Forum:Past vs. Present Tense

I've noticed, in my recent editing, a pretty major problem with our wiki. History sections are completely inconsistent with usage of past or present tense. Many small articles use all of one or all of the other, but larger articles jump back an forth frequently. Luffy's history section, for example, is ridiculous and horribly inconsistent. I think it is time that we, as a wiki, make a decision on how these sections should be written. 20:17, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
Currently the policy is that history sections and arc summaries should be written in past tense. I think history sections should stay past tense, since they are history, and recording the past. However, despite writing arc summaries in past tense every week, I really think they should make the jump to present since they're arc SUMMARIES and should be present tense like the chapter and episode summaries. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 20:28, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

If history sections are supposed to be past tense, then we have a LOT of work fixing articles. I also agree with the summaries being present tense. It is like reading a book versus a summary (like the read-through of a script or dictation). That is probably what will be more heavily discussed. 20:37, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

Since everything that has already happened will become a past, then it means the entire chapter, episode, movie, specials, and history will all become past. 20:38, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

@Yata, histories and summaries are different. Histories describe what happened to the characters in the series, which is obviously in the past since it already happened. But summaries describe chapters, episodes, movies, episodes like they are happening right now as we speak. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 20:44, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I think summaries should be in past tense, too. Grammatically, it tends to read better. Besides, if I summarized a movie I saw, I would say it in past tense. "Last weekend I saw a movie where Luffy and his crew got eaten by a flower. Luffy got, like, twenty arrows in him. A little Hitler man was in it. It was badass." 22:27, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

Yeah Ryu said what I was going to say. The events technically already happened even on current release chapters. Possibly we could just do the current chapter in present tense then edit it each week once a new one is out. Otherwise all history should be in past tense. SeaTerror (talk) 22:59, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

That sounds overly complicated ST. And while I prefer past stense stylistically, an argument can be made for the use of present tense. Present tense is pretty much universally used for film/book summaries, just look at sypnosis on wikipedia/imdb/rottentomatoes, as well as actual film critics etc. They all use present tense. Obviously we don't have to conform, but I did want to point this out. 23:22, June 28, 2016 (UTC)

Personally whenever I summarize a story, I usually use present-tense, as I am basically condensing the story as it goes on. Then again, a summary is also summarizing what's already happened, so a past-tense makes sense. Whenever you read a book, it's almost always presented in past-tense. I just used past-tense in that previous sentence!

I'm a little torn on this particular issue, since I think present-tense works better but past-tense makes more sense, but I think one minor reason to use past-tense is to avoid spoilers. It's a weird reason, but if somebody were to go the Wiki and look up Portgas D. Ace and find that the very first sentence says "was" but every other character says "is", they are instantly spoiled on what happens to him. I understand that people should avoid Wikis to avoid spoilers, but I think if those people are visiting our Wiki, they're trying to be as careful as possible. Maybe this is just a personal thing. Using past-tense will keep everything a little more fair for those fans who just HAVE to know about their favorite characters. 00:47, June 29, 2016 (UTC)

Wait, Nada, are you saying to use past tense for all characters articles? Or did you mean present tense?

Because the rules are for history to be past tense, we need to start fixing articles. Any volunteers? I'll work on it, but we have so many articles. I can't do it alone. 00:52, June 29, 2016 (UTC)

I can work on it, however english is my 2nd language so i cant say i'll do everything 100% correctly, however i will do my best.FeitvanZoldyck (talk) 00:56, June 29, 2016 (UTC)

History should be written in past tense because history is the past. George Washington was the president of the United States. Summaries such as episode summaries, movie summaries, etc. should be written in the present tense. '''Marvel's Captain America: Civil War is a ten out of ten movie; It has incredible action scenes and great story-telling. Black Panther and Spider-Man appear in it too which makes it even more awesome!''' Meshack (talk) 04:24, June 29, 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't really work as an example since you would say "I saw Captain America Civil War on an illegal streaming site." SeaTerror (talk) 06:00, June 29, 2016 (UTC)

One Piece Encyclopedia:Guidebook/Manual of Style: 07:57, June 29, 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep the tenses of articles/sections consistent.
 * When writing about fiction, the rule is to use the present tense. This is a rule among English writers, because at any point somebody can read or watch any part of the series. This makes the series "alive" in the eyes of the reader.
 * This means all episode and chapter summaries should be written in the present tense. If the content of a section of a chapter or episode is a flashback to a previous story point the past tense should be used.
 * In the case of history sections or arc summaries, the past tense should be used.

I believe this was discussed in the giant Forum:Creating a Manual of Style. I helped make the policy Kage just posted. The true encyclopedic way of doing it is the current policy. I firmly believe we need to start holding ourselves to a higher encyclopedic standard. Therefore we should not change the policy, and should make our articles consistent. 15:39, July 13, 2016 (UTC)

But why are the arc summaries past tense? They're literally called summaries. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 19:53, July 14, 2016 (UTC)

All articles should be past tense, to keep it absolutely consistent. I understand the want for present, and personally I'd like it present too, but it's just too debatable and it's just asking for inconsisencies. We should just keep it as past-tense. Not just for summaries or characters, but every article in the whole website. Only one I can think of that should still be present tense is Oda, because he's still alive. 20:02, July 14, 2016 (UTC)

We're not looking for that kind of consistency. The policy already explains why present tense is used for summaries. 20:30, July 14, 2016 (UTC)

Arc summaries are an interesting case. I guess that personally, I consider them to be more of a history (and therefore should be in past tense), but I can see others can see them as a summary. Anyone else have input on this? 22:09, July 14, 2016 (UTC)

I could go for either but absolute consistency just leads to stupid problems. So I'm leaning more towards keeping it how we do currently. SeaTerror (talk) 02:46, August 23, 2016 (UTC)