Forum:What constitutes an archetype?

While moving some of the archetype pages per Forum:Singular archetype page names?, I've come across several pages that don't really seem to qualify as archetypes in my eyes. I've only gotten through the letters "A" and "B" so far and have found "Baboons of the Forest" and "Bugroths". The cards are clearly related, but they have no support and only two or three members each.

Then there's the "Alchemy" and "Chemical" pages. The former seems simply be "anything Amnael used". I realize that all those cards do have relations to actual alchemy, but grouping them all together doesn't seem right to me. Expanding this to include "Alchemy Beasts" and "Primordial Suns" as sub-archetypes seems to make more sense to me. In the case of "Chemical", these cards clearly related, but them actually being an archetype doesn't seem right to me either.

So are there any "qualifications" for what constitutes an archetype? Some of these just seem a bit excessive to me. Any thoughts? Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 05:58, January 12, 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, 'Series' of cards are falling into the 'Archetype' category, because that's the only category we have for groups of cards. e.g. Talk:Monster World Area. -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 06:04, January 12, 2011 (UTC)

I agree, there are some archetypes that just fall into place. A new category for "groups" of cards make since. I think an archetype needs to have some card that can relate them, e.g. a card that refers to the archetype name "Rose", "Dark World", etc... is an archetype, all others that are/may be related should be classified as a group...BassNettoHikari2...Talk to me... 07:22, January 12, 2011 (UTC)

I would support creating another level for groupings of related cards, though I'm not sure what we might call these (both "families" and "groups" sound good, though the latter perhaps sounds more general). As for criteria for deciding whether a group is just a group or an actual archetype, I would suggest the most important criterion to be, "does it have explicit support?" Thoughts? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 05:00, January 13, 2011 (UTC)

"Group" is fine imo, but maybe "Card Groups" or something, as then we might need to group other things later on. -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 06:13, January 13, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with DinoGuy1000 what separates an archetype and a group is "is there any support card for this group of cards?" And I do think that Card Groups sounds best. Although I have found one problem. What if an archetype has both a "group" and an actual archetype. e.g. some cards are related through some support card, and then there are those cards that are not supported by said card, but clearly belongs in there? It also kind of messes with the cards that are "related" to an archetype...BassNettoHikari2...Talk to me... 06:39, January 13, 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any problem in either case. An archetype would be a specific type of card group (or, if you like, a card group would be a more generalized type of archetype), meaning a given grouping of cards could be both a card group and an archetype, depending on just how "strict" you're being in what cards you include or exclude. ;) More generally speaking, a card group would be any grouping of cards with some common trait - so, for instance, all level 7 monster cards would constitute a card group, as would continuous traps, or spell cards that destroy an opponent's monster, or cards released in "Ancient Sanctuary", all the way up to all monster/spell/trap cards, and beyond that to *all* cards released in the TCG or OCG, and then those together, and then the current card game together with other card games. At the highest levels, card groups would be roughly hierarchical, and as you get more specific (and thus end up with smaller groups), card groups become more entangled and parallelized. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 07:27, January 13, 2011 (UTC)

I agree that support cards are important, but "not having support cards" should not disqualify a group of cards from being an archetype. To me, "Monarchs" are clearly an archetype, but they have no support cards of their own (that I'm aware of, at least). Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 07:33, January 13, 2011 (UTC)

If Monarchs is an archetype, then one can also say that Stardust is an archetype too.

Then there are the Fusion (archetype) and Polymerization (archetype) pages which are kinda messed up and are occasionally being made, then deleted again. Even after Synchro Fusionist was released. -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 00:44, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Just like any other division or classification system, at its boundaries, what exactly should and should not be considered an archetype is not clear without discussion. However, most cases are going to be very clear-cut, and this is what I was driving at in my above comment - it should be obvious in most cases whether a given group of cards is an archetype simply by seeing if there is any support for that group of cards. Personally, I would argue that the Monarchs and Stardust are more akin to themed groups than true archetypes, if they do indeed lack explicit support (and if the Fusion and Polymerization groups are what I think they are, they are far too broad and ill-defined for me to consider them archetypes... but again, that's just me). 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 01:22, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

I think people are suggesting that "archetype" refer to the supported series of cards e.g. "Elemental Hero" and "Malefic" and another name be used to refer to all series of cards. But this means things like "Trap Hole", "Pot" and "Magician" are not archetypes, even though they fit the English definition of an archetype, better than many of the supported series. I would say use "archetype" as the name for all series of cards and use something else to refer to only the supported series. e.g. "supported archetype". -- Deltaneos (talk) 01:46, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Another possibility, which I inadvertently introduced in my previous comment, would be to use "archetype" for supported series (as I've been advocating the whole time), and use something like "theme" or "themed series" for more general series of cards (and, again, use "group" to refer to the next-more-general level of card groupings). 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 02:59, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

But that still results in cards which fit the English definition of an archetype, not being classified as archetypes. -- Deltaneos (talk) 00:29, January 21, 2011 (UTC)

I wonder, though, if that is really such a problem. It's not like it'd be the first term with a broader English definition, which is redefined in some way in the context of the YGO card game. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 02:57, January 21, 2011 (UTC)

Now that sounds like a good system...BassNettoHikari2...Talk to me... 06:05, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

That sounds fine, but at the same time, I legitimately don't think that "Bugroths" need a page. To be quite honest, its the mere existence of pointless pages that bothers me, not the fact that we classify them as archetypes. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 06:46, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

We need a baby archetype -164.78.252.244 (talk) 08:49, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
EDIT: IMO, those without support but can really fit as an archetype (such as monarch) should be moved to family. i think yubel should also be a family since they don't refer to yubel monster, but refer to their individual name. same with level monster like armed dragon etc. however allure queen does has a support. about alchemy and chemistry, maybe family i am not sure -164.78.248.244 (talk) 08:56, September 6, 2011 (UTC)

Common noun such as clown, pot, ape, monkey, dog, king, queen, turtle etc (examples, might or might not exist) should not be an archetype, UNLESS there is support such as cat, knight etc. but is there any way to argue that monarch (and perhaps warriors) is an archetype while those above are not? feels like "is pluto a planet" debate -164.78.252.244 (talk) 03:27, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

It's another matter for families(/groups/series... whatever we end up calling them) to cover. If there's a common theme to a group of cards with a common noun in all their names, beyond the noun itself (e.g. the monsters are all obviously themed to match each other), they're a family (not an archetype; this also applies to Monarchs and Warriors). If there's even a single support card, though, it's an archetype and automatically includes every card with a matching string in its name to what the support card calls for. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 03:46, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

What about series cards? should they even be using the archetype template (warrior dai grepher, dark ruler, royal cards) etc? -164.78.252.244 (talk) 05:01, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

For the moment, yes. On or about Thursday, though, I'm going to make a decision on what to call such series (family, series, or group), since it seems no one else has any strong arguments in any particular direction, after which formal support will be added for them in {{CardTable2}} and they'll get their own version of {{Archseries navbox}} and {{Infobox/Yu-Gi-Oh!/Archetype}}. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 05:58, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

Then people will start to argue which series/family/group to keep or remove -164.78.248.244 (talk) 06:01, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

This shouldn't be a problem the majority of the time, and on the rare occasions when it might be, we'd handle it just like any other edit war - page protection and, if necessary, short blocks. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 06:15, September 7, 2011 (UTC)