We" refers to "some" if you may want to notice. If you don't, I don't care either.

 

You can do without being rude, but you would be surprised how much "living in your Roman alphabet letter world" rubbed me the wrong way - it's basically another way of belittleing, of saying "how could you ever understand XYZ just because you're only ABC."

Edited January 9, 2015 by Ruby Eyes

[cyradis4]

*shrug*

 

The expanded romance alphabet isn't a big issue for me, its actually not really an issue per se. But if people are going for it in the hopes of people understanding the difference between Papá and Papa, then they are sadly out of touch with reality. Everyone not of their language will still read it as Papa with the spelling messed to get around the 1 name per dragon.

 

So, I'd say to the expanded language... I think I'd rather TJ work on something else, because to me, the expanded language will mostly be used to creatively name dragons to get around the one-name-per-dragon requirement of the Cave.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

 

[RETIRED_ACCOUNT]

The issue is we'd need mods who knew all these languages. Otherwise people could be writing nasty things in them and no mod would be able to tell the difference.

Translators are sometimes your friend.

[cyradis4]

Translators are sometimes your friend.

Translators are prone to error, and electronic ones especially can miss local slang / dialects.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[JavaTigress]

Translators are prone to error, and electronic ones especially can miss local slang / dialects.

 

Cheers!

C4.

True, and I doubt IF something had a dirty double meaning in another language... which maybe the person using it was unaware of... that the translator would necessarily pick up on THAT either.

[LibbyLishly]

Argh, page wrap ... *adds quote*

 

Is it actually a rule? I thought it's more of a technical restriction, since you can address dragons by name if you keep names unique, like https://dragcave.net/lineage/n/Pseudobushiahugiflora which you could not do so if actual duplicate names were allowed.

I was using "rule" in place of the word "restriction" because I was still sleep-addled when I typed that. You're right, though; "restriction" is the correct word.

 

[DragonNighthowler]

People think codes are different and have a meaning, yet nobody could tell me the meaning of the lineage

 

You didn't understand it. To us, profanes of the arts of other alphabets, a code such as DX23u has a signification in the way we can recognize the letters implied. Whether kanjis are pictograms with no signification whatsoever, and while I might appreciate the difference between the kanji that means Okaami and the kanji that means Arigato, I do not recognize it. That's why there is a fundamental difference between arabic, chinese or other language alphabets and codes.

 

In a code, I see a D, I know it's a D. I see a 2 and I know it's a 2.

I see a Kanji and I know it's a Kanji, but all of them look alike to me and have no meaning to me, except to those who are versed in these languages.

 

People who think it is ok to compare reading romanized languages to reading Roman alphabet letter languages without diacritic marks

 

Again, you failed to understand. You stated a same word can have different meanings depending on the kanji.

I proved in other languages, a same word can have different meanings depending on the accents (AND different verb times).

 

Yet you insist it is not the same.

 

Someone even pointed out english words outside their context will be hard to determine the meaning. The example was ball, as in the difference between something you use to play, or a dance.

 

And even in english, same sounding words (Knight, night) can be written differently (different kanjis) and have completely different meanings.

 

The expanded romance alphabet isn't a big issue for me, its actually not really an issue per se. But if people are going for it in the hopes of people understanding the difference between Papá and Papa, then they are sadly out of touch with reality. Everyone not of their language will still read it as Papa with the spelling messed to get around the 1 name per dragon.

 

Don't know if you're reffering to me as that was my example, but it wasn't my point to show it as a way to be in favor of this suggestion. It was merely an example to show how, symbols in other languages, can change the meaning of a word completely, because this is the argument Mondat is using in favor of including the kanjis (and she stated it isn't the same in other languages).

 

You're correct, people won't be able to know the difference because, as long as you don't speak my language, you won't recognize its subtleties, which makes the inclusion of symbolism as a way to determine the meaning of a word something completely irrelevant.

 

That's why I'm in favor of not touching anything. Been here since 2009, not using my accents. Why would I need them now?

Edited January 9, 2015 by DragonNighthowler

[Rosedamai]

I won't change my "we" because I saw others agree with me. "We" refers to "some" if you may want to notice. If you don't, I don't care either.

Hear hear.

Honestly I think this is more than unnecessary and most people who choose to play dragon cave do know that it's an English based site-that's why we make our own forums and such in our own language that is separate from the official forum.

Translators are sometimes your friend.

Google translate is a joke. Lmao.

[CNR4806]

Translators are sometimes your friend.

You're in for a lot of trouble if you think machine translations are adequte for anything other than pretending to write in any given language.

[Ruby Eyes]

And no, I personally feel that I addressed/mentioned at least two points where I think people could have made more effort in trying to understand what I mean.

Likewise. I see you addressing a few points which I *did* address, but I'm not sure if you even noticed, reading this now.

 

People think associating sounds with dragon names is important, yet I very much doubt you do that with unnamed dragons.

You can, with many codes. Granted, not all of them, but there are many codes out there that you can just read, and some even make words. (GaLAV) is a dragon of mine that annoyed me with the wrong breed offspring quite often, so I won't forget him even though I named him now. (Qtb0Y) won't ever get a name at all - he's such a "cutie boy," after all. Even if you just skim over a code, the brain usually at least tries to match it to something it knows, be it with a sound or an image or however else your brain is processing things.

 

People think checking inbreeding in case of foreign characters is difficult, yet I know you can use the codes & tools - and I know I can use my mouse with short lineages without having to go to another site.

I did describe the issues of both - external tools and mouse - earlier in this thread. I didn't see you actually disagree with these issues, I see you just ignore them.

 

People think codes are different and have a meaning, yet nobody could tell me the meaning of the lineage

I did give one possible reason for a nameless lineage. Even two if you count the joke about italic characters. But you count neither of them.

 

(while, if I were to insert Kanji it would give me meaning at least => so in case of getting foreign characters, the result in terms of "understanding" would be the same).

That's great for you. The difference is, you can read codes and names in Roman(ji) letters. Not many of us the users can read Kanji. Or a "slew of boxes" as they would appear for quite a bunch of users. See how I avoided the "we" here?

 

People who think it is ok to compare reading romanized languages to reading Roman alphabet letter languages without diacritic marks when the base setting is "Roman alphabet letter words" in this game anyway make it very easy for them in my opinion (if I were to tell you the difference between similar looking Kanji in a Japanese game although you do not use Japanese much in daily life would be the same situation to me) -> the Japanese use Katakana for foreign names/imported words, I have problems reading/understanding "katakanized" words at times, so I can imagine it a bit even from the standpoint as a foreigner (who can read/write Japanese) with my native language.

(Off-topic:) My English teacher would say, "What a monster sentence!" (That was an actual remark she did in one of my exams, next to half a page filled with a single sentence ...)

Back on-topic, out of curiousity: Would Cyrillic be a better source of comparison to you? I'm always amazed at how my girlfriend switches between the two scripts, Roman and Cyrillic, with a single standard keyboard ... I'd fail altogether.

 

People say that not many will be able to read/use the foreign characters anyway and I wonder "when the chances are low that you'll be seeing such lineages why make such a big deal?"

Don't you ever dare to abandon or trade a dragon of yours then

[Rhaegal3370]

I keep extensive records on my dragons, to know what I have and keep track of breeding and lineage projects. There are occasions where I need to enter the names of dragons I don't own. How am I to do that if the dragon has a name I can't read? With foreign names using a Roman alphabet, I can at least reproduce the name using the "insert special character" function, but i would not be able to do that with kanjis (that's what they're called, right?), if I could even see them instead of a row of boxes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would also run into this issue. That's why, while I'd like to see an expansion of available characters, I would not support using completely new alphabets/writing systems.

 

 

[lorimmel]

True, and I doubt IF something had a dirty double meaning in another language... which maybe the person using it was unaware of... that the translator would necessarily pick up on THAT either.

But it really doesn't change anything.

There are millions of foreign names on the site. They just don't contain foreign characters.

They can be just as dirty without all these pretty letters English lacks

 

The German word for tail is Schwanz, but it also means penis.

No umlauts here. Also, if someone wants to name their swallowtail just that, they will have problems they didn't deserve.

 

I would be very excited to see foreign characters in the game, especially Scandinavian ones.

And as for seeing boxes instead of fonts, this can be easily fixwd by installing them.

[olympe]

Translators are sometimes your friend.

Sometimes, right. And sometimes not.

 

Translators and even dictionaries can lead you astray quite badly. I know of a fellow German player who named her chicken "I love cocks" (or something similar" simply because "cock" was the first translation given for the German equivalent of "rooster" in more than one dictionary (where a zoological meaning was indicated). Yep, she seriously meant "rooster", not "cock". I checked that myself and, without further warning, might have get caught in the same trap. Especially since I learned at school that the French term for rooster is, indeed, "coq", which is pronounced just like "cock". Then there are terms like cocky which are pretty much acceptable... Really, it's a very easy trap to fall into if you're not a native speaker of (American) English. And I bet there are hundreds more that I don't even know about.

 

(I hope I won't get warned for use of improper language, though. I really wasn't trying to use an offensive word here, but to explain a problem with translators and/or dictionaries. Please also bear in mind that, in its original meaning, cock did indeed mean a male bird. online thesaurus entry on cock)

Edited January 9, 2015 by olympe

[Fuzzbucket]

In my view the big issue with kanji and other such scripts is that most of us would end up seeing lineages that looked something like this (best mockup I could manage...):

 

 

Mondat - is that really the way you would like others to see your lineages ? I for one would find it very depressing.

[Mondat]

Again, you failed to understand. You stated a same word can have different meanings depending on the kanji.

I proved in other languages, a same word can have different meanings depending on the accents (AND different verb times).

 

Yet you insist it is not the same.

 

Someone even pointed out english words outside their context will be hard to determine the meaning. The example was ball, as in the difference between something you use to play, or a dance.

 

And even in english, same sounding words (Knight, night) can be written differently (different kanjis) and have completely different meanings.

My point from the beginning, which I tried to get across with LaHaine is: I do not think you can compare reading Portuguese without accents with reading romanized Japanese.

As in: while you are reading a word with a missing sign (Portuguese), in case of romanized Japanese you are reading something not in its original form. You are reading something my husband, a native Japanese, called "rubbish". So CERTAINLY, languages do have different meanings when the form (diacritic marks, Kanji) change - but saying "it's the same situation" when you have "Papa" - which could mean Papa or Papá - and "ima" - which should actually be 今 - in front of you? I don't know...

 

Mondat - is that really the way you would like others to see your lineages ? I for one would find it very depressing.

All I know is that I would like to see my lineages with Japanese characters - and I prefer "all dragons on my scroll" breeding projects (for the naming reason so nobody else can mess with the lineage) overall.

[DragonNighthowler]

in case of romanized Japanese you are reading something not in its original form.

 

That I can agree with you.

 

but saying "it's the same situation" when you have "Papa" - which could mean Papa or Papá - and "ima" - which should actually be 今 - in front of you?

 

We'll have to agree to disagree. While I can understand japanese is not in its original form, whether spanish is, the core is still a hima with X Kanji and a hima with Y kanji have different meanings, which is still the same as the papa example.

 

In the end, a symbol is determining a meaning which is fundamental enough to stablish paralelisms between the two languages. That is without getting in how context affects and... languages are very, VERY complex.

[AnanoKimi]

A randomly quick reply, might not be very good because I'm sick and on meds but...

 

All I know is that I would like to see my lineages with Japanese characters - and I prefer "all dragons on my scroll" breeding projects (for the naming reason so nobody else can mess with the lineage) overall.

 

Again, its for your personal gain, only for you, and no one else. The only reason you include to possibly have other languages is so it won't look bad and be rejected. In the end its not a suggestion to improve game play or ease of access or etc, its so you can can name your dragons how you want regardless of whether the rest of the user base and Mods can read it or not.

 

Also quick note: Write the romanji of the Kana. (As per suggestion of my BF who knows and has studied some Japanese)

 

(while, if I were to insert Kanji it would give me meaning at least => so in case of getting foreign characters, the result in terms of "understanding" would be the same).

 

Again, no not really. Its nice that something will have meaning to you, but for all we know you could be insulting someone's mother and no one would know other than you. That is the issue. As much as I can sympathise in wanting to write in Kanji, you need to realize that the only one this benefits is you. It doesn't make the Mod's jobs any easier, and it only add confusion.

 

I don't support this for that reason. The only thing I support is extended alphabet. Those are English letters with accents, even if they are misused, there is no confusion on what that letter is and their uses are limited in terms of misunderstood or double meaning words.

It will have meaning to you

[Wokenulape]

So, as far as I can see it, the reasons, site-staff-wise, for restricting it to the Rman Alphabet is that the bulk of the userbase reads English. And English uses a Roman Alphabet. Names are in the Roman alphabet because that is the letters that English-readers can parse.

 

There is no reason why german or swedish is more worthy than Korean or Japanese. However, in terms of the userbase being able to parse (is that the right word?) names, the extended roman alphabet is more parse-able for the bulk of the people here; and is a logical extension to the roman alphabet currently used.

 

English-Readers would be able to parse names written using an extended Roman Alphabet (tréma, Diacritic marks, and Umlauts). The English-reading moderators would be able to parse names written with á just as well as names written with a.

 

Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages of logograms which are not of any Roman alphabet, would not be nearly as easily parsed by moderators or people who read only languages with a Roman alphabet.

 

I would like to see both, but really, the bulk of the userbase has inherent issues parsing non-roman forms of writing; and that includes the moderators. If there is a moderator who can read Kanji, than the problem is only that most of the userbase won't be able to parse it (but the obscene-name problem won't be an issue). However, it would take more effort than the inclusion of diacritics and such.

 

You're not wrong for wanting kanji, but you must realize that there are reasons why one way to represent languages would be easier to moderate and implement than another.

 

So long as I get my accent marks, I'd be fine with almost anything.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Wokenulape