Bulbapedia is a great resource but definitely flawed. One of my personal criticisms is that it tries to do too much and ends up trying to accommodate too many audiences at once (ex. vgc, tcg, collectors, players, plush, merch, etc etc).
I’m sure there are other thoughts on this topic. What would you do to make it better?
Had a hot debate on Grand Party with someone that was only quoting bulbapedia as a bible, turns out the info there was wrong. To make it better just correct the info that has been proven wrong, takes time but it’s like the scientific method, should be flawless to be an established fact.
First and foremost that affects everybody no matter what they’re looking for is the site all-out assaults you with ads that can’t be skipped or closed. It makes the site look terrible, work terribly, and has made me try to get certain information from other sites instead of Bulbapedia when possible.
Bulbapedia also has a content weakness where it refuses to acknowledge content from unofficial sources. We have learned a huge amount of information about the history of Pokémon and its development in the last few years. We currently have more insight into the creation of the Game Boy games and its creatures than possibly any other video game in existence. There is enough information to sustain its own separate wiki-like repositories. But Bulbapedia does not allow this information to be discussed or documented on the site.
On the TCG side, and arguably the biggest organizational failure of the website, is that trading cards are identified by text rather than release. Take for example a very common card like WotC Promo #1 “Ivy” Pikachu: Pikachu (Wizards Promo 1) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia
This is an article named Wizards Promo 1. But the image is for a completely different Japanese promo. When you go down to the release information, you’re treated to summaries of numerous different cards spanning a period of 20 years. The cards here all have different art, different finishes, were released in certain languages only, and to a TCG collector this is madness. These are all completely different cards that should have their own articles. Instead they all share one article, because they have the same card text, and the player has to figure out which one they’re looking for based on the release summaries. This is why websites like Pokumon are so important right now because they treat unique cards as unique releases and easily and digestibly present information about those cards without obfuscation.
This has been my frustration as well . Even if Bulbapedia doesn’t have the accurate information surrounding all the different background/releases of a given card, it would be a major step up if you could simply see what the different cards looked like in a picture instead of a page defaulting to one picture with an article that discusses several similar but different cards.
Some of the newer foreign language sets are missing or have inaccurate/unclear information. I know most collectors probably will never venture into these sets but will still be nice to have full details.
My two biggest pet peeves with Bulbapedia, which I’ve been using for years as source for all kind of stuff, like my single Pokémon lists for example:
Greetz,
Quuador
What would be an appropriate grouping system that accommodates variants, errors, promos? Like what would the hierarchical structure look like?
I use Bulbapedia pretty much daily. I agree with most of the complaints mentioned here. One I’ll add is that it’s down like 25% of the time. Usually not fully down, but searching or certain links within Bulbapedia get you service errors.
I’d like to be able to sort by artwork if possible. I want every language, variant, etc either described or pictures. Example of the mess is having to go into something like the Asian expansion TCG section then pick a language and each individual set (if they even have info for it) just to find a card, click on it, and it wind up linking back to a Japanese picture lol. Then I have to hope there is just 1 holo and not a reverse of said card.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a much stronger starting point to define an article by a release. What constitutes a release is not always 100% consistent but it is far MORE consistent than the Bulbapedia standard.
For example, the W Stamp Wartortle is a different release than Base Set 2. It is a different card. No collector would consider this card and the unstamped Base Set 2 card the same card. These should be separate articles and simply link to each other as necessary.
Japanese Fossil Mew, Mew #8, and Mew #9 are all different cards and should be treated as different entries into any database. They can link to one another.
In my dream structure, every card is its own database entry. But every entry also has a “related entries” section which would link to all these articles. So if you were reading about one of the Mew cards featured above, you would be directed to the other related cards that are part of the same family.
It’s a different card but there is still a relationship there. The question is, how is that relationship ideally captured? Each card can have it’s own page but surely it we can do better than just have them all independent
ex. Top level: “Ken Sugimori Wartortle art”
Which one of these would have their own page? Is it worth capturing every minor variation? Is the W stamp a variant of Base 2 or are they unrelated?
Let me preface this by saying taxonomy is certainly not an absolute science and this just makes sense to me.
But for me this is very easy.
Base Set Wartortle, and all its variants, are the same release. So in one article, you’d have Base Set 1st Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited, Base 2000, and any documentable variations or errors distribute through Base Set booster packs.
Base Set 2 would be its own article, which would feature the Wartortle evolving from Wartortle error.
W Stamp Wartortle is a unique entry.
As would be “Evolutions Wartortle”, which would also include reverse holo and any other variant that was released through Evolutions boosters.
All of these articles would link to each other via embedded links when appropriate. But they would also all be featured in each other’s “Related Entries”, at the bottom of any given page. So no matter which entry you began on, you had direction towards all the other entries.
There’s no “right” way but some ways must be better than others 
I guess the real question I’m asking is where you would separate cards into their own page vs packing variant info in the same page (which you’ve correctly interpreted and answered).
Examples are probably easier. Would these go on the same page or different ones??
What would be the general “rules” to say that a variant would deserve its own page? I’m replying to @stagecoach but this is meant as an open question
Great discussion @pfm
TCG and Collector Focus:
As a starting place, Serebii’s Cardex provides a good, albeit, incomplete database. I think the basic structure they have captures the essence of what @stagecoach and @Quuador are seeking.
Pokemon Name → Release Date → Artwork → Set/Release Details → Variants using same art within same release
Unique entries could have their own row if the release was deemed different enough even though the art is the same. Otherwise the nuance could be captured in the variant’s section.
Here’s Wartortle’s example:
https://www.serebii.net/card/dex/008.shtml
Does it need more detail? Yes
Does it need more Release information? Yes
Does it need more entries? Yes
But I think the overall structure works. Ultimately, a one-stop resource for all artworks and variants of a Pokemon would be wonderful.
Having a lack of sources makes Bulbapedia a bottom-of-the-barrel source for me. The fact that people can contribute without having validated sources is just embarrassing.
Honestly, this is a hierarchy of information thing for me (almost like the scientific tree of life, you know?). My fantasy card organization would be something like this, essentially going very broad then getting very detailed:
Are Light Vaporeon and Dark Vaporeon and Vaporeon and Vaporeon VMAX the same pokemon? What about Alolan and Kanto Vulpix?
Are 1st ed and unlimited the same set?
How do trainers fit in?
How does Japanese fit in?
I’m not tying to do a tips fedora thing here, genuinely wondering how others would resolve some of these complications
I prefer looking at cards without having to open a new tab for each and every one. What makes https://pkmncards.com/ so great is that you can see all the cards at once. I’d like it if bulbapedia took this approach. Some of their pictures are terrible quality as well or are missing entirely.
My favorite resource on bulbapedia is the Category:Pokémon Trading Card Game merchandise - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia page. It has pictures of nearly every single product release since the beginning of Pokemon for every language.
re: the vaporeon thing - no, not in my mind. Since they have different numbers and different art; while they are the same species, they have different art/set numbers.
I would consider 1st and unlimited to be the same set - they’re just variants of a card, and that’s something that can be called out on the page - something like “in ABC set, this card was released as 1st edition and unlimited”.
I think trainers would be covered by this too - unique number/card ID would differentiate them, as would set symbol.
Re: different languages, next the TCG under different languages - i.e, “Japanese TCG” (and then get specific), “Thai TCG” "English TCG “French TCG” etc.