Talk:Giga Drain (move)

PP amounts

Has the PP been raised since generation III? Because my Weepinbell in FireRed knows this move, but it only has 5 PP, while the article says it has a base PP of 10. If this is incorrect, than what is the max PP for this? Wan Car Lhos 03:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Correct. Just checked Veekun, and it said 'Before D/P: PP was 5'. Tina ^δ♫ 03:55, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Gen IV changed some moves, Outrage is 120 power, now, but wasn't before. TTEchidna^G_SDS! 04:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Anime descriptions

I pared down the anime move descriptions with the comment: "This is so much more concise and no relevant information is lost. I'm sick of these overly-wordy anime move descriptions."

Littlmiget123 reverted that edit and replied: "There's really no such thing as being 'too detailed' on a wiki. :) Plus, 'which' and 'whose' makes it sound unprofessional."

First of all, yes, there is such a thing as being too detailed on a wiki. If no relevant information is being lost, there's absolutely no reason to make it longer than it needs to be - a longer paragraph will just make people less likely to trudge through it. As long as the amount of information is not diminished, briefer is always better, no matter what context you're in.

Second of all, what are you talking about? "Which" and "whose" look SO much more professional than those repetitive "this, AND this, AND this, AND this" clauses that were there before.

This is a problem that plagues just about all of the move description pages, so I'd like to resolve this one way or the other now, so there'll be precedent (i.e. so I know whether to even try improving any of the others). Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 23:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, first off, please, calm down. ^-^ This isn't a personal attack or anything, lol. Relax~ You don't need to get all defensive, lol. A wiki is a community with a bunch of people who see differently than others, not a free-for-all brawl. Second, in the future, don't revert and then bring up the issue on the talk page. It just causes for more problems, and more data for the processor to input.

Now, onto the issue itself. I really don't see a problem with them. I'll admit, sometimes, they do get a bit wordy, but the reason for that is because the moves are complex. I was raised in writing class to paint a picture with your words. Telling about how the attack is executed is the whole point of the anime descriptions. Shortening them and cutting out some of the words does make it easier to read, yes, but it also takes away the hard work that was put in it. It makes it seem lazier, in ways.

As I mentioned above, the point of the anime descriptions is to tell how the move is executed, and it helps a lot, since many fanfiction writers come to Bulbapedia, myself included, to see the descriptions as an easier way to see how the move is performed instead of having to trudge through search engines to have to find the episode and see how it is done. Taking away half of the paragraph does make it easier to read, but those are the browsers, the ones who just read it for fun, and not for those who actually need that information, right? There is a major difference between the two readers. Littlmiget123 (talk) 00:22, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

"But it also takes away the hard work that was put in it" - Just because a person puts work into a wiki article doesn't mean that someone else's changes "take away from" that work. If any improvements can ever be made, they are always inherently necessary, as we're striving for the best possible work, not the work that best preserves what one person wrote.

As for the "fanfiction writer" argument, I'd argue that that's just as much, if not more so, of an unnecessarily narrow policy as you think the "browser" argument is. Tons of different types of readers visit Bulbapedia, and we need to make things readable, attractive, and optimized for as many of them as possible, not just the ones who are using our paragraph as a springboard for their own writing.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be a clash between a creative-writing point of view (yours) and a journalistic point of view (mine). In my personal experience, I think the journalistic POV is much more common/endorsed on wikis in general as well as Bulbapedia specifically, but that may just be my confirmation bias at work. I'd love for us to get a consensus with other people (especially admins...?) instead of debating back and forth on what looks like a largely ideological argument.

(Also, sorry about the apparently unnecessary revert. I wasn't sure how to get your attention to the fact that something was on the talk page, so I figured an edit to the main page with "see talk page" in the summary would do it. And I don't mean to sound ticked, I just apparently always do. I really virtually never am.) Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 01:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Quality over Quantity. In other words, when describing how a move is executed, make sure they are as short as possible yet still go into detail about the execution. A long description can lose the readers attention due to it being...well...to damn long, and it also makes the table unnecessarily lengthier.--ForceFire 02:29, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we should meet both ways with this? I can come up with something that shortens the paragraph, but doesn't include whose and which, because I really don't like those words. It just throws off the sentence.

"The three mountain on Torterra's shell glow green and glowing green energy beam shoot out from the top of them at the opponent, wrapping around its body. The beams then drain energy from the opponent. When the attack is complete, the energy beams recede back into Torterra's shell."

"Ninjask's body glows green and and it flies in circles above the opponent. As it flies, it leaves behind a turquoise trail of energy until a circle is made. Once the circle is completed, Ninjask's eyes glow red while it is circling the opponent and green static reaches down from the circle and hits thie opponent, draining its energy. The opponent's body glows green while their energy is being drained."

Does that work? It incorperates both of our work into it, while at the same time keeping whose and which out of the picture (I'm adamant about that because I was raised not to use those words, lol). And it doesn't get rid of any of the major points in the attack, especially in Ninjask's, where you left out some key points of the attack. Littlmiget123 (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I completely disagree about the appropriateness of whose/which, because they're perfectly cromulent words and there's no reason not to use them when they can make a sentence flow well in a shorter space (not to mention that they're godsends in avoiding the passive voice). I also don't see what I left out of Ninjask's description. (The turquoise? Maybe I'm undiagnosed colorblind, but I really don't see a difference there.) But in the interest of wrapping things up, I'll just copyedit what you just wrote instead of standing my ground.

"The three mountains on Torterra's shell glow green and fire matching energy beams from their tips. The beams wrap around the opponent's body, drain its energy, and then recede back into Torterra's shell when the attack is complete." (I really don't like the repetition of "glow green" and "glowing green" with only a single word between them. If you can think of a different way to specify the beams' color without repetition, I'd gladly take that instead of "matching". Also, the antecedent of "wrapping" in your sentence was grammatically unclear (the mountains? the beams? the opponent?), so it was necessary to break up that sentence to make things crystal clear. I'm still not fond of the clunkiness of "when the attack is complete"; the completeness of the attack is already implied by the fact that we're not continuing the description. But if you really care about it, I'll let it stay.)

"Ninjask's body glows green and and it flies in circles above the opponent, leaving behind a turquoise trail of energy that forms a circle. Once the circle is completed, Ninjask's eyes glow red, and green static from the circle strikes the opponent, draining its energy and making its body glow green." (No need to repeatedly mention the flying in circles or the energy being drained. I think "strikes" captures the sudden, thunder-and-lightning-ish look of the move better than "reaches down and hits", which connotatively sounds a little more slow and deliberate. At the end of my first sentence/your second sentence, I tried to change the passive voice "a circle is made" into the active voice "forms a circle" without the word "which", which I still prefer over "that". Prescriptively, there's no need for the comma I added after "red", but "red and green" creates a garden path sentence, which I'd like to avoid. I also dislike the clunkiness of "once the circle is completed"; we make no mention of the circle being in an incomplete state, so the fact that it is complete is inherently implied and there's no need to state it, but it's another thing I don't mind keeping if you really care about it.)

Whew. I hope the thoroughness of my explanations helped show the problems I see in many of the anime descriptions on these move pages. Any further editing you want to make to this version? Comments on my reasoning about my changes? Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 18:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that works! Just change the mountain bit to something along the lines of 'extending' because emitting a green energy beam implies that energy beams are firing from the tips, but that's not the case. They're extending, like a Vine Whip attack. And Ninjask's circling needs to be added because otherwise, the reader will think that Ninjask has stopped spinning, when in fact, it circles around the opponent the whole time it is utilizing the attack. Maybe another word other than strike? It looks like lightning in the image, but it actually slowly reaches down at hits the opponent, instead of striking it like a poison tail or something. Other than that, I think it looks fine! :D Littlmiget123 (talk) 00:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

"The three mountains on Torterra's shell glow green, and matching energy beams extend from their tips. The beams wrap around the opponent's body, drain its energy, and then recede back into Torterra's shell when the attack is complete." / "Ninjask flies in circles above the opponent for the entire duration of the attack. Its body glows green, leaving behind a turquoise trail of energy that forms a ring. Once the ring is completed, Ninjask's eyes glow red, and green static from the circle hits the opponent, draining its energy and making its body glow green." (I checked DP187 again, and now that I think of it, "ring" is probably better; "circle" leaves it ambiguous as to whether the middle is filled-in or not. I disagree about the static's speed; it takes only a fraction of a second from Ninjask's eyes turning red until Infernape is hit. But I changed it to "hits", without "reaches down", since that's also accurate and splits the difference between our opinions.) If you're happy with that, feel free to make the change to the article itself; or if you'd rather, I can do it. Either's fine. Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 01:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds fine! I'll add them right now~ Thank you for (calmly) discussing this with me, haha. Littlmiget123 (talk) 13:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Trivia

Would it be okay if it were added that no Gen VI Pokemon can learn Giga Drain? - unsigned comment from Lithos141 (talk • contribs)