Those arguing against more flexibility in these cases usually do so for the sake of ease of recognition and, less reliably, popularity. Purists aiming for these titles usually have one uniform argument: Because it’s in the guideline.
Why change titles to less recognizable ones? Because it’s in the guideline.
“But since there’s an alias, it doesn’t hinder search”. In that case, why not do it backwards and leave the more recognizable title, if the alias is inconsequential? Because it’s in the guideline.
“Because it’s in the guideline” This is a red flag. When your criteria becomes its own justification, something in your system is messed up. You’ve already breached the guideline with Castlevania and Pokemon. You’ve already accepted inconsistencies, and these are not the only cases where this could apply. You have an admin right here saying that he doesn’t think these aliases are a very good idea.
If your guideline is good, this shouldn’t be an issue. Unless you were dealing with a subject that you couldn’t set a hard-ass set of rules on while keeping everyone happy, which you are. You need to make a decision here, either you stick to this completely with no room for exceptions in which case you’ll re-open the old cans of worms, or you accept that the guideline needs to be changed, which is a can of flesh-eating radioactive worms. I’m not suggesting more “exceptions to the rule”, I’m suggesting that your whole system needs a reboot.
This isn’t as impossible as you think. You’re not dealing with the entirety of the internet here. There’s a very large line between the people who recognize Satoshi and those who recognize individual Japanese Pokemon names. The first thing you need to decide is who you’re catering to, “moderate weeaboo typical fansub viewers” or the hadrcore japanese speaking purists, which are what the (contributing) userbase of the site can be largely categorized as. That’s the first step, and it’s entirely your choice. After that comes the decision of what to do with things like Jojo. Jojo’s_Bizarre_Adventure > JoJo_no_Kimyou_na_Bouken and The_legend_of_Zelda > Zelda_no_densetsu are something that’s only worth putting up Because It’s In The Guideline.
It’s a step by step process, but nowhere near as large as you think. I guarantee you will never have to deal with a heated drawn out discussion on The_Familiar_of_Zero Vs Zero_no_Tsukaima, or Battle_Vixens Vs Ikkitousen. Your userbase is homogenously weeaboo enough and the overwhelming majority of new titles don’t even have a translated name anyhow. You’ll only be dealing with the exact same titles that you have trouble with right now: Overwhelmingly popular, old-as-shit titles known to everyone and their mother by their English names. Only then we could have a vote between members giving arguments for and against, instead of everything being shot down with the circular argument of not accepting an exception to The Guideline because It’s In The Guideline, on which nobody ever budges until the admins take a decision by themselves. And then, when an individual decision is reached either way, we can all shut the hell up about it and move to the next instead of quoting previous cases as arguments for either side like we were in a goddamn case law court.
The issue, though, it’s a lot simpler. Take jxh2154’s comment above.
jxh2154 said:
I don't particularly think these aliases are a good idea, and we do have things like the Castlevania decision that are relevant here. But on the other hand consistency is easier, in that we don't have to sit here and hash out which games get exceptions and which don't.
Doesn’t think it’s a particularly good idea but it’s easier. This is the core of the problem. This means a lot more work. You guys certainly don’t NEED more work, so you need to make a decision:
One choice it to go full ass and make everything Japanese, accepting no exceptions no matter what.
Another is to keep going half-ass and deal with these threads from time to time, which as I’ve already said, are inherently unproductive because of what background we’re using as justification.
Third: Reboot The Guideline and deal with the work that’ll come with that.
This is entirely up to the management, so nothing is really going to get done until you decide that.