Make the Sun Kerbol

[The_Rocketeer]

Just now, 5thHorseman said:

I (mistakenly) used the word to describe how the wiki was not created or sanctioned or controlled by Squad. That meaning is very specific and is not meaningless at all.

So the wiki is official, but not trustworthy. This is likely the worst combination of those two possibilities there is.

The wiki may theoretically be created, sanctioned and controlled by Squad, but the reality is that it isn't. If it was it would be an excellent reference tool with accurate and correct terminology. Instead it's a litterbox of random leavings, created by the community, sanctioned by nobody, and theoretically controlled by peer-review - the very nature of a wikis is that they self-regulate. If Squad had wanted to create a proper 'Official' (in the sense that you define the word above) KSP encyclopedia, they wouldn't have started with this platform.

[Superfluous J]

3 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

The wiki may theoretically be created, sanctioned and controlled by Squad, but the reality is that it isn't. If it was it would be an excellent reference tool with accurate and correct terminology. Instead it's a litterbox of random leavings, created by the community, sanctioned by nobody, and theoretically controlled by peer-review - the very nature of a wikis is that they self-regulate. If Squad had wanted to create a proper 'Official' (in the sense that you define the word above) KSP encyclopedia, they wouldn't have started with this platform.

Totally agreed on all points.

[The_Rocketeer]

6 minutes ago, Knaapie said:

we have like this funny little rule in our funny little country: When a word is being made up and known by 70% of the citizens, it becomes a word in the "official" dictionary. Making it an official Dutch word. The same goes for Kerbol, enough ppl know it to use it "officially". Whether it should be changed by Squad seems insignificant in any way.. It's like disliking the name Valentina and wanting to change it.

In this community, the word possibly does meet your criteria (although it would take a survey to be sure), but of KSP users everywhere? I don't think so. Users of the game learn the language of the game, not the language of the game's internet forum.

[almagnus1]

7 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

In this community, the word possibly does meet your criteria (although it would take a survey to be sure), but of KSP users everywhere? I don't think so. Users of the game learn the language of the game, not the language of the game's internet forum.

But when the language goes into YouTube, what happen then?

[Knaapie]

3 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

In this community, the word possibly does meet your criteria (although it would take a survey to be sure), but of KSP users everywhere? I don't think so. Users of the game learn the language of the game, not the language of the game's internet forum.

Well alright.. I'd love to make a poll now:

what is Kerbol? 

1. the Sun
2. I dunno.

Always did like to make my criteria law.

 

Yet in this case, Squad calles it: "Sun", many users call it Kerbol.. I'm fine with at least one body having a mystery !

(And I obviously agree with the fact that Wiki is at a disadvantage claiming the official name ingame) 

[The_Rocketeer]

@KnaapieA walk-up poll situated in this location isn't exactly going to produce reliable evidence, and even if it was your question is about the most biased I've seen since the Ghostbusters asked me who I'm gonna call.

On 5/17/2016 at 8:52 PM, almagnus1 said:

But when the language goes into YouTube, what happen then?

Well jeez, I guess ya got me there. I mean, everything on YouTube is official, right?

[Knaapie]

On 5/17/2016 at 8:58 PM, The_Rocketeer said:

@KnaapieA walk-up poll situated in this location isn't exactly going to produce reliable evidence, and even if it was your question is about the most biased I've seen since the Ghostbusters asked me who I'm gonna call.

Democracy is biased, deal with it ^^.. 

[Pthigrivi]

Make the Sun Kerbol Again!

[StahnAileron]

I'm probably gonna regret getting into this, but:

Does it really matter? Our own star is know as "sun" and "sol" depending on the context. Common knowledge and colloquial use make is "sun". In the frame of reference to other stars (and mainly in the scientific/astronomy) community, its "Sol".

In my eyes, "sun" is a term while "Sol" is a name. "Kerbol" if you want to go with it is >a< sun. (By my definition, "sun" just refers to the star a planet revolves around, name irrelevant.) If KSP had more than one star system to work with, giving the Kerbin-system's star a name would totally make sense.

On the flip-side, there are conversion mods like RSS where saying "sun" automatically implies our star/sun (Sol). In this case, having Kerbin's star named would help bit (perhaps) if there was a discussion about the 2 systems and using "sun" would be ambiguous.

As for Squad making "Kerbol" official? I don't really care at this point. I haven't even left the local Kerbin SOI in all of my playing. (I spend a lot of time in the editor more than anything. Second is flying around in planes...) Honestly, if Squad wants to call the Kerbin star "Sun" and call it day, so be it. I know what they're referring to given the context. If it makes their lives easier, let them have that. It's their game anyway. (Rant: I swear the internet age has made the general gaming community feel so entitled just because they can interact with the developers. It's a double edge sword and there are some things I can say about game devs as well, but I need to get off the soapbox...)

Honestly, this is a moot point. If it makes you feel better about the game, think of the Kerbin sun as "Kerbol". No harm, no foul; it's you playing the game your way. Just don't try to shove your opinion down our and the developer's throats.

(Yeah, I may have come off a little liquidy, but I've dealt with communities that feel entitled before that think a privilege is a right and whatnot. It's a sore spot for me when internet users blindly state something without even thinking of the other side of the argument... Which by the way, is a step in being up your own argument in the first place. TL;DR Internet is making the masses less intelligent. Or should I say more intelligent but not as smart? Raw information is terrible thing to given someone without context and structure.)

Apologies to anyone who may have taken offense from what has become a mini-rant for me. To those that actually read it all, I thank you for your time, patience, and attention. Now all of you go back to doing something actually useful like playing KSP  

[klgraham1013]

On 5/16/2016 at 7:54 PM, Pthigrivi said:

...but just to keep things simple for noobs I think its cool to continue to call it the Sun.

Noobs really get no credit these days.  It's a giant, bright ball in space.  I'm pretty sure they can tell it's a star, and a similar star to our sun.  Even if it is called Kerbol.

[Knaapie]

@StahnAileron Slight offence is alright, to not let ppl feel too much offended when they actually are. (I should make that my signature)

I would absolutely completely contradict that the current information revolution is making people less smart, without even feeling the need elaborate it. Just the fact that people around the world are enriching me with multiple ideas based on their culture and experiences is nothing less than amazing!

I can see US / Canada rivalry first hand ^ Can see where ppl tend think power resides to make something official. The thing I find interesting from your comment is the feeling that ppl try to shove opinions down our and devs throahts. This comment seems to be more general than specific for this topic alone, yet the only way to adres it, is to comment about it!!! nice!

tbh (adding slight offence): I like the topics in this section to improve the game substantially. i.e. Mechanically, playability, conceptually, balance improvements.. Not this crap...  Yet, we dont care too much. If this makes ppl happy alright.. Lets agree, call it Kerbol, have some fun here and think about the bigger picture.

pce

Edited May 17, 2016 by Knaapie

[StahnAileron]

12 minutes ago, Knaapie said:

I would absolutely completely contradict that the current information revolution is making people less smart, without even feeling the need elaborate it. Just the fact that people around the world are enriching me with multiple ideas based on their culture and experiences is nothing less than amazing!

I actually wanted to address that, but I felt my rant went on long enough. For those who value information for what it is, the internet is a wonderful thing. I agree on that because I'm the same way. But for those who use information to feed their own ego...

Unfortunately, human are inherently selfish (any life-form is to some extent or else it won't live long enough to procreate spread the species), so there are plenty out there who use information more as a weapons than a tool, purposely or not. (Not that I'm surprised though: "weapons" are just a subcategory of "tools".) This is why I said:

1 hour ago, StahnAileron said:

Raw information is [a] terrible thing to give someone without context and structure.

[Some corrections added because I'm a horrible self-editor... (I won't edit the original post at this point.)]

Humans are quick to interpret things to their own whims and advantage given no other context, for better or for worse.

Edited May 17, 2016 by StahnAileron
Elaborating my own quote.

[Pthigrivi]

17 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Noobs really get no credit these days.  It's a giant, bright ball in space.  I'm pretty sure they can tell it's a star, and a similar star to our sun.  Even if it is called Kerbol.

Well they know that is the sun. What they may not know is that object and "Kerbol" are the same thing when they see it in text form in a contract.

[Knaapie]

4 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well they know that is the sun. What they may not know is that object and "Kerbol" are the same thing when they see it in text form in a contract.

Hahaha.. is it in the contracts ???

made me fall of my chair ^^

Another problem solved, lol, tnx guys

[Kerbart]

Far out dude, far out...

[The Aziz]

Uhm, so there are two threads about sun/kerbol on first page, anyone cares to merge them maybe?

 

@topic I might be wrong, but I think I've seen a post on Facebook fanpage of ksp (the official one I suppose) where our shiny star was called Kerbol.

[klgraham1013]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well they know that is the sun. What they may not know is that object and "Kerbol" are the same thing when they see it in text form in a contract.

...and if they see "Duna" in a contract?  Come on people.  Let's try to encourage some intelligence here.  The KSPedia was created for a reason.

Edited May 17, 2016 by klgraham1013

[r_rolo1]

15 hours ago, almagnus1 said:

We have all know the star that Kerbin orbits to be known as Kerbol, and even the Wiki article calls it this (see http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbol ), so it's time to make the change official.

Rename The Sun to Kerbol!

To not lose a lot of time typing it all again ...

16 hours ago, r_rolo1 said:

(... )

Slightly longer awnser: Originally in KSP neither the planet or the star in KSP were named in game and so people in the the comunity, in  what would be the beginning of the quite ol' tradition of "adding K to the beginning of each word"  named the planet Kearth and the star Kerbol ( you can still find some 2011 youtube videos using that naming scheme, like "The Dark side of Kearth" by Scott Manley ). When the devs finaly decided to name both bodies , they went with Kerbin and Sun and , while people dropped Kearth quite fast, they continued to pretend that the star was named Kerbol. And here we are 4 years later still saying to people that "Kerbol" does not exist in game  ... 

So, I assume that you want to make Kerbin Kearth again as well, right ?  

[Codraroll]

Perhaps they could go for a compromise? Keep referring to the sun as "the sun" in all contracts and on the map screen, but mention somewhere in the flavour text that it is officially (though rarely by the public) called Kerbol. Problem solved?

[Andem]

I don't see why it's still called the sun anyway... it's not. Besides, if the issue with "Kerbol" is that it has a "K" in front of it, then I vote to rename "Kerbin" "Erdh". I mean, who doesn't like to say Kerbals on Kerbin orbiting Kerbol?

[Violent Jeb]

At the very least, there should be an option or mod to rename the star to Kerbol. Because whatever its name is, it isn't the "sun".

OUR sun is called the sun. No other bodies in the game share names with our solar system, except for maybe mun but that's a play on the name of our moon, or the kerbals much like us didn't know of any other "muns" until much later in their history. However, this is contradicted, as I believe the in game texts refers to these satellites as "moons". 

Therefore, there is no precedent in the game to call the star the "Sun", minus the fact that it is presently named that. But what are the odds that a separate civilization in a galaxy far far away names their star the exact same thing as we do. Makes no sense just from a cultural perspective. I guess you could say they seem to have very similar spacefairing equipment/architecture, i can't argue that either.

21 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

1. If you pronounce "Kerbol" with a short O it sounds too close to "Kerbal."
2. If you pronounce it with a long O it sounds like a yearly college sports event. The Ker-Bowl!

If you pronounce sun with a short o it sounds like son, and in our solar system people have made many religions based on the confusion.

Since bol is much less likely to be inferred as the bowl of anything, I think its fine. Even if the kerbals or our players do get confused, i'd say its okay. In fact, Kerbol even looks like a bowl as viewed from directly above, so there's that. worst case scenario, it would also give the Kerbals something to pray to, the great bowl. 

Just throwing my hat in the ring with Kerbol

[Plusck]

14 minutes ago, Violent Jeb said:

OUR sun is called the sun. No other bodies in the game share names with our solar system, except for maybe mun but that's a play on the name of our moon, or the kerbals much like us didn't know of any other "muns" until much later in their history. However, this is contradicted, as I believe the in game texts refers to these satellites as "moons". 

Therefore, there is no precedent in the game to call the star the "Sun", minus the fact that it is presently named that. But what are the odds that a separate civilization in a galaxy far far away names their star the exact same thing as we do. Makes no sense just from a cultural perspective. I guess you could say they seem to have very similar spacefairing equipment/architecture, i can't argue that either.

Our sun - if we ever feel the need to name it - is generally called Sol. Somebody else's sun will be called something else. However, every language has a word for the thing that lights, heats and burns us on a daily basis, and that word in English is "sun". If it isn't close enough to light, heat or burn on a daily basis, it's a "star".

Most of our names for things arose before we had a clue what they really were. We idiotically call our planet "Earth" and there is no reason to think that any other civilisation would have been smart enough, early enough, to do any different. So when the lizard-people come to visit our supreme leaders, I'm sure the first bit of interplanetary small-talk will be translated as "it is warmer on our earth than it is here on yours". We can't presume to have a monopoly on the word "earth", any more than we can monopolise "sun", "moon", or even "milky way" (though due to the sheer babyishness of the last expression, civilisations from another galaxy might let use keep that one).

[Shadowsteps]

The sun is defined (as in, written in the dictionary) as "the star around which earth orbits".  So until Kerbin becomes Earth, the star in KSP is, by definition, not the sun.

[Gaarst]

24 minutes ago, Shadowsteps said:

The sun is defined (as in, written in the dictionary) as "the star around which earth orbits".  So until Kerbin becomes Earth, the star in KSP is, by definition, not the sun.

The Sun is the star the Earth is orbiting. The sun is the star whatever planet you were talking about is orbiting.

The Sun is derived from the common word sun capitalised to make it a proper noun. The star Kerbin is orbiting is a sun, and there is no reason it cannot be made a Sun.

 

Kerbol is not official and if the star Kerbin is orbiting is to be renamed, I'd enjoy having other choices.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Gaarst

[Superfluous J]

For what it's worth, If you dropped "Ker-" and just named Kerbin's sun "Bol" I'd be cool with it.

He could even be - in Kerbin mythology - the brother of Pol and Bop. They betrayed him and bla bla bla Jool whatever.

Edited May 17, 2016 by 5thHorseman