Forum:Overuse of game era

I don't really like how Era has been overused in many general (non-game specific) pages. I think game-related era should only be used when an article is exclusive to one / several games or expansion packs. Some things that are common in the game seem just redundant and awkward when they use this Era. For example, we know that gender appears in every single game, so the use of Era is not necessary at all. It's not like we can even list every game that has gender, because it's impossible if the presence of gender is absent in a game.

Some non-game specific articles that I think don't need the game-related era are, for example, juice, life stages like child, (sub)neighborhood, common objects like stove or newspaper, game modes like Build mode, skin, clothes, and so on and so forth. Do you think we should regulate the use of this game-specific era so they won't be overused like this?

Discussion
I agree, the game tags for Era should be used for things that only appear in a relative handful of games or packs. Dharden (talk) 12:46, April 26, 2013 (UTC)

Can Era be placed in character articles or just in games and packs? HanaGoth96 ( Neigh...? ) 13:03, April 26, 2013 (UTC)


 * Currently, Era has no specific regulations of where it can be used. Generally, it's been used widely in articles such as:


 * Sims and families
 * Neighborhoods
 * Games
 * Life states
 * Skills
 * Careers
 * Other specific features, such as social class
 * I believe there are more. I just can't memorize and list them all here. The problem is now to figure out what kind of pages that should not use this template, due to redundancy.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  13:28, April 26, 2013 (UTC)
 * The only thing that I ever add to are pages for Sims (I've been doing that a lot recently) and families. I think that other than that, the only other things I would think necessarily can have the era template are maybe skills, lifestates, neighborhoods, and careers, which is basically everything that Nikel mentioned before me.  21:34, April 26, 2013 (UTC)

I don't even care about the "Era" templates in the first place. By looking at the templates we use for the Sims to describe their personality and what not was fine and people already wrote on what game objects are found in the descriptions. I think the "Era" templates really don't have a purpose anymore. To me, it just makes a page more of a "display" to show that it really isn't just a page with a small amount of info or pictures.Star ಠ_ಠBee  02:16, April 27, 2013 (UTC)

I think that adding the Era template to a topic that only appears in one game is pointless. Additionally, I think it shouldn't be added to Sim or Family pages, since the infobox/bio templates also display which game(s) the Sims or families appear in. Except for the pages I've just listed, I have no problem with Era being used on other pages. That said, a lot of the remaining potential pages for use of the Era template are already pages that could utilize Pagecover, though not all those pages do and not all should, in my opinion... but I digress. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:22, April 27, 2013 (UTC)


 * In some respect, I do think sometimes Era is a bit redundant too in Sim / family pages. Maybe redundancy is not my main concern, but the notion "This thing appears in all games. Let's just put all game eras here."  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  10:00, April 28, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it's a useful template, but maybe we should narrrow down the pages it applies to. I think that an era template is perfectly legitimate on say, the 'Potions' article, but not sims and families. 22:56, May 3, 2013 (UTC)Hurshbr (talk)Hurshbr
 * I think Era can apply to some 'Sim' and 'Family' articles - in the case where they appear in numerous games. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 17:12, May 12, 2013 (UTC)

Eh, if it's defined by an infobox what game(s) the subject is featured in then that's enough exposure. Adding the template to something that we've only seen once is pointless. Pagecover and Era appear to be working in co-operation on some pages but I'm fine either way of which method we use for whatever I didn't mention. 21:46, May 13, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think we've addressed that articles using Pagecover no longer needs Era, but Era template itself will sometimes be used in one of Pagecover parameter, when necessary / suitable.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  08:07, May 14, 2013 (UTC)

As someone who, like Pidge, adds Era to Sim and family pages, I can honestly say I do it out of habit. In earlier days I did it because I thought it looked rather nice on the page, but now I do it because I'm so used to just adding the brackets. In regards to pages such as life stages and zodiac signs, I see them as a bit messy when there's too many (probably over 4 or 5). ~ Waikikamukow  ( Anyone wanna chat? )  07:39, June 11, 2013 (UTC)