Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Archive 37

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Image:BaronBlitzkrieg.jpg

• Image:BaronBlitzkrieg.jpg

This is an image from Who's Who. - jc37 16:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Up for IfD... - J Greb (talk) 23:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought you would know the ins and outs better than I would : ) - jc37 11:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

comicdb.com

I am worried by the usage of comicdb.com as a reference in our articles. A quick check reveals that it is used in 100s of articles and yet it is an open wiki with (as far as I can see from editing it) no oversight or editorial control. Indeed, with many articles, either we have lifted content from them or they have lifted it from us... --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:59, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what we use it for - as previously discussed we are rather pushed for paper-based sources but there are sites we can use as long as we are careful where and how they are used. As discussed at Talk:Living Laser the databases draw on primary sources so, since the ultimate source for us is the comic, what they are basically doing is acting as a back-up to those (so we are verifying the verification - important as we can't hope to have every single comic to hand to check everything. Often also handy for a quick and dirty fact check). Where possible I have checked the facts and they are fairly solid and there are bound to be problems (which is why it is worth trying to add a number where possible - easier with Marvel) but I have also found problems with publishers details when checked against the comics, so it is always worth checking and if you spot a problem then hit the button to fire off a note about the problem (I've done that in various places and the response is usually pretty quick). I'd be very wary of using any database to source any specific statement because the ultimate source is the actual comic so you should be using that anyway. Equally inclusion in a database can't be used for notability purposes because, by their nature, they are going to aim to be as fine-grained as possible.

The text is a separate issue - some keep it trimmed down but I have noticed occasions where it has clearly been lifted straight from here but if there are concerns you can check the contribution history (in another field/media I have dealt with someone flagging a copyright violation on an article when a comparison of the contribution histories showed they'd clearly lifted the text). I have checked around and there aren't any databases I've dealt with which flesh out the details (derived from primary sources) with text from Wikipedia and taking content from other sites, press releases/solicitations (or other publicity blurb). So this is a violation of their policy and if you see such a problem then hit the report button.

Note: By database I mean those specifically configured for indexing comics (so it as fields for issue #, writer, etc. in their tables) and not things like the Marvel Database Projects which is a wiki. (Emperor (talk) 04:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC))

I'm a bit confused by what you are saying - the crux of your point seems to be - it's not reliable because you need to check what it's saying. It's an open wiki with no editorial control or oversight - aren't they explicitly prohibited as sources? Why would we make an exception for this site just because it makes life easier for us? any project could claim the same about wikis that they like, what's the difference? --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Well what I'm saying is you should check every source (as even the publishers can make mistakes) and that the ultimate source should be the comics.

Also it isn't an open wiki. (Emperor (talk) 15:30, 7 November 2008 (UTC))

Yes it is - I open an account yesterday and added information within seconds - there was no editorial oversight (you can't even track your own edits let along anyone else's) and added to two articles. Regards of the underlying software, it fits perfectly our description of an open wiki. It's explicitly mentioned as such on the home page ComicBookDB.com is built by anyone and everyone who wants to help. Fans, creators, publishers, anyone who has information that is useful is welcome to register a free account and start contributing. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The bottom line is though that it isn't an open wiki. An open wiki runs (by definition) on wiki software and can be edited by members of the public without registering an account.

I do agree that it isn't ideal but I wonder if the solution wouldn't be to engage them and suggest they implement a system of editor approval for changes. As you've noted with the strike out, you can identify changes (as I mentioned above it allows you to spot when the content is added) and some things do already require authorisation (like character image addition). There is an editor around who knows more about the comicbook db (they pitched in last time we discussed this) and it may be they can raise such suggestions (although I notice there is a "request feature" button I'm not sure what it does and it might need to be something raised at the community level). (Emperor (talk) 16:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC))

I'd say avoid using as a source whenever possible. Find a better, more reliable source that conveys the same information. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - we should always be looking for those. The problem is that I've yet to find something that allows direct linking to author and character, Places like the Grand Comics Database wouldn't, for example, allow us to differentiate between the Matthew Smiths in comics, for example (a situation that was a pain to tease out here), or characters with the same or similar names (last time this came up someone who knew the GCD better suggested they were working on something more specific, which would be helpful). (Emperor (talk) 16:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC))

I'd say avoid using as a source whenever possible. Find a better, more reliable source that conveys the same information. WesleyDodds

Easier said than done. I've looked and everything collapses back into the primary sources. This is being discussed at Talk:Living Laser, but I'm thinking at this point that the whole "must have secondary sources" tag should not apply to comic-related articles. The logic that claims that any article lacking said SS should be deleted is flawed when considering said articles as at least 90% would be deleted, a proposition that was soundly defeated when proposed on two occasions by a past user. This may have to go higher up the foodchain as I'm thinking a revision of the Wikipedia guideline is necessary. Asgardian (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

If there's no secondary sources, then the character isn't as notable as you think it is, and should be merged to a character list or deleted. However some secondary sources might exist, but might be hard to find (think comic book magazine back issues). In that case, be prepared to do lots of digging and possibly spend a bit of money to gather sufficient sources. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, they are out there, a la Comics Interview and Comics Journal, but are somewhat limited in scope. The only way I can see anyone cracking this nut is to produce an independent encyclopdeia with images, quotes, interviews etc. for every character. A staggering task. Asgardian (talk) 10:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that comicdb.com is not a reliable reference, but as an external link it can be useful. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 18:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's something someone should do, but since it doesn't exist, we don't have adequate sources. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

And as I say over there - just because an article doesn't have secondary sources doesn't mean it doesn't need them. You are still talking about deletion but that isn't what we are discussing - we are discussing the fact it needs better sources. (Emperor (talk) 10:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

V for Vendetta

Hi!

I've made a potentially controversial proposal on Talk:V for Vendetta: I'd like to revert a section back to how it was in April 2006 (when the article was a Good Article nominee). I'd appreciate any thoughts, complaints, etc.

Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 05:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've left my comments over there but a slightly broader issue I want to flag (and which might need some other editors to look it to confirm this) is that neither version comes close to making the B-class criteria (with the themes, in particular, looking like original research). So I think the article has bigger problems. (Emperor (talk) 11:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Marvel Universe

Anyone know if there is a way to view the contribution history for the Marvel Universe pages? Someone has posted a claim for copyright violation at Elsa Bloodstone but it is unclear when the version they have went live. Feel free to leave any thoughts over on Talk: Elsa Bloodstone (Emperor (talk) 13:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Less to assess

As of this moment, there are less than 3,000 articles in Category:Unassessed-Class_Comics_articles. Woo hoo! Not bad considering we have some 15,000 total. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I added Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art‎ and John Warner (comics) recently. :) 71.194.32.252 (talk) 16:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Help selecting an appropriate image for an artist's style

First off, I realise that Chris Metzen is something more of a concept artist than a comic book artist, but he cites comic book artists as inspirations, so I figure that you guys might be able to help me out. I'd really like to get an image that properly displays Metzen's artistic style as he describes it: "heavily influenced by Walt Simonson's and Jim Lee's pencilling styles for form" while preferring the "costuming, themes and general feel of Larry Elmore and Keith Parkinson's fantasy paintings". However, I've not got a clue any of these people's work, but I'm hoping that some people on this project might. I'm rather unconvinced that the current image really meets that description. Could I request some help from people who know at least one of the comic book artists Metzen cites as influences to pick an image from Metzen's official gallery that reflects the description I've provided? One url would provide a lot of help ensuring the best image available is used to display this artist's style. -- Sabre (talk) 21:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered writing Metzen and asking for such a url? So far, I've almost never had a creator fail to answer an email. They love to talk about their craft and they love to promote their work. Doczilla _STOMP! 19:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I have wanted to get in contact with him for past bits (namely a picture of himself, had to get a less than ideal one from elsewhere), but I couldn't find a contact address. The gallery that hosts his work is run by a fellow Blizzard Entertainment employee, and they very much restrict the amount of communication allowed through them. Contacting him through Blizzard Entertainment isn't possible either, the whole system is geared towards product support. He doesn't have a personal site. I wouldn't be surprised if he was open to talking about his stuff, but unless I bump into him on the street (unlikely, he's in the States, I'm in Britain), I just can't get to him. That's why I was hoping you guys might be able to help pick out an appropriate image that meets the described inspirations, my own artistic scrutiny is rather poor. -- Sabre (talk) 19:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Reading over your original thoughts again, I'm not sure it would be appropriate to include copies of any of their work in the Metzen article when you don't know which specific works of theirs influenced him. The article doesn't even have his own art in it. Linked text which can direct people to their articles should suffice. Doczilla _STOMP! 09:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. I only included the artwork as it was recommended by a WP:VG assessment, but you're right, the article doesn't cover his work that well (perhaps not as well as it should) so an image is arguably not needed. -- Sabre (talk) 13:11, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Words to avoid

Anyone noticed an overuse of any particular words in the comics articles?

The one that has started to niggle me is "battles" - with large parts of a FCB being "he battles, then he battles." I have edited most examples I've come across but I thought I should flag this and I just found a good example: Deathlok (if you have Firefox with its search in page feature then hit the highlight button and watch it light up like a Christmas Tree).

So if you find yourself typing "battl..." then think if there is a better way to convey the same information. (Emperor (talk) 15:52, 14 November 2008 (UTC))

Some descriptives will inevitably be used over and over again. However, it can't hurt to use a thesaurus. I suppose that people got sick of writing the word "fights" and tried to find an alternative, which then became overused itself. :-) --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:39, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

CfD notice

• WP:CfD#Current discussions
• WP:CfD#Discussions_awaiting_closure

I haven't posted these on the noticeboard, but I suppose that editors here might be interested. There are several fiction-related categories (which includes comics characters) up for discussion. Some still open from late October. - jc37 15:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I do think that the specific comic-related ones should be listed on the noticeboard by the nominator as some of these have far-reaching implications, for example Fictional comics characters who use magic.

Others:

• Preacher
• Fictional characters who can fly (including the superpower categories)
• Fictional witches including DC and Marvel witches.

They are the ones I spotted - there may be more. (Emperor (talk) 20:07, 14 November 2008 (UTC))

Harvey Kurtzman

The prose in Harvey Kurtzman is totally unaccpetable, but reading it I also wonder if portions of it are copied from another source. Most of the article body was added by an anonymous IP years ago. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Infobox comics creator

There's an ongoing merge discussion on Template talk:Infobox comics creator#Merge into Infobox Person. The proposal seems to insinuate that merging the comics creator infobox template with the person infobox will somehow simply things; I don't see how that's possible. More input in the discussion would be appreciated, it appears to have been open since August. --Kraftlos (talk) 10:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Animal categories

The question has recently come up as to whether certain characters should be included into categories for fictional animals. For instance shapeshifters who turn into an animal, or robots with animal forms. Should a person who turns into a cheetah be in the category "Fictional cheetas"? How about a robot cheetah? How about a cheetah who was given human DNA and is now a humanoid? Are they a cheetah any longer, or a human? Opinions or past talks on this subject would be welcome. Mathewignash (talk) 14:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

(See Mathewignash's talk page for more on this.) - jc37 14:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

OK... having read through the kick off thread...

1. Playing with the "spark" concept is dicey thing. Most of it is supposition since they function as the Transformers' "souls". Going the route of calling them "energy based life forms" feels a lot like OR.
2. Robots are robots and shapeshifters are shapeshifters. They aren't fictional animals of a type, or types, that they are either built to resemble or change into. At best, the Transformers, as an overall category, should be subbed under Category:Fictional robots and Category:Fictional shapeshifters.
3. In general the "Fictional <animal type>" cats should be limited to characters that are that particular animal type. General examples include:
   • Anthropomorphics such as Usagi Yojimbo (rabbit) or Opus the Penguin (penguin)
   • Actual fictional animals such as Zabu (cat)
   • Mutated/altered animals such as Splinter (TMNT) (rat)
4. Alien life forms generally should be excluded from the "fictional animal" cats. While there are exceptions to this, the Transformers by and large aren't one.

- J Greb (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Under this criteria, is "Howard the Duck" a Duck or an alien? Is Bumblebee from the Transformers movie, who turns into a car, to be removed from the "Fictional Automobiles" category because he only looks like a car, but is an alien robot shapeshifter? How about Kitt, technically he's a robot shaped like a car, not a true car. Personally I don't see tha harm of listing an "alien robot who turns into a cat" in the categories of alien, robot, cat AND shapeshifter. If dozens of "alien robot shapeshifter cats" are going to be removed from the category fictional felines, does this justify a new category, robot cats? How many guys in a category do you need to justify one for them? Mathewignash (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

In order:

Category:Fictional aliens (in this case if it looks like a duck, etc., it may not actually be a "duck".); Category:Fictional werewolves; right; Category:Fictional automobiles and Category:Fictional artificial intelligences (since it's a modified car); that leads to large categories that quickly become unmanageable with the other issue of possible WP:OR; not sure that's applicable; and the common thought is 4. - jc37 18:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

(ec)

Howard, at best or worst, falls under the "there are exceptions". IIRC he's been presented as from another planet in the MU and from an alternate reality in various stories.

Werewolves have there own category, ans do werecats. And while I'm not 100% sold on the validity, I can see the reasoning behind those being subbed under wolves and felines respectively since the structure runs both ways in fiction (animals that become more human as well as humans that become more bestial).

With Bumblebee... Yes, I do think that "Fictional cars" is an unreasonable stretch for the character.

And as for a potential Category: Robot cats... that really sounds like a trivial intersection for a category. Especially since they aren't "cats". - J Greb (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so how come the category "fictional cheetahs" can only include cheetas and not shape shifters who turn into cheetas? If we put anyone with a single alternate form into "Fictional shapeshifters" that category would become huge. Seem to me like there should be a difference between someone who can turn into a bunch of stuff (A skrull, a doppleganger, Marvel's Mystique, etc) and someone who just turns from a humanoid/human to a cheetah and nothing else. Mathewignash (talk) 18:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

For insance the current "Fictional cheetahs" category members include

• Cataclysm (Transformers) - Alien robot shapeshifter who turns into a robot cheetah.
• Cheetah (Marvel Comics) - Human hit with an energy beam, gained powers.
• Cheetah (comics) - Human woman in a costume.
• Cheetara - Alien feline.
• Cheetor - Alien robot shapeshifter who turns into a robot cheetah.
• Chester Cheetah - Cartoon character

With strict rules for what's a cheetah, all these would be eliminated except Chester. What good is a category with one member? Mathewignash (talk) 19:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

This is an excellent example of why a list of cheetah-themed characters would be much preferrable to a category. - jc37 19:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Is there a reason the category can't be about "Cheetah themed fictional charcters" then? Mathewignash (talk) 19:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Questionable or non-existant sourcing. It's currently a big problem with in-universe categorisation. Per WP:CAT, such categories need sources in their articles before they can be added to the categories.

That said, I'm fairly sure that most of these categories would be empty if that was more strictly enforced...

So a good rule of thumb for in-universe information is typically: make a list before making a category. That way you're assured of sourcing, and if not, you'll know fairly quickly. - jc37 19:25, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay you make sense here. Thanks. I'm following, but still have questions. Continuing the given example, we could make a category with "Fictional cheetah-themed charcters" and it would have more entires then "Fictional cheetahs" So why not make that one and move all/most of the characters there, for accuracy sake? Mathewignash (talk) 20:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, while such a grouping may seem obvious to you or me, there's a question of whether it's overcategorisation. And there is also the question (still) of sources. - jc37 20:33, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I suppose "cat-themed" characters would be fine. Explain to me though what sourcing would have to do with it? Do I need to quote a source to prove Cheetara or Cheetor are cat-themed characters? Mathewignash (talk) 20:41, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Rather than try to summarise (and thereby flood this page with text), let me instead offer a link. WP:NOR. In particular the section concerning the use of primary sources. - jc37 20:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I realize the articles need sources in general, and no original research, but specifically how does this effect categories? Do I need a source to prove Cheetara is a "Cheetah-themed" chaarcters? Is calling her one original research, or will I need to find a link to an article from the Thundercats show writer saying "I modeled Cheetara after a Cheetah." Mathewignash (talk) 21:42, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Vehicle categories

With reference to the above subject, would characters like Cop-Tur have to change from "fictionals helicopters" to "fictional helicopter-themed characters"? Mathewignash (talk) 20:45, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that it might be a hard sell to suggest that Transformers are "vehicle-themed" or "animal-themed" characters. For the same reasons J Greb noted above. They're robots and shapechangers. For a possible analogy, it might be like trying to suggest that Dracula is a bat-themed character. - jc37 20:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

And also consider WP:OC (mentioned above) - we don't have to have a category for everything (and we shouldn't). Transformers are fictional robots that change shape to look like other things. Beyond that you should use the articles to describe the specifics. Trying to categorise "stuff that looks like other stuff" is a road to frustration (at best). It is also not a great way of classifying things - we don't put the orange in "Things that are spheres" as that is lumping various unlike things together: no one looking at the orange article is going to want to nose around a category containing planets, beachballs, etc. A lot of clever people have looked into the areas of classification, which is why animals are classified by shared traits (not colour - which is why brown bears, polar bears, panda bears, red bears and grizzly bears are all in the same general family), books are classified by subject (not number of pages). So this isn't just over-categorisation, it is bordering on mis-categorisation. (Emperor (talk) 05:49, 16 November 2008 (UTC))

Man-Thing

Can some editors or an admin come to Man-Thing. One editor has hijacked it for his own, and refuses to let other editors changed even a vague word like "highly" in the phrase saying the series was influential. --69.22.254.108 (talk) 21:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Can we get another editor to look the page over as concerns have been raised over the article. You can leave your comments at Talk:Man-Thing#This is a fan page. (Emperor (talk) 23:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Bump. (Emperor (talk) 05:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Oshtur (Marvel Comics)

For some reason, 'Oshtur' redirects here. Why is this the title of the page? I'm assuming someone meant to create a set index article? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Doubtful. See: Talk:Oshtur (Marvel Comics)#Name. Best I can tell someone created the article and over ambiguated and then someone made the top slot redirect there so it wasn't quite so messy. It isn't a word used commonly (or at all) for anything outside of Marvel Comics. (Emperor (talk) 04:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Cool. Now all we need to do is move the article ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. (Emperor (talk) 17:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Outstanding merge requests

List of current Marvel Comics publications, Supreme Power: Nighthawk, and Neo (Marvel Comics species) - anyone care to do the honors? :) 71.194.32.252 (talk) 06:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done the trickier one (the list of current Marvel publication) but would appreciate someone running through the last version of that page and making sure they are all moved over [1].

The other two look simpler and could probably be done with a redirect but I've run out of time to read everything through - I'll check later if no one else has looked them over. (Emperor (talk) 17:29, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Madelyne Pryor infobox image

Could I get more opinions here: Talk:Madelyne Pryor#Main image. There was a revert war going on trying to swap images which I reverted to the long standing one and called for a discussion. Despite that being ongoing it was reverted again (which breaks the references) and now a third image has been introduced. I don't have a preferred image but I'd like a stable one and a consensus to put an end to the back and forth on this.

Also another reminder that this character may be making a return but a lot of speculation keeps being added, jumping the actual revelation in the comics (worse so suggest she is the new Red Queen, some think it is Mutant Zero so there isn't even any consistency to the speculation!!). It seems to have calmed down a bit now more concrete information is emerging but I suspect the authors have at least one twist planned before they make the final revelation. (Emperor (talk) 16:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC))

We now have a fourth image added - this one from a preview of an unpublished comic, an image of a character who has yet to be confirmed as the main Pryor. Any help in resolving this would be appreciated. (Emperor (talk) 19:54, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

Jack Kirby

So I've been reading Mark Evanier's Jack Kirby bio as well as Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow recently, and I think I'm going to do a bit of work on Kirby's article. Anyone know of what other books to check out? WesleyDodds (talk) 04:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Kirby Five-Oh!: Celebrating 50 Years Of The King Of Comics has a variety of commentary and tidbits. Doczilla _STOMP! 07:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Good deal - this article has a lot of potential! BOZ (talk) 18:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Notice Board broken?

I just added a new deletion discussion link to the notice board, but it doesn't show up in the list even after I forced the webpage to refresh. I don't see any errant "noincludes", so I'm not sure what's going on. Can someone please take a look at it? Thanks! (The article I added was The Green Goblin's Last Stand.) --GentlemanGhost (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. (Emperor (talk) 22:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Really? You can see The Green Goblin's Last Stand in the list of current deletion discussions? How bizarre - I still can't. :-( Maybe it's just me. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep it is sitting there waving at me right now. Perhaps you are looking at a cached version - CTRL + F5 will give you a hard refresh. (Emperor (talk) 02:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC))

Yeah, I tried that a couple of times. Still get nothing. That's so weird. But, since it's just me, I won't worry about it. Maybe tomorrow (after I've rebooted) it will show up. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I've experienced similar problems with it in the past. Never could track down why. Ford MF (talk) 20:22, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:39, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

It finally worked right today. But, of course, the discussion is now over, so I moved it to the closed discussions section. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

But, now that I've added another to list, I can't see that one. I can see it here, but not here. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Archenemy needs a major overhall

Archenemy needs a major overhaul since people seem to put their favorite heroes in without any reliable evidence.

Dwanyewest (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I've all but given up watching the article. It's on the verge of becoming an all inclusive list with a minor (ignored) explanation instead of a short list of examples in support of the article. - J Greb (talk) 17:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

With an article like that minor fixes never take - slash and burn is the only option - which is what I've done. I'm now going to try and expand the prose over the next couple of hours - if people have useful sources, let's have them! --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Hum... I can find lots of material outlining various characters as arch-enemies but nothing about the concept in general - so I'm a bit stumped. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Does this article even need to exist? WesleyDodds (talk) 05:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I see it as an extension of dualism, but if there's no scholarly research to that effect, it may be a moot point. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 19:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, even if we do keep it, the subject's too broad to associate it with the Comics WikiProject. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Really? I had always taken the talk page banner to mean that the Comics WikiProject was interested in the article, regardless of whether the entire subject is related to comics or not. Especially with all the overlap between comics, film, and television, there are many articles where only one small section deals with comics, the rest being devoted to other media. I still consider those articles to be of interest to our WikiProject, even its only of a "low" or "bottom" priority. This article, even in its current whittled-down form, still uses multiple examples from comics, so I would think that we would want to track it. If other projects want to take part, that's great. The more, the merrier. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The concept of the archenemy is present in all forms of fiction, so I don't feel the Comics project necessarily needs to tag it. It would be like tagging "antagonist" or "villain". WesleyDodds (talk) 03:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. When you put it that way, I'm inclined to agree with you. I just looked up antagonist, protagonist, hero, and villain. They are all tagged differently, including the WikiProjects for Literature, Mythology, Religion, and, in one case, nothing at all. It seems no one wants to claim it all. (Not that a project banner equates with ownership, but I assume that you know what I mean.) Maybe "archenemy" needs to be redirected or merged with antagonist or villain? Food for thought. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be redirected to Antagonist unless someone can add more substance beyond a dictionary definition to the page. It might be work asking around to see if there are any secondary sources exclusively about the concept of the archnemesis. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

68.80.206.8

Someone might want to take a look at the activity of this ip. (S)he appears to be making a lot of incorrect edits. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

You said a mouthful there. His mis-categorizations of Legionnaire articles are driving me up a wall. Nutiketaiel (talk) 13:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

What's worse is this anon does not communicate with anyone despite the messages left on their talk page. User:J Greb seems to be trailing the anon though. I'm doing the same, but can only keep up for so long ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

List of comic books

Is the "by country" classification the best thing...

Plus, a lot of the Virgin's Indian themed comics are listed as Indian... I would have thought they were UK but ethnically Indian (or "Asian" as they say in the UK) or have I missed the point of the categories... Duggy 1138 (talk) 07:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

IIUC, the ethnicity is reserved for characters as described withing the story. Otherwise it's country of publication if and appropriate publisher cat isn't available. - J Greb (talk) 11:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think there are problems with that, straight "country of publication" would work better, IMHO. Duggy 1138 (talk) 00:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That can run in to parent/sub issues. Most of the publisher "title" and "character" cates are subbed under a nationality. So a "DC Comics title" is a default "American comics title" and a "Marvel Comics superhero" is a default "American comics character". - J Greb (talk) 00:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

But DC sometimes publishes Enemy Ace which would be a German character. The main stories in 2000AD and Judge Dredd: The Megazine is about Judge Dredd who is American not British. Should Wolverine be listed as a Canadian publication. Virgin mostly (through their Shatki line) published "Indian" comics, but did licence the very British Dan Dare. Should any The Jungle Book comic be counted as Indian no matter where is was published.

For matters of sheer simplicity and citability, a comic is officially published in a country whereas the ethnicity of a character has to determined by reading the comic and possibly speculating. KISS, go by country of publication. That's my opinion anyway. Duggy 1138 (talk) 00:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree - the reason the nationality categories bit the dust was because such things are fictional and could be changed on a whim (granted making Dan Dare American would be silly but I'll eat my hat if someone hasn't suggested it at some point!!

Another place possible confusion comes in are the creators. Recently I spotted that Aetheric Mechanics was under the British graphic novel category - I assume the reasoning was that it was British because it was written by Warren Ellis, but under that logic then Superman would have to be listed as American/Canadian/British/French (and probably a few more besides). With few exceptions (see below) it is easy to show the nationality of a publisher and with the right categories the title will usually inherit this from a parent so even if someone moved their company to Canada that can be reflected in a quick change to the parent (and I'm not aware of companies hopping across borders so it has to be rare enough not to worry us too much, we can deal with it when/if it happens).

Actually that isn't the case anymore as "American comics characters" was deleted, as it was being used for both "Characters from American comics" and "Comics characters who are American" (see Category:DC Comics characters). DC Comics titles are by their nature American comics titles as they are published by an American firm.

Virgin Comics is a difficult one to define - Virgin is British, Virgin Comics had offices in the US but they were specifically aimed at the Indian market. I think the key is that they were a co-venture with Gotham Entertainment Group and were based in India (even if their HQ for the comics was in New York). It is the tricky exception and cases are usually more clear cut than that. (Emperor (talk) 01:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC))

Thanks, I forgot the specific wording for the revised "This is a property that belongs to a "Foo" company" category.

As for the various "Enemy Ace" character... there appears to only be the one article about the character created for, only published by, and owned by DC Comics. By definition that's "Characters from American comics" and "Comics characters who are German". If there were an article on the character from 2000 AD, that would be "Characters from British comics".

Long-n-Short with Virgin and CrossGen: Where is the company identified as being incorporated/primarily based? IIUC that would make them "British" and "American" companies respectively. The publisher's intent to cater to a specific external, international, or universal audience is irrelevant. - J Greb (talk) 01:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Didn't Crossgen specifically aim their comics at an international market? Virgin also talked international while mentioning India also talked international sales "With an eye on the rapidly evolving entertainment market (550 million kids under the age of 20 in the next 10 years in India alone), Virgin Comics seeks to create properties infused with a mythic sensibility that resonate with readers and audiences around the world." I still think that where they were published (in Virgin's case be it England or America) should be the issue, not where they were aiming to market to. Gotham clearly has deals with DC, Marvel and other publishers as a republisher it may not be a strong partnership like it had with Virgin but still... I still say the simplest solution is go with country of publication as opposed to a marketing strategy (which may in fact change or fail).Duggy 1138 (talk) 01:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Virgin are based in Bangalore, based on a company that specifically republishes US comics in India (from what it sounds like they approached Beardy Branson to partner with them) with the idea of developing comics for the India comics market (which, in theory, could become the largest in the world - India being well on target to becoming the most populous nation and an economic powerhouse). They were clearly developing other titles as the basis for media properties and having offices in New York (and now California) help get the talent on board and push the titles in potentially large markets. So I don't have any problems with it being described as an Indian comics company. (Emperor (talk) 03:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC))

The indicia of Dan Dare #7 says OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: 594 Broadway NY. Now sure it may be republished in India or Britain, or it may be reprinted from an Indian or British publication. And the Shakti line may be published elsewhere. But the evidence I have says US. Duggy 1138 (talk) 03:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's silly to categorize series by location of publication. This seems better suited to companies, where it's easier to verify and way more relevant to indicated what the country of origin is. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I wondered that myself. It would solve all of the above problems... however, I'm sure it would create some of its own. Duggy 1138 (talk) 05:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

List of Characters published by various comic companies

While moving many of the lists of titles published by various companies to their own page, I've noticed that many or these company pages also include lists of characters published by the company. Together these lists pad out many articles that are in reality just stubs, over-fill otherwise good articles or are just ledt out of the big company articles. I'm not sure that pages for "Lists of ... characters" spin-off pages are needed, I wouldn't recommend deleting them from the pages, but I can see arguments for it... they're borderline trivia, many (but not all) of the characters listed duplicate titles published entries (leading some lists to call the section characters and titles published or something similar. So, does anyone have ideas about what to do with these lists or should be just leave them alone? Duggy 1138 (talk) 01:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

See:

• List of DC Comics characters
• List of Marvel Comics characters

I think a reasonable case could be made for splitting off the characters to their own articles. I certainly think they could be useful, especially where there are characters who appear in tea titles or a range of titles.

That said I know the articles you are talking about and with the earlier comics it is often the case that they had an eponymous title for a character and that was it. Which would mean there would be some weird lists that are almost identical. So judge them on a case-by-case basis - I'd like to see the lists out of the main article so if the titles and characters lists are going to be so similar then there shouldn't really have been two lists in the article in the first place and I'd suggest removing them character one. It'd be worth checking that there is a corresponding category so people looking for a list of sorts can still find something (although the list has the advantage of allowing red links and characters who might never get an article of their very own. (Emperor (talk) 02:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC))

Ah. I thought a table would be pointless, but the DC page proved me wrong. Still, I'm slugging my way through the publications pages ATM, so I don't want to commit to making characters pages too. Duggy 1138 (talk) 03:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Batman (film series) GA

Hey all. :) Just wanted to point this out. Drilnoth, a good fellow by everything I've observed while working with him on the D&D project, has volunteered to take up the GA review for this one as his first. Keep an eye on Talk:Batman (film series)/GA1 and help out where you can! BOZ (talk) 15:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey, it passed! :) Batman & Robin (film) (yeah, I know...) has also been nominated, and you can keep an eye on that at Talk:Batman & Robin (film)/GA3‎ and/or help out where you can. BOZ (talk) 15:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

A given year in comics links

Just to bring it to people's attention, there is an rfc at the MOS which looks to be heading in the direction of deprecating links like 1939 in comics. Given this affects editors in this project, I suggest editors who have an opinion on the utility of such links make their voices heard. A specific link is at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#How_and_when_to_use_.22Year_in_Field.22_links. Hiding T 11:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Just to check... the discusion there is re the use in just the body of the article, right? - J Greb (talk) 11:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

There is discussion regarding using them as piped links, as full links and also in the see also section. It's a very complicated rfc. In fact, there are two competing rfc's in progress. If you can't work out where to place your view, I would suggest it be made in the comments section and you go back and either support or oppose each view as you see fit. There's a section in the first rfc, Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#When_to_link_Year_articles, which may also prove worth reading. In fact, I suggest reading teh whole page, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and working through each option expressing your view. That may better inform both debate and your own opinion. This is a highly contentious issue given there are two competing rfc's in operation, and I would suggest editors make their views known and keep an eye on how consensus forms. Hiding T 12:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Opinions needed

Right now there is a dispute over the infobox image for Brainiac (comics). Opinions and comments are welcome at Talk:Brainiac (comics)#Infobox image. - J Greb (talk) 11:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Also failing:

• Bullseye (comics)
• Solomon Grundy (comics)

Neither of which come even close to satisfying the guidelines. (Emperor (talk) 03:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC))

Possible hoaxer?

Gijimu seems to adding either fan-fiction or plain made-up information to articles - references to a "x-strike" team (who as far as I can see don't exist) and plotlines that, again as far as I can see, never happened/aren't happening. The only "reference" I can find to this stuff is here and what they claim happens - didn't. --Cameron Scott (talk) 01:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Seen out of the print mode [2] they are quoting from Wikipedia and comments further down the page make clear that they are questioning the statements quoted from Wikipedia (saying that X-Strike is both not true and a bit of a silly name - although with parody potential). I suspect they were building up to slapping in an article at X-Strike passed on some fan fiction or "clever" idea they had. Unless this is some oober-seekrit plans at Marvel HQ then I am happy to conclude it isn't real, the motives are more open to speculation but really it doesn't matter as it is vandalism whichever way you slice it (and if it is real it is crystal balling, OR, speculation and all sorts of other things not allowed). (Emperor (talk) 02:59, 26 November 2008 (UTC))

Seems to be editing from an IP as well - the claim seems to be that this X-strike team is formed in Cable Vol 3 issue 3 - as we are now upto issue 8 and none of it happened... --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Still at it - can people watchlist Shatterstar, Nate Grey, Tower (Comics) to prevent additional of fictional information about x-strike --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Citations on "Other media" sections

I've been trying to get people to put citations throughout the articles by adding cite tags. It's been more effective than expected; I've placed the {{issue}} tag in numerous places, and about half of the time so far someone has actually dug up the issues in question to reference them. :) Even when someone removes the tag and I explain that we need an issue citation, the tag will usually either be left alone or resolved. So, I see no reason to stop with that...

However, when I place the {{cn}} fact tag in the "Other media" section, editors will often remove it without citing, or modify the entry and remove the tag but not place a citation. I had assumed that we do need a reference pointing to "so-and-so had an appearance in this TV show/movie/novel/video game", but am I wrong? It might be more difficult to obtain a citation such as that, as opposed to finding an issue where something occured, but I have seen plenty of places where such appearances had been sourced correctly. Am I going about this the wrong way, or am I the one doing the right thing? 71.194.32.252 (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Some recent examples... Issue tags get resolved: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]; Fact tags in "other media" get removed: [9], [10], [11]. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 18:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's worth chasing citation in Other Media. Some stuff it obvious, so finding cites will be easy (Spiderman appeared in Spiderman 2? I think he did.) However, there are a lot of cameos, references and speculation in other media (The guy in the trenchcoat in the background of the crowd scene was John Constantine). So, yes, keep up the adding of CNs and don't let them be edited out without reason. Duggy 1138 (talk) 01:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it is something that should be pursued as quite a few sections (like this and Powers and abilities) are just assumed because it is 'obvious' but they do need... something. The problem is the source is surely something like the credits and is that acceptable? I'm assuming IMDB and TV.com can't be used for direct sourcing and I know of nowhere which offers similar credits that is half as comprehensive. So perhaps add primary sources and drop the IMDB character link into the external links? So I'm not sure if there is a neat solution but it still needs chasing and tagging. (Emperor (talk) 10:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Interviews or respectable comics sites might be a source, they're more likely to have a confirmation of or expert speculation about cameo appearences. Duggy 1138 (talk) 12:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't care how it is souced, just that it gets done. :) We can always look for a better source elsewhere, but getting an inadequate source is better than no source at all (if you can't find a source, you can post damn near anything). So, I'm going to take this as an edorsement that asking for a source is the right thing to do, and when anyone reverts it I will point them here. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 15:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good example. On the Thor article, there are actual cites for the whole "film" section, but the TV and games sections are unsourced. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 15:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I noticed a format that can be used for citing television episodes, at Flatman (comics)#Television. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 22:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Asgardian keeps reverting those TV/VG cites on Thor, but I explained how he can source them using that format. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 22:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Because you present no ratified case. You want the sources, you find and add them. Just tagging is lazy, because you expect someone else to do the work. I've got enough on my plate. Asgardian (talk) 01:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

1. The use of the fact/cn tag doesn't need a "ratified case".
2. Anyone, repeat anyone can tag what they feel is a questionable fact or assertion. It is not incumbent on the tagger to do the leg work to support the item in question.
3. It isn't a case of being "lazy", or at least not something another editor should be using to take a shot, intended or not, at the tagger.
4. Yes, you tend to put primary comic book derived cites into material you add. Good for you. That doesn't mean you are required to do the leg work to find sources for material you are either unfamiliar with or don't have at you "fingertips". If you don't have it or it's something you can't easily add, you can leave it for someone else to add.

Clear enough? - J Greb (talk) 03:35, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh. No sweat. I can nail em for him. I'll just point out here that linking to another Wikipedia article that needs sources won't cut it. We need outside sources,, which I have already found. As I'm in a jovial mood, I'll also point out that said user who started this discussion could register also under a user name, and so source themselves. Appropriate, yes? Asgardian (talk) 08:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

As for me, I would source them if I knew where to find that info. Technically, everything on Wikipedia is supposed to be sourced. If I don't do it, and you don't do it, we have to hope that someone will come along and do it eventually. Adding unsourced info into "Other media" sections is not helpful, because no one will be able to easily look it up. It's not any one editor's responsibility to fix this though, so Asgardian should not feel as if he's being personally challenged with citing these appearances. People add this stuff all the time without sources: [12] 71.194.32.252 (talk) 18:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Psyklop#In other media shows another example of a cited television episode. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 23:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Would anything here need a citation or was I going overboard? 204.153.84.10 (talk) 00:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, it's easy enough to source action figures: [13] 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The Graysons

The Graysons page has been nominated for deletion. More editor opinion is greatly appreciated.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:Fictional special forces

I'm seeing that within the last few days, this category was probably added to a lot of inappropriate articles. Just figuring someone might want to take a look at this. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 01:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

How so? Characters that don't have a mention of special forces in the article or adding it as a parent where a specific type of spec-force? (And I've seen the former happening with the governmental alphabet soup...) - J Greb (talk) 01:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Mostly adding it to characters. Looks like 71.53.206.180 is one of them, but I think it's other IPs as well. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

206.248.248.221 is one as well. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Joker

Hi, I just created a wikipedia page for Joker (graphic novel) on the new graphic novel that was releashed because I didn't seen any page on it. I've started it out, but can anyone help me expand it, as the next time I'll be able to work on the page is Friday. I can do the plot, I just need other people to do reaction, images. etc. Thanks. Deavenger (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Great job starting this off - I have some time tomorrow and will take a bash. --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. This was the first time I created a page, and I would have finished it, but I have lots of homework for tommorrow. I'm hoping to get it to B class by the end of this week. Deavenger (talk) 00:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Chronologies... again

Just wondering, but is Batman modern continuity this really a good thing? It amounts to a "read the trades in this order for the current canon".

- J Greb (talk) 01:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

That is really the kind of thing that we don't want. It is always dangerous to talk about canons unless the creators are specific about what it is and what is and and what isn't. So that is WP:OR. Putting it in in-universe chronological order is against WP:WAF. Probably ticks the box of WP:NOT too.

I wouldn't object to a listing of Batman collected volumes but in order of publication (probably original publication as that'll keep the issues collected in order, which would be less confusing for the layman), this isn't it. (Emperor (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC))

That page made me feel a little sick in my stomach. There are issues with collections in publication order, but any other way does run into OR problems (the Superman collection should come before the Action Comics collection because...). The page as is has to go... and any replacement/restructuring needs careful planning not to be another disaster area. Duggy 1138 (talk) 06:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

when we have cruft-filled unshiftable "fictional history of..." floating around, I've got to say that this is pretty low on my "list of things to do". --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I just created Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Batman modern continuity. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I like reading fictional timelines as much as anyone, but not in a place where we are supposed to be dealing with things in an objective, quasi-academic manner. It really needs to go. Maybe there should be a specific guidelines discouraging the creation of such pages. WesleyDodds (talk) 23:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible, citing sources, to write a good article on the timeline of say, the DCU. Something that would have a line like "These changss would mark the beginning of what would later be called 'Earth-One'"... or are the basically a lost cause. Duggy 1138 (talk) 13:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

That would be worth reading but it should probably be a part of DC Universe, dealing with retcons, etc. and the planning behind them. It might also help clear up confusion for the average reader. (Emperor (talk) 15:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC))

You're right they wouldn't work as timelines at all. But they would be good articles or sections. But a lot of work. Duggy 1138 (talk) 04:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the DC Timeline again... and the problems with these pages just get worse and worse. In DCU 2000 Secret Files & Origins DC published a 12 year (since Superman debuted) timeline. This implied two years since the 1994 Zero Hour 10 year timeline (although I'm sure there were other changes). In the editting, clean-up, resorting... or whatever that happens on these pages, the reference to the 2000 timeline has been moved to the 2006 beginning of 52... these things are just a mess and a multi-editor environment based on a compressed conflicting timeline and referencing multiple continuities... it's never going to work. We need to finally get it deleted or turn it into an actual article, not whatever it is now. Duggy 1138 (talk) 14:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

What page is this duggy? --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Timeline of the DC Universe Duggy 1138 (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

make it stop daddy make it stop! oh my god.. that article is an embarrassment to this project. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Not wishing to add to the pain of someone who is already hurting but... Timeline of the Marvel Universe. If it were possible, that one is even worse as it has no inline sources for statements and is, in effect, a giant tower of original research. I think I know what I'm going to ask Santa for this year, I just hope I've been a good boy. (Emperor (talk) 15:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC))

Although see the deletion discussion. Do we still transwiki? This seems more the kind of thing that should be at the DC/Marvel Database Projects as it does violate WP:WAF. (Emperor (talk) 16:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC))

It's the usual nonsense "but it's got lots of bluelinks!" "one day far in the future, someone will rewrite this article!" and so on. Transwiki seems a good idea. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd be all up for someone nominating these articles for deletion again. I think the problem the first time around was that I didn't put it in the proper deletion category from the get-go, which meant few people who weren't direcly associated with the pages saw the discussion. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I just had a horrible thought on how to fix the timeline. It does solve all problems and it will look a mess, but it might be better. Basically: tell the multiple timelines in order.

• Original Universe, Kronas goes back in time and accidentally creates:
• The Multiverse:
  • Earth One timeline.
  • Earth Two timeline, etc.
• Post Crisis Universe timeline (although, admitedly this part will be messy)
• Post Zero-Hour timeline
• Post Infinite Crisis:
  • New Earth timeline.
  • Earth-51:
    • First timeline.
    • Second timeline.

It will be messy. It will have gaps. It will be huge. But it won't have the level of guesswork, OR, assumptions, etc. Of course, they'll be there because these things are never exact, but it will fix many of the problems, including the forcing together of timelines and the focus on the current timeline. Duggy 1138 (talk) 04:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem does this doesn't take into account DC's fictional timeline before they came up with the multiverse, which didn't happen until about 1959-1960. Before then, the general idea was "Aw the kids won't remember there was another Flash character!" WesleyDodds (talk) 11:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the "Golden Age" Timeline would be the Multiverse/Earth-Two timeline. I know one doesn't perfectly match the other, but it seems the "best" place to put it. Duggy 1138 (talk) 12:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

But there wasn't an Earth-2 timeline before "Flash of Two Worlds", since Earth-Two was itself a retcon in order to allow Jay Garrick and Barry Allen to team up. WesleyDodds (talk) 13:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and a lot of the Golden Age stuff doesn't mesh with what is called Earth-Two. However, the Golden Age stuff is usually retroactively applied to Earth-Two. Does that mean that the Earth-Two Timeline will have a complex real-world introductory paragraph? Yes, and good, it lessens the inuniverse taint.

And, yeah, the CoIE retcon is a retcon, but these timelines are full of retcons. Elements of Superman's GA origin didn't appear until Superman #1, so technically they could be considered retcons. A strictly-by-release-date timeline just doesn't work.

Not that my way completely works, but is certainly "better." Duggy 1138 (talk) 13:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a few problems that I see:

• Determination of what events to list. Not just which section they go in, but what should go in to begin with.
• And then, what slots into which section. Where is the "line" drawn for the Golden Age? Earth-Two? Post-CoIE? and so on.
• Is there to be repetition of events in subsequent sections. For example, the Wayne murder could be listed in each chronology.
• What type of sourcing is going to be used? If it's just the comics, we're walking into OR. Most of the secondary sources that I'm aware of are, in essence, fan essays/assumptions, so are there any reliable secondary sources?
• Would the time lines include "intermediate" retcons? Examples: The LSH re-Boots and.or Hawkworld.

- J Greb (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Point 1 is a problem with the entire concept of Timelines. That isn't going to fixed and will probably kill any attempt to do one.

Point 2 Earth-Two is hard as it isn't exactly the Golden Age... plus all of the problems defining when ages beginning and end anyway. Post-CoIE is problematic because of the delayed restarts... yeah.

Point 3 There is repeat material, sure. I'd limit each section to references in that continuity. If, the Post-Infinity Crisis New Earth comics have made no reference to the Wayne's death, then you don't add it to the list... otherwise, sure, a lot of stuff will appear on multiple timelines. It has to. Better, I think than having 4 different universe versions of events forced into a single timeline.

Agreed on Point 3, that's the problem with these timelines.

Some of that stuff is easy, some of it is hard. The possibility of adding everything but "later retconed out by..." exists.

I'm not trying to say this answers all the questions, but I think it answers some, and highlights some of the fundamental flaws in the concept that may not be possible to get past.

Duggy 1138 (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Batman RIP needs the plot summary rewriting.

Anyone want to have a go at sorting out the "every page is described" plot summary at the RIP article? I'll do it if nobody else will but.. well people get unhappy with my two paragraph stubs. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hell, if you could cut it down to a paragraph that would be admirable. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That would be easy - the aftermath would be the fun part. :-) --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, let the fun begin... --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Comics in the public domain

I was reading a discussion at [[14]] which, combined with this upenn.edu page, seems to be saying that the first two issues of Whiz Comics (and some other comics) are in the public domain. Anyone have a clue? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I tend to fall back on "Out of copyright only if published prior to 1923 (is it 75 or 85 years?). Still under it after that year unless there is good evidence otherwise." And "good evidence" would be a published work spelling out when the character(s) were first copyrighted and when that lapsed or abandoned. - J Greb (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm not a lawyer, but I think I'm finding evidence that the first two whiz comics are in the public domain, and a lot of other less known comics. For instance, that upenn site lists Time magazine as having issues printed before January 29, 1934 as being in the public domain. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Time-magazine-woodwin.jpg says the same thing except it has the date July 6, 1936. Some superman stuff is in the public domain, see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Fleishersuperman.jpg and Superman (1940s cartoons). I'm posting this in a number of places trying to find someone who knows. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The Flescher films aren't a good example. IIUC, since Supes and Lois are still covered entirely by copyright, the only portions of the films that are clearly in the PD (the (c) on those was either allowed to lapse or could not be extended) are the sections without the licensed characters appearing.

The dicey thing is that the companies may have been doing different thins or had other concerns when particular issues or characters hit the renewal marks. The Fawcett characters and publications may have been missed or they may not have. As strong as Penn may be, I honestly think that we need an exact copyright determination if 1) the information is going into an article as definitive fact and 2) an image is going to be uploaded to the commons. - J Greb (talk) 01:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Well it's complicated. Supes and Lois are trademarked, which is different from copyright, but that's why you can't use supes and lois yourself. Non DC affiliated companies produce VHS and DVD copies of the Fleisher cartoons, I believe, but they can't do any other Superman related products. I don't think they could splice the cartoons into new stories, even, although I don't fully understand why. You can do that with non-trademarked stuff that's PD.

That upenn site may not be reliable, too, I don't know. They seem to have scanned the official copyright renewal pages, this one has whiz comics starting at issue 3. The rules for all this are complicated. If a foreign version was published, or if it was republished before '67, that might effect it. DC didn't take over Fawcett's characters until 1972, so I'm still hopeful. I've asked at WP:NFC and WP:LAW and commons so hopefully someone will have a definitive answer. The more I look into this, the more it seems like Whiz #2 (there was no Whiz #1) is PD, but like you say, it's dicey. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah... That page appears to be incomplete. It looks like it is covering only part of the publications originally copyrighted in 1940 and "re-upped" in 1967.

And IIUC, DC didn't acquire full rights to the Fawcett characters until c1991. From 1972 they were licensing the use of the Marvel family. - J Greb (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 1.0

I was nosing around and stumbled across this, although it says no contact was made there is a little discussion here.

This came up when we dealt with Wikipedia 0.7 and suggested we had better start now so we can identify what needs the most attention. We did kick around ideas but I've been a little on and off recently for various reasons, so thought this was the perfect opportunity to raise the issue again. (Emperor (talk) 01:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC))

An article that still needs work, but seems like a top priority to me is Peanuts. It also seems like we ought to get Spider-Man up to a higher standard. As for articles that already have been rated as featured articles, I think it's a must to include Superman and Batman. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Marauders (comics)

Would anyone mind checking out the Marauders article? DCIncarnate removed almost all of the information from it. --DrBat (talk) 16:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(sigh) Seems like the same old, same old - Gut an article but don't bother either providing an explanation as to why the content was removed (no edit summaries) or propose/discuss what is likely to be a disputed edit or series of edits (no talk page comments). - J Greb (talk) 16:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I did add edit summary. Also, all I removed was the members list. That's about it. DCincarnate (talk) 14:17, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

DCI, you're edit summaries amount to "I'm still taking stuff out, is this better?" And that was after your no-comment flattening was reverted. Considering that you're now skating close to the 3RR and more than 1 editor is having problems with your unilateral removal of sections of the article, do the following: Slow down; On the article talk page outline what you feel needs to be fixed/changed/cleared out; Work with others.

If needs be, a note about the 3RR can be left on you talk page if you don't feel it is

"official" enough for an editor to point this out to you here.

- J Greb (talk) 23:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Abandoned portals

There seem to be a number of abandoned Comics related portals floating around. Before nominating them for MfD, I'ld like to hear some opinions: Portal:Image Comics, Portal:DC Comics, Portal:Marvel Comics, Portal:Dark Horse Comics and Portal:Archie Comics. Fram (talk) 15:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Metaseries

Locke & Key is described as a metaseries (a 6-issue limited series, with announced 24 issue series and a graphic novel). The article was stripped down and I put the material back in but I now see the same editor added Locke & Key: Welcome To Lovecraft, which focuses on the 6-issue limited series.

The justification is that it is based on The Dark Tower (comics), where each of the three arcs gets its own page and it is clear The Stand (comics) is going the same way. The link seems to be that the lead on these articles is being taken by Steven King fans (Joe Hill is his son) and I can't think we have done anything similar with equally long series (e.g. The Invisibles.

Thoughts? (Emperor (talk) 15:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

Just for comparison purposes this is what the main Locke & Key article was like before I put the removed material back in [15]. (Emperor (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

While biased—being the editor in question—I would state my preference towards the separate pages for story arcs approach. While this certainly doesn't work for the traditional monthly comic, it does appear to allow non-traditional metaseries to better catalog information concerning to each limited series. Hornoir (talk) 16:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I have never heard this term "meta-series" - before? I don't understand what is different between this and traditional interconnecting mini-series such as the hellboy series from dark horse? Looking at the Dark Tower one - it states there are 30 issues - isn't that WP:Crystal? --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I think metaseries is a rather common term in comics these days, indicating a series of limited series that interconnect. Hellboy and B.P.R.D. are a metaseries, technically. While I didn't create or have anything to do with The Dark Tower entry (I'm not a Stephen King fan thus have not read the comics… though the Jae Lee art did tempt me), Marvel announced it would be a 30 issue series of mini-series in advance; thus not a WP:Crystal since it is verifiable. Hornoir (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Worth noting that the other metaseries (I mentioned The Invisibles and Hellboy and B.P.R.D. have come up - to which we can add Seven Soldiers) don't have separate pages for the elements as a matter of course the ones that exist (like a couple of the Hellboy ones) demonstrate notability in their own right (awards, etc.). Seven Soldiers doesn't even have its own article, let alone individual articles on the different series (although I do feel it should be split off). Bearing in mind WP:PLOT and WP:WAF there isn't much to the The Dark Tower (comics) sub-articles beyond plot and little to justify a separate article for each. Not that they can't reach a point where they'd have to be split up, but as it stands the main justification would be because they hold too much plot - which is really an argument for trimming the plot.

On a sidenote: I have previously raised the fact that we don't really have an infobox that can cope with metaseries, stories told in anthologies, etc. and I we got quite a few ideas together (and I think one is in the planning stages). Such a box might help smooth over some of the problems with trying to impose a comic book title box on such series. (Emperor (talk) 20:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

Sorry if this is a silly question - I thought that with releases by major publishers, they were notable by their release? If they aren't we should delete about 50% of our content in regards to mini-series. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean - not every single publication deserves its own article. This came up, for example, over the Orion mini-series, which is dealt with perfectly adequately in the main article. If it had won a lot of acclaim and awards it would be difficult to accommodate that in the character article. This is especially underlines in relation to these "metaseries" the information can largely be contained within the single article (like The Invisibles where the story is told over three limited series). This goes double for The Dark Tower (comics), for example, which is one 30-issue limited series with 5 story arcs and each story arc is being given its own article but the bulk of the individual articles is plot, which is pretty much what you'd get if each one-shot, series or graphic novel got its own series just on the fact it exists. We a ran into this issue where people started articles on each Ultimate Spider-Man story arcs. Also what J Greb says below (22:55, 9 December 2008, just in case he tries to sneak something else in to catch me out): (Emperor (talk) 01:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC))

2-ish¢...

In general, an article every arc for a title/series (for shorthand here: The Amazing Spider-Man is a titles, "Halo Jones" is a series), let a lone each issue, is outside of the scope of the general Wikipedia guidelines. Regardless of the character(s), publisher(s), and or creator(s) involved. Most of these would tend to get compressed down in to an article on the "home" title/series.

Limited series can, and should be handled in the same way: compressed into an article on the "metaseries" or "overarching storyline". This isn't going to work with every limited series (and that's side stepping Cameron's side question ATM...), but there are clear cases where it should be the starting point. The "Ultimate Galactus Trilogy" is a fairly good example of this. As painful as this may be for some, things like The Gunfighter, The Stand, and Locke & Key should start out as an article on the over all story arc and, in the King material, adaptation instead of an issue by issue plot summary. If one section of such an article, or the entire article, gets to large, then though can be given to splitting it by "sub-series".

Side though #1: With the King re-works... It strikes me that the articles should be focusing on the production of the comics, the importance of the creative people involved, and the deviation from the books rather than doing just an expanded plot summary that wouldn't fly in the article on the original books.

Side though #2: As for Cameron's question... Yes and no. Some of the stuff DC and Marvel have put out is/was strictly to take up space. But it becomes a case by case evaluation. And some of stuff on the "fringe" may need to be compiled down into lists of "Other" or "Minor" limited series... but we'd have to find the "fringe" and come to a consensus that we actually want to make that a threshold point.

- J Greb (talk) 22:55, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I—as the original and sole author—have placed a Speedy Deletion template on Locke & Key: Welcome To Lovecraft. After reading the handful of comments from those that chimed in, it is my belief that the separate story arc entries does not conform with the spirit of Wikipedia. I'll work in the future to make the main article more thorough and encompassing. Thanks to all for their shared opinions and patience with this "dispute". — Hornoir (talk) 23:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The Cheetah

Like I asked User:Emperor yesterday, does anyone think that this redirect would be better off targeting Cheetah? Or is the character that notable? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it should go to Cheetah. Nutiketaiel (talk) 19:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned on my talk page I think The Penguin and The Joker make sense going to Penguin (comics) and Joker (comics) respectively, as they'd occupy the top slots if it were not for WP:NCC/THE but they should have {{redirect}} tags to pick up anyone who might be lost and point them in the right direction.

Cheetah (comics) is much less notable and I'd doubt it would occupy the top slot if it was allowed and I think the best parallel is with The Ventriloquist which is a disambiguation page including links to Ventriloquist (comics).

I am unsure if this kind of reasoning is too subjective and we should redirect them all to the specific disambiguation page but we do make this judgement all the time about if something deserves the top slot or if it should be a disambiguation page so I don't think it is a big problem. If someone were to find something that was equally worthy of the top slot for The Penguin or The Joker then we could look into it and come to some consensus on it, on a case-by-case basis. (Emperor (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

Well, I can see how it works for both sides. There's also The Flash, The Batman, The Green Lantern and The Superman going to their respective character pages. Then there's situations like The Iron Man and The Beetle which take you to a dab. Is it really a good idea to have The Cheetah target Cheetah? I can't seem to find a precedent for such a change. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The Superman? A bit of an odd one. That aside you can see that there are others that could equally with "The Iron Man" (and he is usually known as Iron Man) and there are The Beatles (and the VW Beetle?), so there is clearly potential for confusion there. The Cheetah is trick as I can't see much that would be easy to confuse with it there although it is possible the vehicles could be). I think the test is, if you saw the link out of context would you be able to tell where it'd go? Thanks to the appearances in various high profile media you would for Penguin and Joker, the average/general user might not for Cheetah. However, it is tricky. Ultimately, if it is picked up with {{redirect}} it might not be a big deal as it only adds an extra click to people's journey (not a big bucket of confusion). (Emperor (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

Guess I'll do that. How's this look:

"The Cheetah" redirects here. For the Marvel Comics character, see Cheetah (Marvel Comics).

Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That is tricky as it doesn't help people who have arrived here not looking for the comics. The hatnote at The Joker does. You'd need {{redirect6}} for that. (Emperor (talk) 01:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC))

Got it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep that works. The only other option would be to make Cheetah (comics) a set index but the DC character is more notable than the Marvel one. Obviously if someone has a valid objection we can change it but that should help avoid any problems or confusion. (Emperor (talk) 03:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC))

Tis the season to be guessing.

With Dark Reign looming and changes in all sorts of line-ups and new teams we are going to see quite a bit of guesswork. I notice Tenebrae has already reverted changes to Solo (Marvel Comics)‎, Ant-Man (Eric O'Grady) and Black Widow (Marvel Comics)‎ and I'm sure we'll see more. From the solicitations it does look like O'Grady, Ghost (Marvel Comics) (although seemingly a different looking one) and Black Widow (Yelena Belova) are new members of the Thunderbolts but I know of no source to confirm this. The line-up for the Dark Avengers is clearer from the images available but it isn't 100% clear who some of them are under their costume (Hawkeye?). Looking around I found this thread which clearly demonstrates how much is till up in the air. Diggle has 'confirmed' some of the Digglebolts line-up via Twitter/Facebook (Belova, Ghost, Headsman (comics) [16], O'Grady and Paladin (comics)) but I'm not counting that as a reliable source (and, as far as I'm aware, Solo has only been mentioned as one of many possibilities). We'll need either something more official from the creators or the actual comics before leaping in at the deep end with these changes, ditto the other teams. (Emperor (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC))

Oh joy... (And Gobby just got a "same costume but new, Dark Reign image" infobox change...) - J Greb (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes that does underline the other problem beyond the speculation - it looks like nearly all those Digglebots have a revamped look and so we also need to keep an eye out for "new for the sake of newness" infobox image swapping (everyone should feel free to revert that kind of thing when they see it).

Also watch out for speculation on who the Iron Patriot is as he is going to be a major player in the Dark Avengers (I've watchlisted the red link in case anyone tries setting up a page or a redirect before it is clear - it'd be worth anyone who is interested putting the links I've given on their watchlist, along with Green Goblin and Thunderbolts (comics)).

And finally, while it looks like Belova will be back in the spotlight and a split seems in order I think we should put that off until we have more information (and probably an issue in hand) as you don't want to do a split based on speculation and find out Diggle throws a Saving Private Ryan opener at us where half the characters get slaughtered. I suspect the split is inevitable but I'd rather hold off as long as possible so we don't get any nasty surprises. The issue where the changes take place is Thunderbolts #128 which is on sale at the end of January - if we can hold off until it is out (or there abouts) we'll have more solicitations and interviews and the like which will give us some idea if everyone is sticking around for now. (Emperor (talk) 19:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC))

I've removed the speculation about the line-up for Dark Avengers - while it isn't unreasonable to start an article on such a core Marvel title (it is inevitable) we can't just add guesswork based on their solicitation and "clues". (Emperor (talk) 01:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

I'm tempted to suggest {{Infobox future comics}} since IIUC it's been touted as either an mini or ongoing series, not just a team... - J Greb (talk) 01:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

(Tempted enough to have actually done it... - J Greb (talk) 01:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

No worries. I suspect, in the long run the team infobox is the way we'll have to go (unless we get some kinda fancy team/title infoboxes? :) ) as it is more general but, given the fact that the team hasn't yet been seen we can decide that later.

Also I've removed the Dark Avengers info from Solo and Black Widow - looks like this is going to be... interesting (and I have no idea where the Solo information is coming from apart from a vague guess which I don't think anyone has said has any merit). (Emperor (talk) 02:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

My bad. :) I was hoping that whoever put those in there originally could find a source or something. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No problem - the Solo one is really a wild guess (based on no evidence) and, while Yelena Belova is pretty much confirmed, it is about what we can prove not what we know and I've yet to find a solid source (and I'm not going to be the first person to try and suggest Twitter is a solid source). (Emperor (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC))

Glad to stay my esteemed colleagues keeping atop things! Being as how Wikipedia isn't a news magazine (there's Wikinews for that), I can offer this to my fellow editors who might need some ammunition to combat any well-meaning rumormongering or poorly sourced cites: Remember the Wikipedia deadline! --Tenebrae (talk) 07:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thunderbolts images

This is something that has bubbled away for a while and really needs addressing properly so I have started a discussion here: Talk:Thunderbolts (comics)#Image Problems. (Emperor (talk) 02:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC))

Date linking heads up

Lightbot is up an running through infoboxes again.

Right now it is targeting markup such as [[Month Day]], [[Year in comics|Year]] and removing the "Year in comics".

I doubt it will hit Month, Year combos, but it does bring up a question... Why are we linking to articles on months or specific days for cover dates for series/arc runs or first appearances?

- J Greb (talk) 16:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Doctor Strange

The former Sorcerer Supreme [17]? Since when? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Jennifer Kale

Need some other opinions on this edit. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 17:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it - claims about living figures - even in that context, need sources. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That's where I was coming from. Looking for examples of why a writer makes apparent mistakes and is therefore unreliable for canon seems like a BLP violation. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 01:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping an eye on that. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 06:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

assistance needed - Secret Invasion

Secret Invasion needs massive amounts of clean-up and I need massive amounts of help doing it - discussion on how to proceed started here --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I did a few cuts, but the plot summary is a monolith I wouldn't dare tackle head-on without reading the series first myself. Nonetheless, from what I've gathered online, it seems like you could sum up all eight issues in a paragraph. Decompression, folks! WesleyDodds (talk) 08:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I tried last night and if I can summon up the energy, will try again later - it's just so.... big!. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Plot summaries in general

The Secret Invasion article is one of the prime examples of the need for more stringent maintenance and care when addressing plot summaries in comics articles. With comics articles, there are editors who want to detail everything that happens in a story, which runs into problems that guidelines about writing about fiction on Wikipedia address in full (particularly copyright violations and in-universe focus). This is also something we're dealing with back and forth at Final Crisis, which isn't even finished yet (can't anyone wait another two months until it's finished to attempt writing a proper plot summary?). Worse yet, I've read at basically every major comic book news site at one point or another comments by people who read Wikipedia articles in order to keep up with a book's storyline. This is a major problem. We should definitely take more cues from film articles, where plot summaries by and large are pretty well-written and don't overwhelm the articles. While there are several guidelines for writing plot summaries on Wikipedia, what can we do specifically to alleviate these problems in comics articles specifically? WesleyDodds (talk) 05:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

There are some possibilities, but there really aren't community friendly, and I've got a sinking feeling they would need to be applied across all the comics articles, not just limited to the event stories.

I think the first two questions are:

1. Which types of editors are involved in adding/keeping/defending bloated plot summaries? That is, is the material coming from IPs or registered editors.
2. Is it the majority of editors of that type that are pushing the inclusion?

We may also want to ask how Films is able to keep its discipline with plot summaries and speculations.

From there there are options... hopefully more than I'm coming up with. - J Greb (talk) 14:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Navboxes again...

{{Wolverine}}... something that needs some opinions voiced... - J Greb (talk) 02:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I have also been having "fun" with {{Hellboy}} - it should exist but not as a list of names of series, decked out in an eye-gouging red. (Emperor (talk) 02:35, 11 December 2008 (UTC))

Also {{Marvel Cosmic}} has an awful lot of space and that centring doesn't help matters either. It might be OK as an infobox, but it still makes me wonder if infoboxes need to be proposed first as they are springing up al over the place and a lot of them are pretty poor. (Emperor (talk) 16:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC))

Unnecessarily splitting hairs?

I have to say I find the existance of Lana Lang (Smallville) baffling and unnecessary. Thoughts?WesleyDodds (talk) 06:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I like it. The comics version might have trouble with WP:NOTE, but at least this one has its refs. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you think it should be merged with the comics Lana? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs)

Yeah, and Smallville-related articles. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Devil's advocate:

If the article expands on material specific to the show (writer's treatment of the character, actor's input, reasonable plot summary of the character story lines, etc) then an article separate from the "main" character article or a "In other media" subarticle is warranted.

Keep in mind that we tend to flatten the IOM sections and articles to the point where "Appeared in Show (Year), played by Actor." is deemed acceptable and to hell with any further information.

Does this mean we should have a half dozen articles for characters that are essentially the same in the adaptations? No. Nor does it mean that there should be separate articles for "one shot" appearances. But there just may be room for such articles with recurring characters within television shows that diverge significantly from the source. And almost all of the recurring characters in Smallville fall into this category.

- J Greb (talk) 11:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

There is Characters of Smallville, which could be devoted to the different iterations of characters who aren't original creations for the show. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And that's all well and good for "minor" characters - 1 shots like Myx or the upcoming Legion, minor deviations such as Ma and Pa Kent, or "filler characters" which have recurred but here is really nothing to expand on. But once you get to the characters that are recurring, substantial roles - be they adaptations of DC character or created specifically for the show - if there is sufficient citeable, reliable material, the character should be moved out into its own article.

Another thing to consider - How much does compressing and article like Lana Lang (Smallville) minimize, or trivialize, the subject? And that's what will be done to force it into a character list or an IOM section. - J Greb (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

List of characters in Watchmen

Hey, I've just performed some bold redirecting of the articles for Watchmen characters after leaving merge tags on the articles back in October. The articles overwhelmingly consisted of plot description, which some info at the bottom of each page about the differences in the upcoming film. As I did extensive research on the story for the Watchmen Featured Article Review, I did not find enough material to justify keeping the character pages as separate articles, with the possible exception of Rorschach (comics), which I let be for the moment. However, List of characters in Watchmen is a mess in of itself, and I would appreciate any help in cleanup anyone has to offer (that said, I wouldn't be above redirecting that list to Watchmen itself, since the article details the main characters quite extensively using secondary sources). WesleyDodds (talk) 12:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

So with the characters gone (yay!), does Template:Watchmen need to exist? indopug (talk) 12:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

After rearranging the template, it looks pretty useless without the character links (and what was up with splitting them into teams and duplicating character links?). Category:Watchmen characters should go too, especially since there isn't a main Watchmen category. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been through and adjusted the ex-articles/redirects so they are still properly categorised and have reasons added.

I'd imagine the list of characters is worth keeping as there is more background (out-of-universe material) to the characters that can be added rather than just retelling the plot. If anyone objects to the merging then they can expand the section in the list (not with plot!!) and then propose a split. (Emperor (talk) 23:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

I am curious about these merge tags as I can't see any discussion beyond a merge tag someone added to Hooded Justice (which makes sense). I still think it'd be a better idea to expand the sections in the character list but without a robust discussion I can see some people wondering what happened. (Emperor (talk) 23:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

Question: as this is no longer a mere list of articles, should the article be retitled "Characters in Watchmen" or something along those lines? WesleyDodds (talk) 03:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The Featured Article Characters of Carnivàle looks like a good template to follow. Are there any others examples available? WesleyDodds (talk) 05:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I could have sworn it was titled List of Final Fantasy VIII characters, but that was moved to the "Characters of X" format in March 2007 before its FAC [18]. No objections here. hbdragon88 (talk) 05:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Comics and comic titles

Should Category:French comics and Category:French comics titles be merged? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

No. The latter is the broad category for the whole topic (why it also includes writers and artists) and the former is for the specific comics. It does look like most of the categories in Category:French comics should be moved to more specific categories, as such categories should be kept pretty empty (expect for things that just don't work in more specific areas). So it needs a clean-up not a merge. (Emperor (talk) 19:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC))

DC Crisis topics editors: thanks for your good work

Please pass on my thanks to individual article editors with a link to here as you think appropriate.
Not counting TV and movies, I've been out of the DC book universe for years. I recently watched Smallville on TV, and then decided to catch up with the canon DC book plots and publication news on Wikipedia. I was particularly interested in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and how it came out after all the tachyons had settled and the fan money was spent.
Big deal. Death isn't what it used to be - now superheros can die and return from the dead just like the supervillains. Yet what they risk now is a sort of Orwellian de-existence in the Earth-prime universe.
Like millions of others in the DC mainstream, I'm a fan of Superman, Green Lantern, and Flash, in about that order. I know them, so I didn't read their main articles. It may be of some interest to editors to see the order in which I read these WP articles to catch up:

1. Smallville
2. Superboy#Legal_status
3. Crisis on Infinite Earths
4. Golden Age of Comic Books
5. Limbo (comics)
6. Hal Jordan
7. Carmine Infantino
8. Sinestro Corps War
9. Superman-Prime
10. Flash (Jay Garrick)
11. Flash (Barry Allen)
12. Mogo
13. Power Ring (weapon)
14. Kyle Rayner
15. Guardians of the Universe
16. Ganthet
17. Sayd
18. New Gods

The Wikipedia descriptive text was enjoyable. The probable artwork as suggested by the books I read years ago, plus the new covers, popped into my mind as I read along.
I notice that Sinestro Corps War was a DC publication hit, and that's probably why it's a WP featured article. The cover art of SCW #1 really makes that article.
I see above that Hal Jordan is slated to be condensed. Well, maybe that's a good idea for the encyclopedia, but fortunately I was in the mood for excessive detail and got there before the axe fell. Obviously remove repetition. A good way to keep the article swiftly readable yet keep minor details that fans like me want, is to put them into footnotes (change "References" to "Notes and references").
There was a historic kid fan argument about whether Supes or GL was more powerful. Why not mention it somewhere in Crisis:...? I guess a few of those kids got themselves hired by DC to answer that question. And who'd have figured speedsters were even in the running _(sorry) for taking down a Kryptonian?
I was entranced when I first encountered the New Gods storyline. I didn't notice they were DC - Kirby was, of course, too leading edge for them. Being DC characters, Darkseid ultimately couldn't stay out of the Guardians' emerging color corps universe (just perfect for comic art!)
Btw, in the Power ring article, its willed green constructs are discussed, but fails to discuss why GL's power ring-made costume isn't entirely green. Milo 13:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Art Pinajian needs attention

The current article appears to be a copy and paste text dump, probably from a copyrighted source; the subject should definitely have a proper article. Postdlf (talk) 14:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Citations in Other Media sections

I give up.  :) I had previously mentioned that I was trying to get people to cite movies, television episodes, novels, and whatnot in comics articles, but I have been met with confusion, and overt refusal (by removing the citation templates) more often than not. So, unless there is strong support here for me to continue doing so, I'm retiring from that.

On the other hand, the other issue (so to speak) that I brought up at the time, placing {{issue}} citation tags on unsourced text, has definitely met with at least moderate support. I see no reason to stop doing that, and people are generally far more understanding and helpful as far as that goes. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 01:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that the reasoning is that the movies (or whatever) themselves are the (primary) source. Like in this Hellion example. It's a bit of a problem. Maybe it just looked like Hellion, or maybe the credits say "Hellion voiced by John Smith". Basically, the source is implied, and we allow that, at least until we reach a new consensus. Either way, a ref to the media isn't going to fix that problem. Another example are television episode articles. We don't require references for the plot sections, because it's "clear" where the info comes from. If you're finding success with getting issues cited, but not external media, I would focus on the issues. On the other hand, if it just says they appeard in a show, but not which episode, a tag may be in order. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point; often enough I just see "This guy appeared in this series", but sometimes we do get an actual episode mention. There is a {{cite episode}} template though. Thanks! 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Rorschach (comics)

WesleyDodd has said that the reason why this article hasn't been redirected to the list of characters page is because there might be more out-of-universe information than the other characters.

The question is: Where?

I'm a university student, so I get access to some pretty good databases – scholarly stuff, newspapers, encyclopedias, that sort of thing. I typed in "Rorschach" and "Watchmen" into Academic Search Elite and into a more specific literature database, and I get nothing. Nothing. Zero. Nothing.

The only hit I got was the "sympathetic" New York Times article about Moore (used in the Watchmen article), which is a trivial mention. The context used is decribing some of Moore's works, such as V and "the troubled vigilante Rorschach."

i'm all for improving the article, but I haven't a clue where to start. I thought that there'd be a lot of hits, a lot of discussion about Rorschach. hbdragon88 (talk) 01:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I have the sources, although I'm still unsure if there's enough to warrant a separate article on the character with them. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I did notice Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test (ISBN 0470396857), out next month, which might be handy. Then again I have read similar books and the often contain essays with a tenuous connection to the title topic and then use this as a hook to bang on about their favourite topic, so don't hold your breath. (Emperor (talk) 04:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC))

The Comic Bloc Forums

Several months ago I nominated Anarky for FA status. During this process, several editors questioned the verifiability and notability of my sources. Specifically those comic book websites which provided reviews of comics and interviews with industry professionals. Eventually I carried their questions to a topic on this discussion page in an effort to satisfy their inquiries. I should like to continue that earlier dialogue now; this time on the matter of comic book forums in which industry professionals take an active role in posting. I raise this point because recently Fabian Nicieza, author of Robin #181, December 2008, commented on several plot points of the issue in response to reader outcry on a forum post on The Comic Bloc.com. Naturally, this is of high encyclopedic value to the publication history of Anarky, as this is the first time the character is being used in several years, and this is being touted as his "return" to DC comics. This is the second attempt at an Anarky reboot, and the decisions that went in to it our of possible future interest -- presuming it doesn't turn out to be trivial down the road. The commentary also concerns General (DC Comics), a character which is being promoted to the arch-nemesis of Robin. All of this could possibly be of interest to comic book readers down the line somewhere. So the question is, should we be concerned with questions of verifiability regarding this forum? It is a well known forum on which industry professionals post, so if we may assume this is a faux-Nicieza, would not the real writer stand up and cry foul? Is this not proof that these are genuine comments and responses to fan reaction? Or perhaps there is still good reason to doubt? How do we truly know this is the real Nicieza? Are there other considerations to take into account? Any input would be very much appreciated.--Cast (talk) 05:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The restriction on using forums and blogs is a guideline and the exceptions (at least as far as comics) are, in my opinion (but based on a what came up when I asked about if we can use a creator's blog postings to reference their ideas/motivation for specific stories):

• Where the forum is being used as a publication tool, as was the case with Newsarama before they moved to their own bespoke system and on Rick Veitch's Comicon (specifically The Pulse). You do have to be careful that you are using the right content and not the general discussion areas but they are usually well flagged and you'd mainly be using these for the interviews they post.

• Where comic creators discuss the ideas/motivation behind their stories on forums (the equivalent to them blogging up their ideas/influences). Care should be taken that the forum is suitably high profile that this isn't someone pretending to be them and you should stick to non-controversial topics because we should always be wary of WP:BLP-breaking material (like "X blows goats for fun and profit").

Clearly it'd be easier to use an individual's blog to pick up these useful insights but, as long as we are careful (and keep the focus on the creators - unless fan reaction hits reliable news sources it isn't something we want to include in an encyclopaedia), I think we make use of the information there. It is probably best to judge this issue on a case-by-case basis but that looks fine - the forum is reasonably high profile, it is frequented by comic creators and they have been a member for a number of years (obviously if they'd just signed up the day before there could be reason to be cautious). Also it is a specific Q&A thread set-up for Fabian Nicieza which looks like it could be also considered as a more open-ended and ongoing interview. So I'd say that is fine as a source. (Emperor (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC))

Broadly agree with all of this - if creator X has replied in a forum and we can identify creator X, then it's madness to say we can't use that information in fleshing out our articles. On a case by case basis, I can't see a problem. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Red Robin

There is a side issue to this: Red Robin (comics). The General has taken on this persona and yet the information currently resides at Alternate versions of Robin#Red Robin but it isn't just an alternate version of Robin (that concept itself also being troubling as we are mixing together mainly alternate versions of Dick Grayson with other versions of Jason Todd, etc.) it is really an alias that has been previously been used by two characters who have also gone under the alias Robin (although Red Robin originally appeared as an alternate Dick Grayson, it is also a main continuity character/alias used by Jason Todd). This problem is clearly underlined by The General taking on the mantle as he has never been Robin. I think the only solution is to split the section out too Red Robin (comics) and set it up in a similar way to Ant-Man and Spider-Woman, using {{infobox comics set index}}. Thoughts? (Emperor (talk) 15:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC))

This issue is slightly larger than that. Currently The General is also taking on the mantle of Anarky, suggesting that the Red Robin mantle was just a temporary affair for plot(-twist) purposes. So are we to do the same with Anarky? Is the Anarky article now to become an index for both Lonnie Machin and Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong, as Flash (comics) is? Well, I've decided to completely avoid making any edits to the Anarky page in light of this. In the Fabian Q&A, he bluntly writes that this state of affairs will continue until other writers see fit. It may not last more than a few weeks, much less months. Never mind years. A few weeks ago an anonymous and enthusiastic editor made changes to the Anarky and The General pages that reflected incorrect information. He edits stated that Anarky was a secret mastermind behind The General's actions. Now we know that The General was always in control, Lonnie Machin is catatonic, and his role as Anarky has been stolen. I also made the error of replacing the main image for Anarky with the current costume warn by "General Anarky" (as bloggers and forum-going fans are referring to him), but I am waiting to change it back to a "Lonnie Machin - Anarky" because I don't know how long this will last. Should I amend the FA article for Anarky to reflect that Lonnie Machin is now "MoneySpider", a bald, catatonic hacker in an iron lung? What if this is all undone in a matter of months? And what of the General (DC Comics) article? Should I now be addressing Armstrong as "Anarky"? Undoubtedly the two will now be intimately connected, but to exactly what degree? Only the future can tell. Thus, as I stated at the beginning of all of this, I am adopting a limited "wait and see" policy. I recommend you do the same. Go ahead and create that index page, but before you add in Armstrong to that index, understand that he may just be an anomaly. --Cast (talk) 07:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I think Anarky will be fine. The most that is required there looks is a section for "others using the alias" (or something snappier) and you can link across to their entries (where they exist), the focus of the article is right and the ins and outs of what The General is calling himself today can be dealt with in his article (it might be wise to expand on the Publication history at General (DC Comics) to reflect this if we have any good sources). Just give a bit of space over to acknowledging that there are others but keep the information there light for the time being. I suppose if it runs and runs for years we may need to come back and look at the situation but we can leave the decision until then.

I have all the relevant articles on my watchlist and will keep shuffling things over to the right entry where required. (Emperor (talk) 21:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC))

Well, I've dealt with the Anarky article simply by adding a new section on Anarky's return as "Moneyspider", which maintains the focus on the primary character, while referencing these recent developments of a secondary "Anarky". Since this development may not last long, and as this has only happened once so far, and only with one character a few days ago, I don't think a new section for other characters would be useful. As you say, we'll have to deal with this down the road. --Cast (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy holidays

May a festive gift-giving entity of your choice bring you lots of nice graphic novels, trade paperbacks, gift certificates and other festive treats if there are any. (Emperor (talk) 21:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC))

The Death of Captain America

New article. You folks might wanna take a look at it. Merry Christmas, Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

And another, Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin. Both pages were created by User:Marcus Brute. They meet WP:NN right? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:52, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

The same author has created more than a dozen in the last couple of days: Recent creations: December 2008

I haven't had a chance to check them all over but the two you've flagged look to be OK - the Death of Captain America should have reasonable coverage from mainstream media and with other more specialist coverage (interviews and reviews) it should be possible to make that into a pretty solid. I'll have to look over the others when I have more time. (Emperor (talk) 03:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC))

I've been through all the ones they've created in the last few days - the two you flag seem some of the better ones but some of the earlier ones don't make any claim to notability, e.g. Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut! and New Ways to Die. They might be OK too, of course, but need a lot more work. (Emperor (talk) 15:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC))

Anarky

Greetings everyone. User:Marcus Brute has recently tagged Anarky as being potentially too long and in need of division into sub-pages, while also tagging it for cleanup. Brute also tagged it for potentially excessive intro length, but I removed this after objectively reviewing it as an acceptable summary length -- though whether it is an appropriate summary of only the most noteworthy points is another matter. Since the article does not see much traffic, I don't expect it to stir up much attention, and these tags may sit for a long period of time, blighting what may otherwise be an acceptable FA article. Please consider giving the article a once-over and discussing the matter at its talk page. Thank you. --Cast (talk) 06:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so now Marcus Brute has tagged Batman: Anarky as possibly not meeting the notability guidelines. I fully accepted that this may be the case due to its lack of third party sources, but back when I nominated it for GA status I asserted that the article derived its notability from the fact that it was published by a notable company, written by a notable author, in cooperation with notable artists, featured notable characters, and was an notable moment in the publishing history of Anarky. Doesn't it derive some level of notability as a result of all of this? I think so, and I specifically site point #5 of the criteria for WP:BK, which states: "The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable. This does not simply mean that the book's author is him/herself notable by Wikipedia's standards, rather that the book's author is of exceptional significance and the author's life and body of work would be a common study subject in literature classes." I feel this threshold is met by virtue of the fact that Alan Grant, the author of the collected stories, is constantly cited as one of the best writers of Batman stories during this thirteen-year-run at DC Comics. As he wrote these stories as part of, or as a spin-off, from Batman related comics, this collection is noteworthy. I'll simply be leaving this note here as a written record of why I establish this collection as notable. Since Batman: Anarky also receives light traffic, I don't expect many responses to this on its talk page, and so bring it here. I also think it is worthy of WikiProject Comic's attention as this may set some form of precedent, due to the fact that this is one of the few trade paperback collections to achieve GA status. --Cast (talk) 18:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

<Double take>Waitasecnow...</Double take>

This is the same Marcus Brute that is doing massive splitting and setting up characters and/or story arc articles with little or now sourcing? (see above thread)

Yagattabekiddinme

- J Greb (talk) 18:41, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well, that's unexpected, but it does bring up a fair point. How is Batman: Anarky any more notable than Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut! or New Ways to Die? I would argue that these are individual story arcs -- a few of hundreds -- whereas Batman: Anarky, as a trade paperback, is a collection of stories chosen and compiled by the publishing house -- or perhaps chosen by Norm Breyfogle or Alan Grant, both of whom seem quite interested in the stories in the introductions they wrote. I would say Batman: Anarky shares more in common with The Batman Chronicles, which is also a trade paperback of collected stories, except the latter collect golden age stories of a character with significant publication history, while the former collects fewer, and more recent stories from a character that experienced a brief surge in media exposure before going into obscurity. Does that make Batman: Anarky non-notable? Perhaps less notable, but not non-notable. I'm not entirely convinced. --Cast (talk) 18:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Brian Boru

I have seen him use rude edit summaries like this before: [19] BOZ (talk) 02:54, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

He also restored all the plot summary on Rorschach without explaining why. hbdragon88 (talk) 03:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even realize he had done it again until I clicked on the link. I've reverted to make sure that he knows that Wesley isn't the only one who thinks it shouldn't be removed. hbdragon88 (talk) 04:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I've dropped him a note.

And for added value he is wrong to revert - categorising redirects like that aren't ruled out and can be pretty useful, so I've also reverted the edit. (Emperor (talk) 03:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC))

He also removed the cats from Killobyte (comics), and has done that to articles many times before. He has a bad habit of reverting changes he disagrees with (often without explanation) so you might want to keep an eye on that. BOZ (talk) 05:07, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted that too. (Emperor (talk) 13:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC))

I'm getting a few more that he has apparently habitually reverted. BOZ (talk) 16:33, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to flip them back unless they clearly shouldn't be categorised or there is an explanation given. (Emperor (talk) 03:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC))

Mothman

Can someone help me out here? This is pretty urgent. Mothman from Watchmen makes a LOT of claims I can't substantiate. It claims that he is "fondly remembered" and appears in flashbacks. I don't recall seeing this guy ever in the comic book other than in "Under the Hood," and using Amazon's search engine confirms that he only appears by name in those supplemental sections.

I didn't want to remove it because that would be removing too much information, but the article does appear have a history of false information, including claims about Silhouette being a Jew and originally from Austria; list of characters that died in the New York attack; and a lot of supposed implications that read as original research. Actually...I would like someone also to review my edits, since it just occured to me that such info could have been included in stuff like "Absolute Watchmen" ISBN 1401207138 or w/e. I have ISBN 1401219268, borrowed from the library, which includes some early artwork and a short piece by Moore and Gibbons, but nohting else. hbdragon88 (talk) 06:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Mothman, the character is simply not notable. He does appear in brief flashbacks in the story. However, he's not discussed at all in the secondary sources I've read. He's basically window-dressing for the story, same with Silhouette and maany of the characters listed. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:43, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Tagalog

Has anyone else noticed the bot adding the Tagalog article to hundreds (or thousands) of articles over the last several hours? All the comics articles I clicked on were basically one sentence in length. :) Probably those were created by a robot as well? BOZ (talk) 21:42, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, as long as it isn't moving the interwiki pointers from a more appropriate article to a stub, I don't see a problem. The only down side is if the Taglog stubs get flat deleted, and even then, it isn't Earth-shattering. - J Greb (talk) 23:36, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't figure it was a problem - just interesting enough to point out. :) BOZ (talk) 15:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:Blood Syndicate members

I found this and it should be deleted.Brian Boru is awesome (talk) 17:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Frank Frazetta

By chance, I happened upon the Frank Frazetta article, and I was stunned by how poor and non-encyclopedic it was, filled with hagiographic hype, POV, unsourced and uncited claims, original research, poor referencing, misformatting, and many, many other errors and policy/guideline violations.

I've made a first pass at fixing some of the more egregious problems. And given what an important figure Frazetta is in the field commercial art, I'd urge my fellow WikiProject: Comics editors to pitch in. -- Tenebrae (talk) 17:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Ditto, to a lesser extent in terms of article issues, Alex Raymond. It's remarkable to me that such a major figure in American comics and popular culture — the creator of Flash Gordon — has such a poor and stubby article. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Bane (comics)

Some anon keeps replacing sourced content with an overload of original research. I've already reverted and administered a warning, yet (s)he won't stop. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:DUCK?

JJones? Special:Contributions/JJosen hpeph. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Political/editorial and gag cartoonists

Do political and editorial cartoonists and single-panel gag cartoonists belong in this WikiProject, or are we using the McCloud definition of comics whereby there has to be a sequence of images? --Nicknack009 (talk) 13:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I do think we aim for sequential art but there is so much crossover with cartoonists often doing comic strips (and no cartooning project, that I know of) we do tend to keep an eye on the relevant articles, like with the Danish cartoon controversy. If there enough people interested in it we could even rummage together a "cartooning work group." (Emperor (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

I'll see if I can drum up some interest. In the meantime, would anybody object if I started tagging editoral etc cartoonists with the Comics Project template? --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, perhaps start with the more obvious ones and/or places that don't seem to have much project coverage (as I seem to recall some eyebrows were raised when some of us pitched into the Danish cartoon controversy but the hierarchy was never that clear - at one point the comics category was both a parent and a child of the cartoon one. Some suggest William Hogarth was one of the early developers of comics but would largely be classed as a cartoonist). It probably makes a better fit as part of the Comics Project rather than disappearing in the much larger Visual Arts Project (which we are presumably a child/cousin of anyway) but besst not get carried away with it quite yet until we see if there are the numbers to sustain the interest. (Emperor (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Ophis

Ophis is now a disambiguation page. It is linked from the Neyaphem article which falls under this Wikiproject. Would a project member expand the disambiguation page with an explanation of the term "Ophis" please? Mjroots (talk) 08:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

OK done. (Emperor (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Image Replacement

This commet is from File talk:HesABullyCharlieBrown.jpg.

This Image needs to be replaced with a screenshot of the title, is there anybody who is able to accept my request? 68.34.4.143 (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Comics/comic strips in early media franchises

This came up partly over a Talk:Alex Raymond ut I also caught a cheap and cheerful Flash Gordon documentary on the Sci-Fi Channel last night and spotted the obituary of Edward D. Cartier (an illustrator who worked on The Shadow novels and many others) and there is a lot of information missing so I looked over some of the big early media franchises and thought I'd throw in some thoughts:

• Flash Gordon - the article currently focus on the franchise and it seems like a good idea to start Flash Gordon (comic strip) (there is List of Flash Gordon comic strips, which is not too helpful in this regard) and Flash Gordon (comics) (there are 8-9 series from various companies over the years including a recent one). What to do with the main article is tricky. The best bet is to start the comic strip article and sort out what goes where later. It might be we switch in the comic strip to the top slot and move the currently article to Flash Gordon franchise, or it occurs to me we might want an article on the character (but trying to get an overview of someone presented in different ways over the year might be tricky and best left to the articles on the media).

• Buck Rogers - although starting in the pulps the comic strip was a big hit and Flash Gordon was created partly as a response to this, so it is well worth having Buck Rogers (comic strip). There is already List of Buck Rogers comic strips but it needs clean-up and isn't that useful to the average reader. Probably also needs a template like {{Flash Gordon}}. Note this article also pretty much focuses on the franchise.

• The Shadow - again it didn't start in comics but the comic books have been an important part of the franchise and it may be worth splitting off to its own article (I don't know how notable the comic strip is). This article though might be a good model for the other two articles as it focuses on the character development in the main media and tags on the appearances in other media (it'd be worth splitting this off to its own franchise page) and when applied to Flash Gordon it'd suggest we have the comic strips as the main article (looking at the publication history and character development in the series) and then have the franchise on a separate page (pretty much the current one just moved).

Anyway I won't claim to be an expert on all parts of the media outings (and certainly got into Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers via film/TV) but following the earlier discussion I thought it worth looking at other similar characters which have similar issues and the same kind of solution to one can be used elsewhere. Thoughts? (Emperor (talk) 18:41, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

Comicology

We have some 26 articles containing a link to comicology, which seems to be a blog with short reviews of comics[20]. Looking at articles like Yakari and Yoko Tsuno, I don't have the impression that it adds a lot, but perhaps people here have a better view of the importance of the site and the links. Fram (talk) 07:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

They all seem to have been added by User:Rafiqraja and note that the blog postings are made by one Rafiq Raja.

There are actually three different (and unrelated?) Comicology and the others are:

• Kingdom Come (comics)#The Comicology Kingdom Come Companion
• http://comicology.i.ph

The first looks to be a clear violation of where WP:COI meets WP:EL and there is no compromise in linking to your own site. The second seems worthy of mention and I can't see the third is adding much. (Emperor (talk) 15:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC))

Thanks. I'll try to remember to take some action on these. Fram (talk) 08:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Final Crisis Crisis

Hello, I hope somebody here is able to fix the ongoing problem at Final Crisis. People have removed the entire plot of the article on grounds that people are getting too overboard with its details, and decided that there shouldn't be a plot at all until the series ends. That's obviously not right for Wikipedia comics articles, as you probably understand. Removing the entire plot as if there was none shouldn't be the solution! Please help out as soon as you can. Kreachure (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, why don't you put the last plot section back in, then work to trim the detail to make it more in line with other comics articles? Then if there are still problems, let us know and we'll see what's up. But step one is "write a good plot section." Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I have added my thoughts on the talk page [21]. I'd support Phil's statements - if you can write a good story section in an out-of-universe style (it is possible), with an eye on WP:PLOT and WP:WAF, and that would only make it difficult to justify removing but would set the article on course to rapidly climb the quality ladder. Good luck and I'll pitch in where I can. (Emperor (talk) 22:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

Actually, I looked up the Final Crisis article in the first place to learn about the plot, because I know very little about it. So, I'm definitely not qualified for writing a plot, sorry. I guess I'll have to wait for someone else to step up and write up a plot that people won't shoot down, even though that's what they've been trying to do for months... thanks anyway... Kreachure (talk) 00:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I mean, I'd do it, but that would mean understanding the fucking thing. Which, at this point, I've decided to wait for it to finish coming out before I try doing. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

And that is part of the point - if the plot is kept tight and/or out-of-universe it is going to be much easier to provide a proper overview of the story when it becomes clear what is actually going on (or when someone is kind enough to explain it to us if it still isn't clear).

It is also worth noting that people haven't been writing a plot that won't get shot down - they have been giving blow-by-blow retellings of the plot broken down by issue (which as mentioned might not be that helpful in describing the story), which is a pretty good way to get the plot hacked back or even removed. (Emperor (talk) 02:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC))

I've been of the opinion that the article doesn't need a plot section until the miniseries is complete. Focus on the publication info in the meanwhile. We're not here to give you a rundown of what you've missed in previous issues. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

That is very much not the norm, and represents a departure from past convention. Plot information is part of the impact of the comic already - there are numerous reviews and the like, which need plot to appropriate contextualize them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Not really. The article worked fine in the past with just a brief synopsis of the series' premise, and not an outright plot summary. Also, secondary sources wouldn't be talking about the series as a complete whole yet anyways because we're only up to issue five. Secondary sources should dictate content, not primary sources. WesleyDodds (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Plot summaries are a standard part of fiction articles. Barring a persuasive reason not to have one, we should default to having one. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The fact that only five parts of a seven part series have been published is a pretty good one. A limited series comic book isn't like TV episodes, or even ongoing comics series. There is a planned finite end, and to write an adequate plot summary, you need it to end first. We have two months left; is that too long to wait? Also, the amount of plot information that exists should only amount to what it necessary to understand the real-world context of the subject, ie. publications, sales, reviews. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be places for you to catch up on what you missed in the story because issue three was sold out. That's getting into copyright problems. WesleyDodds (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The work being in progress has not been persuasive in the past. Why is this a different situation? Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen a example where it has worked (look how bloated the Secret Invasion article became even before the series concluded). In fact, I think we should create special guidelines for dealing with limited series and story arcs, because these run into special problems when it comes to plot summaries. WesleyDodds (talk) 18:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Final comments on Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)

The current proposal for a notability guideline for fiction is nearing completion, and we'd like to get a final round of comments on it to make sure it fully reflects community consensus inasmuch as it exists on this issue. Any comments you can provide at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction) are much appreciated. Thanks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Portals proposed for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Abandoned comics portals. John Carter (talk) 19:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sauron (comics)

Das Baz keeps inserting a "see also" link on this article. I removed it and asked him to discuss its purpose on the talk page, but he reverted me. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 21:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have rectified it. No clue why (s)he did that in the first place. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Same here. Thanks! 204.153.84.10 (talk) 00:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

They clearly have some plan in mind - as they keep adding a link to Sauron from Pellucidar too. However, what the connection is escapes me. Perhaps it might be worth dropping them a line - it might save time in the long run. (Emperor (talk) 04:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC))

Image Replacement

This commet is from File talk:HesABullyCharlieBrown.jpg.

This Image needs to be replaced with a screenshot of the title, is there anybody who is able to accept my request? 68.34.4.143 (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Simon du Fleuve

If there are any French speakers (or, more properly, readers) in this project, would you mind lending a hand at Simon du Fleuve? I don't think Google Translate will take me as far as I'd thought. Thanks! ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Plot summaries in publication order?

This is en route to something else I'm planning on floating, but:

Can we codify that plot summaries should be presented in publication order, not in-universe order? With the propensity of comics to engage in retcons, moving often much later stories earlier in character histories, to me, presents a distorted view of the character's development, and forces character histories into an in-universe perspective. This is especially important for a character like Professor X, where as it stands we are treated to the bizarre spectacle of events from comics in the 1960s being presented alongside events from the last decade. This erases the fact that the nature and presentation of the character has evolved over time, leading the character history to be presentist and misleading.

Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with real world ordering. More encyclopedic. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

This underlines the problem with FCBs because they often present the character origin at the start - but which one? Importantly if you start writing a FCB in publication order then it drags it (sometimes kicking and screaming ;) ) out of an in-universe perspective (so such a move is supported by WP:WAF) which will almost seamlessly set up the FCB for easy conversion into an extended PH which looks at character development (of which changing origin accounts are clearly important). A big help would be looking out for interviews with the creators which explains their thinking about this as it really helps flesh things out and provides an even more solid out-of-universe slant to it. Looking through them most of the X-Men character articles need reworking with those principles in mind - most need improved references to get to a B but this will set them up for further improvement drives. (Emperor (talk) 20:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC))

(EC)

I tend to agree with this as well, though it has to be well worded to get across the "Writer X added these elements to character Y, which predate the character's first appearance." concept.

Along with character histories like those of Prof X and Wolverine (that'll be an editing nightmare...), this would also clip things like over expanding the Earth-Two Batman, Superman, etc (cases where writers "assigned" old continuity to new characters) and allow for some "real-world events as in-universe context" points to be notes (Reed and Ben as WWII vets and the later shift of it to Korea for example).

- J Greb (talk) 20:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

All right. I've added it to our guidelines.

Which brings me to my next issue... Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Totally agree - Plot summaries in character bios are a problem because they present a linear narrative to a character's development that is distorted and misleading. We are here to explain how things happened, not how they happened in the fictional universe of the character. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Abomination

There's got to be some sort of compromise between overdetailed and uninformative. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

There should be... and the current version is deletion bait - zero need to keep since it is moving to little more than "List of appearances". - J Greb (talk) 22:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Following WP:WAF and WP:PLOT we do need to cut down the plot and rewrite or refocus into an out-of-universe manner but simply stating which specific comics they appeared in is not only pretty unhelpful but is horrible to read (you might as well turn it into an actual list). I'm half tempted to revert it to the previous version because if it is going to look like that we'd be better off with the overly plotty version (after all the major rewrites are usually started after an article reaches B-class as the guidelines start requiring it for the higher classes, which usually means there are plenty of resources and text around to rely on - there are plenty of articles better suited for this, quite a lot of the X-Men for starters). (Emperor (talk) 04:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC))

Wait until the new version is finished. Asgardian (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

If it is going to be left in this state for any length of time could I suggest you work on this on your sandbox and then let everyone take a look before replacing the old version? (Emperor (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC))

And now Rhino (comics), while the Abomination still lives up to its name. I am unsure where the problem comes in but it may be it is unwise to start converting an article like this until it has reached a B or at least has more out of universe material as all these seem to b turning into is "And then they appeared in X, Y and Z. Then some more." If you look at the high quality articles they evolved slowly shedding their plot and bulking up publication history/character development so this has tended to happen gradually as the natural evolution of the article. However, it is possible to convert an article (as Cameron Scott did with Punisher, although not without some controversy, and Galactus) but I am not sure if it is possible to just convert any article as you need something to work with or you end up with something that is unreadable and uninformative. Better targets for this kind of work are Cyclops (comics), Jean Grey, Nova (comics), etc. (Wolverine (comics) seems trickier as the FCB has been split off) which are articles with plenty of material that are either Cs or Bs which do need more out-of-universe material (and sources) if they are to progress on to higher quality assessments - working on lower quality and lower importance characters is probably unwise unless you know what you are doing (and perhaps not even then). (Emperor (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC))

Well, all the correct information is now there, and it is out of universe. Technically, that is required. It is a tad dry. Possibly. It is, however a step up from the usual fancruft that has poor grammar, POV and no sources. In fact, in the case of the Rhino (comics) all the information is still there. It has just been rewritten, sourced and added to. Do the more high profile character need reworking? Yes. Many do. Low profile? Not so sure. I could rewrite quite a few, but they would seem like lists, particularly if there are only 4-5 appearances. Asgardian (talk) 03:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This article has become a mess. All contributions from others are being reverted with comments by Asgardian that he knows best. In order to beef up some material, he's including speculation on the personalities and appearances of characters, and giving thoroughly irrelevant publication data, and that's just for the Ultimate Abomination. For most of the rest, it's become a list of appearances, without context. For all this removal of context in the name of 'out-of-universe, he's actually added nothing which is genuinely out-of-universe. It appears like he's decided what the balance should be between in and out, and since he can't find new outOU, he's deleting any InOU. ThuranX (talk) 12:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. All the pertinent information is there, but without the in-universe extrapolation. Many of those sources which I added were missing, suggesting that the article was in fact inadequate before, yes? As for out of universe, there is more coming, but please, these things take time. Also understand that every Wikipedia article is a draft. Yes, they are all works in progress and subject to change. I have contacted several other experience editors who have been on Wikipedia longer than I have who will help contribute. In the downtime, please be civil. Asgardian (talk) 02:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried to add some food for thought on the article talk page. Nothing anyone necessarily needs to respond to, just something to think about. BOZ (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Asgardian is now engaging in edit warring and a refusal to use the talk page. This, combined with his editing against consensus on that page, and bringing it here, is symptomatic of tendentious editing. ThuranX (talk) 03:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit dry for the moment but so what? People can expand the article by finding the relevant secondary sources that discuss this character and his impact - if those sources don't exist, well what have we got the article to start with? --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Or improve the article (with those relevant secondary sources) to the point where you've assembled enough material to make the transition smoother. There is no deadline and this doesn't have to be done today. As I say there are articles much more ripe for this kind of work, I just don't think Abomination was ready. (Emperor (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

One problem of Asgardian's overall editing down is that the article gives about zero context to the character. Without it, his presence in the Hulk template is questionable, as is the merit of his own article, when he could be folded into a list of minor Marvel Comics characters, an idea I've also thought about, and will propose. ThuranX (talk) 23:19, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Earth-Two is back

I thought this issue had already been settled, but it appears that separate articles for the Earth-Two versions of DC characters are popping up again (see the links at {{Earth-Two}}). --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess my memory didn't serve me well. It appears that Batman (Earth-Two) and Superman (Earth-Two) were not merged as I had thought. However, Wonder Woman (Earth-Two) was in fact recently split out again. There are now separate articles for Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman (Earth-Two), and Diana Prince. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I thought it might be worth bringing up to see if this is what we really want. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yuck. Those three should be cleaned up and merged into one FA class article. Looks like at lot of duplication going on, and most could be folded back into the one article. If others are willing to work on that, I'll jump in, but won't take it on alone. ThuranX (talk) 23:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Plot Summary Ultimatum

I have been thinking, of late, about the question of how to improve our coverage of fictional articles. The problem, it seems to me, is that our articles are written largely by a pool of occasional editors who do not really participate in the WikiProject, and are either uninformed or unconcerned about our guidelines.

Contributing to this is the fact that our standards are not really enforced as such. They're more... polite requests. As articles with permanent improvement tags are generally allowed to sit and be, it becomes the case that, while an in-universe, succinct style is perhaps preferred, nobody cares that much if it's there, and so fannish bloat is thus permitted by default.

I propose we change that.

Let's get a clear set of templates for fiction articles. Let's get tagging, and label bad plot summaries with clear explanations of the problems - in universe style, failure to cite what comics something happened in, written out of publication order, etc. Let's date the tags. And let's make it clear, on the articles, in the tags, in fact, that there's, oh, a three month window that tags will be allowed to sit.

After that, articles that aren't improved? We cut the plot summaries for failing to adhere to our guidelines for plot summary.

A broader community than the WikiProject wrote the bulk of our comics articles. We need to harness that community to improve them, and we're only going to do that if we make it clear that better is the only thing we're going to accept.

We will lose content this way. But I increasingly see a move like this as a necessity to make sure our standards are standards, not just polite requests. Basically, we need a stick along with our carrot in improving articles.

Obviously part of this is that we would need to make it clear that people are welcome to come to the project for advice, comments, and help. And we should *not* threaten articles with deletion. Better to stub them than delete them - deletion becomes a very hostile procedure quickly. Though this is a suggestion about becoming stricter, it is also one about taking more active steps to create and improve content. It's just that, well, we need to decide that content that isn't good enough for us is actually not good enough.

Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice idea but it'll never work - you'll end up in a rolling "war" across 95% of the articles the Project covers (just look at the "fun" people are having on the Final Crisis and multiply that by.. what 30-50,000). People love adding plot and there are maybe a dozen of us and potentially thousands of them.

Having done a lot of quality assessments recently and kept an eye on the conversions of articles to conform to WP:PLOT and WP:FICT I have seen that the latter is possible but the article needs to be either well developed and/or high profile. Usually this happens gradually as the article evolves. The hoops you need to jump through for a B-class article aren't strict on the in-universe/plot front but they do need a publication history and to be properly referenced (I am surprised by how many higher profile articles lacked the former) and it is once past this point that the plot gets trimmed back increasingly hard and converted to out-of-universe publication history/character development. So what I think is doable is to focus on accelerating this evolution and guiding it so it is always aiming for the top class assessment grades and each stage is a step on the path there. There are some pretty straightforward steps that can achieve this without being involved in a near permanent fight to impose guidelines:

• Focus on out-of-universe material:
  • Expand publication history with the creator's perspective (interviews are going to be the bulk of this but if they run a blog or mailing list that should be OK as long as it doesn't violate WP:BLP. Equally trade introductions, or analysis by comic book critics is good. Worth keeping an eye on Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed as they have contacts to answer tricky questions).
  • Add a reception section for series - reviews are easy enough to come by and you can get the direct sales estimates

• Keep control of the plot:
  • Hammer it down - tag with {{plot}} and watch out for early indicators of problems: sections for each issue are an invitation for plot bloat, as is a big slab of blow-by-blow plot when only the first issue comes out.
  • Try and keep it out-of-universe. As discussed above you really have to keep things like an FCB in a chronological order as published. You can also rephrase things, e.g.: "As the story starts we are shown a montage of scenes, involving..." See my comments on Talk:Final Crisis - it is possible to discuss the story without being in-universe or being overly detailed in the plot and for FC Grant Morrison has discussed the first three issues after they came out which should make it easy to provide a good overview.

On the English Wikipedia the big problem areas are always going to be the American comics, especially the recent ones from the Big Two and in particular the events. Fortunately those are the ones we have the most material on (pretty much in that order) so there should be no excuse for not being able to bring enough material to bear on such articles. It is also worth noting that the activity is highest on those titles currently running. In particular for the events, if you get in early and make sure it is set-up well and running in the right direction so it should be possible to keep it wrangled and under control. Then when the heat is off it should be possible to give it a polish and get it up to a B and then start reworking it with an eye to higher quality grades, which should be pretty straightforward if the above points are adhered to. If the project concentrated on the above points, we'd be more directing the flow that trying to dam it, which, as the little Dutch Boy knows, can be a difficult enterprise

As I've said before I rarely write any plot - you never really have to as there are always plenty of people around just dying to do it. I add what I can but there is a tonne of material that we could use here that either doesn't get used or is scooped up later when people are working on improving the articles after the rush (I add things that interest me and/or the higher profile titles - give me 4 or 5 clones and I could get better coverage). (Emperor (talk) 00:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

A while ago I floated the idea that we have a supplementary page to WP:CMC/EG and WP:CMC/X which provides tips for creating better articles, drawing together the information in those pages, mixing in other guidelines as well as things we've picked up from far too long at the coal face. Just always remember the little Dutch boy. (Emperor (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

I think this is the easiest way.[22] There's going to be some edit warring to begin with, obviously. If we get the version I just made there to stick, people will fill in the sections in a month (or less) for popular characters. It's an easy way to get the legion of fans to the work for us, since they outnumber us by so much as mentioned earlier. People just go by the examples and sections that they see. If 1960s section, they'll add info from the 60s. If they see a section on The Brood, they'll add sections on Generation X and the Xavier Institute For Higher Learning. Who cares if the article looks like crap because of lack of information for a month, it's looked like crap because of too much info for years. I say we do a test Professor X or some other high profile article. If it works we can expand. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(EC)

But there is nothing there. The one thing I've learned is that if you expect other people to do the work for you then you are going to be sadly disappointed and will end up doing it yourself (unless the work is jamming in endless plot). If you aren't prepared to actually produce a functionally rewritten version then the process will pretty much stall in an edit war involving one side saying "You can't leave it like that" and the other going "Well why not just fill it in" before going round in circles and nothing gets done ("If you build it they are more likely to bicker over it"). If that is what is being proposed then I can't support it. (Emperor (talk) 02:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

I don't really expect people to go for it, it's pretty radical. But, as you say the work is jamming in plot, which people will do. That all those sections need. It will just be in OOU order instead of in universe, which I think is what we want. It could definitel be done with a bit more care than my example. Add in a few more facts with issue numbers to show people we want to know exactly when things happened. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

What might be better is to add those sections into the PH as they expand then cut down the plot accordingly. This is basically what happens as articles evolve naturally it just tends to happen gradually in an unplanned way - by imposing the structure you would be focusing attention on what needs doing. By trimming down the plot as the PH expands you aren't going to see people up in arms over a change which would be basically removing 4+ years worth of people's work. Of course, the quicker the PH expands the quicker you can shrink the plot. (Emperor (talk) 02:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

I can see a couple of problems with that:

• First, and this may be a bit crass, but a lot of editors will take that approach to jump start a restructure as "fuck you" editing, either from a collective of editors seeing their work flushed or from editors taking it as "This is wrong, and I can't (or more likely can't be bothered to) fix it. Try again." I know that isn't you intent, but there are those that will take it that way.
• Second, the decade sections can migrate to sections by year just as easily as "The Brood" or what ever. Especially if a character gets particularly heavy use/development in one decade as opposed to the others.
• Third,, this approach could breed more situations like what is going on with Abomination (comics) and Rhino (comics) where so much plot is getting squeezed out to the point that the body of the article is becoming a regurgitation of "character appeared in X, Y, and Z."
• Lastly... there's also a potential problem if the arbitrary break by the decade or year disrupts another real world grouping, such as a writer or editors run on the character.

- J Greb (talk) 02:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yikes, I hadn't seen Rhino (comics). Inline citations instead of listing the issues inline would fix a lot of that, though. If you do it inline, people will follow that example. I think we should just do a test. If I was going to take an article to GA, the Rhino article is still way closer than the Professor X article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think the problems with Final Crisis have been twofold - first, it was an isolated, unusual case, and people rightly objected. Second, it was not clear what the people removing the summary wanted - the position appeared to be "no plot summary at all," which was clearly weird. I think this proposal has very different approach - we tag the articles, we give a clear due date. There's months of warning. There's no surprises. And we do it consistently over every comics article. The problem we have is that our article improvement is overwhelmed by article creation and the addition of new plot arcs to character articles. We need to be aggressive enough to catch up, or else our coverage is, on aggregate, going to continue to get worse, not better. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen tags work very well. I could be wrong. I have seen people follow examples pretty well, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That's because tags, in and of themselves, don't work well. On the other hand, "provide a rationale for this free image or we'll delete it in a week" tags have worked well, to give an example. A deadline with consequences gets things done. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. As you know from other areas of fiction, people not partial to comics will eventually come along and force us to clean things up. The comics articles on WP probably won't be cleaned up up until we get our own Gavin or TTN, but we'd be in a much better situation for when that type of editor arrives if we start the cleanup ourselves. And it will have to be at least a little draconian. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It works best when there's a moderation between the "let's try to savage the content" approach and one that wants more, better coverage. We shouldn't leave being a draconian to the deletionists. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think we should also put our money where our mouth is with some sort of test. Ideally, a few different approaches should be tested. Mild to strong. We don't really know what works. Let's find out. I showed one idea. What else could we do? One adjustment to my idea is to put the cut material on the talk page so people can refactor it into the correct spots. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with Final Crisis was that someone dumped a big fat blow-by-blow plot outline in because, basically, I am unsure many people knew what was actually going on. The idea was that we either keep a bare bones outline that could be expanded later when it was clearer what the story was or nothing at all. As a big block of plot got dropped in, it became clear it would probably have to be the latter. I'm not clear how this became NO PLOT!! As I've pointed out on the talk page you can write a decent out-of-universe overview of the story but we seem to now be caught in a cycle of putting it in, taking it out, rinse, wash, repeat, talk passed each other on the talk page, repeat. The article's progress ha stalled and quite a few editors seem so focused on the plot now that they can't get over that and move on to a compromise. We'd have been better to go for some kind of plot that was trimmed down hard and either converted it later or wrote something else in parallel and cut down the plot as we went along until it slowly vanishes. (Emperor (talk) 02:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

Apparently even pointing out there is a solution goes down like a lead balloon - at least I tried. Along the lines of what I said above I suspect I will have to write it myself at some point but I've got other things I need/want to do first (here and in real life) so it isn't going to happen soon. However, I'm not sure that situation will resolve itself any time soon so... (Emperor (talk) 16:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

And fine - if people are really unwilling to write good content, we should not let that bully us into hosting bad content. That said, I think the dynamic changes fundamentally when there is a warning and a deadline - so that the issue does not become about an edit war as such. It's one thing when the fight is over removing a piece of work in the immediate sense, and another when it's "Look, we told you about this problem months ago, and clearly set a deadline."

I mean, I think that as long as we'll accept bad content in lieu of good content, we're going to get bad content. Currently the response to that fact usually comes from the deletionists, who want to just delete the entire subject area for sucking. I think that if we, as people who actually want coverage of comics - we just want it to be good - are the ones who are the hard-asses, well, we'll get better results.

So should I start creating templates and figuring out a game plan here? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

and the truth is - bad content drives out good contributors. Here's a minor example - a few of us have tried to clean up Secret Invasion but it's just too much hard work, the quickest way to end up with a good article would be to stub it and rewrite from scratch. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. The problem is that we do not scale sufficiently to do that. I can stub and re-write a bad comics article at the rate of one a week or so, if I'm being realistic and devoted to it both. That's not fast enough. The trick is going to be to make the contributors who contribute the bad content contribute good content. Which means that we need an effective mechanism to do that.

Hence I suggest instead of stubbing and rewriting, we go with "You rewrite this or I'll stub it." Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding sourcing, I will add a note that the {{issue}} template has been far more effective than I ever expected. Yes, there are now plenty of places where the template is just sitting there uglying up the page, but by the same token a whole lot of the tags I did place were answered, and I noticed that some users who were previously adding unsourced content are now adding issue information when they post plot summary. :) So, full steam ahead for me! 71.194.32.252 (talk) 03:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Out-of-universe style

Hi, I'm new to this, not a 100% sure of the guidelines... what is in-universe/out-of-universe? How do you describe a plot in even a short and succinct way without resorting to, "The Green Lantern was framed for murder, while Batman was captured by the bad guys," or something along those lines? I was looking at the starred Watchmen page and that describes the book's very dense plot in a way that could be described as "in-universe" but it's very well done and coherent. Quotes, outside speculation, etc.... shouldn't that be for a different section? Right now, looking at the Final Crisis page, the plot summary seems very muddled. I'm sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes earlier, but I was trying to pare it down a bit. Anyways, I'm just looking to help out... I'm really enjoying Final Crisis and would to see it's wiki page do well. Solofire6 (talk) 03:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

It's complicated. With Watchmen, it's one story, even though it takes 12 issues. Just summarizing it is fine. With something like Batman (another featured article), oversimply, it means explaining the character in terms of the order the comics came out. See Batman#Fictional character history. There's more to it, but in-universe means taking the stories as facts, and writing it so it seems like the biography of a living person. For example, putting retcons first as if they are fact, when in the real world they were thought of later. Out-of-universe means explaining the story as it appeared in the real world, to readers as they read it. Hard to explain, but hope that helps some. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

That is pretty much it - you write about it as a work of fiction not as if the fiction itself was real. The {{inuniverse}} tag does a nice summary: "Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective.". The context is pretty important. So is the wording "The Green Lantern was framed for murder, while Batman was captured by the bad guys" is still in-universe. They aren't real people, they are characters in a story. So you'd have "In the second issue the Green Lantern is shown being framed by Sinestro." It is often something best grasp by reading examples and the Batman one is good, for example "As these comics state, Bruce Wayne is born to Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha". There is also some trickiness with tense as any specific scene is in the present for the reader (I'm sure this is somehow connected to Hypertime!!).

If you look at the quality scale you can see the various "hoops" an article needs to jump through. For the purposes of this discussion the important one is writing about fiction, and obviously WP:INUNIVERSE, which is well worth reading through (also WP:PLOT can be important too). Although the guidelines have to be passed in the A-class assessment they do apply to all articles and Final Crisis is only going to need a quick polish to make a B once the series is finished so we need to start shooting for the A now. However, it the plot is in-universe it will basically have to be completely rewritten, so the aim is to try and get the plot going in the right direction so contributors aren't wasting their time writing a section that would otherwise be basically removed and replaced with something that is meets the writing about fiction guidelines. (Emperor (talk) 04:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC))

List of black superheroes

Does anyone know why Absolom moved and altered the List of black superheroes? --Xero (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The List of black superheroes page was moved to List of black animated characters because it contained (1) more than just superheroes -- including many villans and supporting characters and (2) more than comic book characters -- including movie and television characters. You can discuss any objections you have to the move on the new article's talk page.

That makes no sense - Animated refers to a specific narrative form and media - it's not a catch-all term that includes comics. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree - that move is frankly bizarre. A list of black superheroes and a list of black cartoon characters are completely different beasts and as it stands 95% of that article needs removing (like splitting off to something like List of black superheroes). Abuse of a list isn't an excuse to move the list - it means it needs the offending items removed, presumably to an article like List of black animated characters where I assume most of them actually belong. I am unsure why objections need discussing, the move needed discussing in the first place - the article should be put back where it was and if someone wants a list of black animated characters then they are welcome to start one - this isn't it. (Emperor (talk) 16:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

I have no problems with the list being returned if your WikiProject is willing to maintain. When I came across the article it was poorly formatted, poorly referenced, and being edited by anon users. The List of black superheroes page was left in place and was made into a redirect to List of black animated characters so have fun. I would also encourage similar attention be paid to List of black supervillains which is also in need of upkeep.-- Absolon S. Kent (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I would also recommend changing the name to something like List of black comic superheroes which would help prevent confusion and stop characters from other media being added to the list. -- Absolon S. Kent (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh, for the record, anonymous users are allowed to edit Wikipedia. Sometimes they even make helpful contributions. :-) --GentlemanGhost (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

My point was that no current members of this WikiProject were maintaining the page. -- Absolon S. Kent (talk) 15:33, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The article has been moved back to List of black superheroes and a discussion is currently open on a proposed name change. -- Absolon S. Kent (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the move, animated references have been removed, and a copy with your changes was put on the black animated characters page. --Xero (talk) 16:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that it should include all black superheroes. movies, TV, comics, etc. The term super hero is a broad one. Example why is a Power rangeron there but not black Star Wars or Star Trek characters. i have found MANY ommissions which I am working to resolve quickly. I think it is important that EVERY black superhero be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragon1027 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Final final infinite crisis of the Final Crisis

Further to the section above, someone has started to develop a plot section. Can we be a little pro-active here and start to remove the in-universe tone now - before it all gets out of hand and we start having editors from the wikipedia on earth-2 heading over here to remove it and then the editors from Earth-3 turn up and restore it and so on - leading to the AdminMonitor using their dimension warp powers to seal off the article from this dimension and editors being considered to work in Darkseid's slave mines. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe some of us like working in the slave mines.  :-P Nutiketaiel (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Crisis on Infinite Wikipedias? The horror!! I agree we are better off imposing an out-of-universe angle to things and hopefully folks will run with it. It is worryingly in-universe, which is always going to be tricky with time-travelling bullets fired backwards from later issues!! I've been tinkering with bits and will see how it goes. (Emperor (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC))

I've standardised the layout and added bits extracted from Morrison's overview of the first issue as an example of how it should be possible to adjust the discussion of the story so it is more out-of-universe. Clearly it'll need reworking, expanding and polishing but it is a start. Quite useful in breaking down the scenes is the annotations - not a source but could give pointers. One thing that it does need are primary sources too, as it is far from clear what happened in which issue (especially tricky as I suspect the earlier version of the plot was trying to tell the story from the internal in-universe timeline).

Anyway see how that goes - I think it is better if we try and steer things by setting an example that people can follow which, I'd hope, could result in better content which can be further polished and reworked. Obviously once it is all done and dusted we'll have to set about hammering it into shape and drawing out the more important threads but this should make it easier when that happens (and the "heat" will have moved on to whatever the next big deal is). (Emperor (talk) 06:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC))

You have to laugh, someone's idea of fixing the in-universe tone of the plot section was to remove the out of universe material added by Emperor and myself - it's a lovely little microcosm of the problems we will face, if as discussed above, we try and drag our articles into the light... --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that raised an eyebrow or three when I saw it. I have seen editors insist that everything in plot has to be strictly in-universe but that was a tep beyond despite how clear the {{inuniverse}} banner is (put the material in context - FC should be ideal for this as Morrison is touching on a lot of different areas, some of this is foreshadowed over a number of years and he is happy to go over the issues and discuss the points he is making, so we can avoid original research issues if we are careful. If we can't do this for Final Crisis then we are probably in a bit of trouble). That isn't to say what I added may need reworking but the first issue or two are all about setting things up so there is going to be more ontext at the start. (Emperor (talk) 21:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC))

With older articles, it's likely to be the case that plot summary *is* going to be largely in-universe, simply because sources don't exist to "take it out". But with current or recent stories I really think that we can move beyond the "this is the story and how it went down" to a encyclopaedic model of "This is the story and why it went down that way" using the reams of commentary that is out there about ever issue. Really Final Crisis is a great test ground to try and build up that sort of example article - everyone and their dog at DC has talked about the process, the story choices, what went in, what was left out. That to me is our highest goal - if in ten years, someone is trying to place that story in a context, we provide an excellent resource for them to place it in a context. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:22, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, especially as this is all about context and the broader implications (and partly about the process as there is some talk some of the endings have been tweaked but that might only emerge further down the line). Also it can be pretty confusing and helping focus on the key themes might prove helpful to people. Also worth keeping an eye out for things that are applicable elsewhere - in FC some of the material that is turned up is also applicable on other articles (like character pages, especially when they are redesigned/reimagined), so the source could spread out and help improve other article. The series of 20 questions for Dan DiDio at Newsarama is pretty handy as it goes over and clarifies points and looks at the broader implication for the DCU.

Worth bearing in mind that some older articles can gain sources from comic critics looking back at a series or a creator's work. I found a good one for Twilight (comic book) and the same author provided these [23], [24] and [25] from his book. So it isn't impossible. (Emperor (talk) 01:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC))

Hey sorry about earlier, I wasn't quite sure what you guys were trying to do and am new to Wikipedia, though I've dabbled here and there. I think it's great that you're trying to inform readers about the intent behind the choices made in the series through interviews, etc., but wouldn't that work better in a different section? It's a plot summary, shouldn't it just focus (briefly and concisely) on the plot? I feel that to a casual reader, the plot summary as it is may be a bit off-putting. Regardless, I'm willing to help, rather than be an unwitting enemy to what you guys are doing with the page. :) Solofire6 (talk) 03:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to test the water...

Any thoughts on this navigation box, {{Henry Pym }}?

- J Greb (talk) 23:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It makes me think we need to get people to propose templates before making them. That said Pym is pretty high profile and a lot of concepts and character have spun off from him so it could make sense. I'd hate it to set a precedent where a lot of characters got their on template. (Emperor (talk) 04:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC))

I like it. --Xero (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Generally I'd say ... em.. no.. *but* in this case, when a character has a 40 year + history 6 costumed identities, has featured in a couple of series - I'd say yes. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

List of government agencies in comics

The List of government agencies in comics page has been fallow since Groupthink gutted it and disappeared, I have the original code saved and made a Knol entry reflecting the original contents, but no one was able to work on the page because of Groupthink. Is there any way to salvage the page so it can be relevant again, and updated with new entries like H.A.M.M.E.R.? --Xero (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I'd rather have something like that previous version as it would allow us to add a redirect to specific sections which have actual information about the organisation. It would also give us a target for redirecting non-notable groups. As it stands Aladdin Assault Squad (comics) and S.H.A.D.E. redirect there but it seems pretty pointless as it stands because tells us nothing. Might be worth a re-write into a more out-of-universe style, e.g. "X was created by ?? and first appeared in ?? #?. They have been mainly involved with policing cheese sandwiches within the DC Universe. They would have an important role in the Crisis of Infinite Edams." Which shouldn't be too much of a chore. (Emperor (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC))

Proposal for List of Minor characters by company

In order to explain major characters, we sometimes find ourselves discussing a minor character, who is, effectively, the fictional equivalent of WP:ONEEVENT. Porcupine_(comics) comes to mind as a character who exists only as an episodic foil, while the character confronts a moral issue, or as a distraction during a larger storyline. Many characters exist who, like Porcy there, lack notability and such in independent sources, but whose deletion would leave a lack of context elsewhere. Since Notability is not heritable, I propose that for the numerous characters like this, we could create list of $company minor characters, and subdivide it by letter. A bot could reassign the links to the specific characters, and we could reuce these characters to the essential out of universe material needed - "Porcupine is a minor character [The phrase ' In the Marvel Universe', being established at the top of page, is not needed here] who commits crimes using a powered battlesuit which can project the 'quills' which cover it. Two men have operated it at various times." My example, of course, omits the mutant, who would be listed second. Rainbow Raider and Crazy Quilt come to mind for DC Characters of similar quality. ThuranX (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we do have List of characters in DC Comics: A. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:32, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree - it is a similar problem to the one discussed in the section above - there is no where to merge non-notable characters to. If we establish a minor characters list we can keep the list of all characters and then point the links either to the articles or (via a redirect to section, with categories - so the link stays stable) to the list of minor characters. That should give us the flexibility to not only merge but also assemble resources which could lead to a split discussion if it looked like there were good ground for increased notability (like a B-class character moving up into the spotlight). So I'd say yes to this, although we might just want to plan it out as it might require a couple of pages. I'd also suggest we think of a "List of minor DC Comics publications" (ditto Marvel, for starters) which would follow the same principles. I think this is the missing key to managing the content within our remit and allow us to respond to changing notability and sources. (Emperor (talk) 01:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC))

List of Avengers members

Seems there has been quite a bit of disagreement over there (see talk page) and it has even gone to mediation but I suspect it should be easy enough to get a consensus with enough input from the Project. (Emperor (talk) 00:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC))

Which *bit* of the talkpage - it's like war and peace! --Cameron Scott (talk) 01:09, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Tell me about it!! The main point of contention (and source for acres of back and forth) is Demolition Man and the most recent round is: Talk:List of Avengers members#New Source. However, a reading back over some of the earlier sections may be helpful. I'm still reading. It is on my watchlist but I've not really kept up with the debate. (Emperor (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC))

Series article title after name change

An article was just moved [26] with the justification that the next issue of the series has its name changed. Leaving aside the fact that this apparently hasn't happened yet, WP:NCC suggests we go with the most commonly known name but I am unsure how that applies here - it could be most people would know it by the current name (that would be what current readers would be looking for) or would it be the initial name (as sales drop off a lot after the first few issues so most people might now it by that) or perhaps the longest-running name (but do we make the call strictly by numbers?). Thoughts? (Emperor (talk) 04:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC))

I'd agree on both counts... - J Greb (talk) 04:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Could you expand on which bits you agree with as I threw out a number of possibilities? (Emperor (talk) 15:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC))

OK...

The article covers a comic that has for 5+ yeas been titled The Punisher and published under Marvel's MAX imprint. The article appears to have been titled this way to allow:

1. A differentiation from the character article.
2. A differentiation from the 5 other article about the other non-subtitled volumes (1986 mini, 1987, 1995, 2000 mini, and 2001). And given that the 2001 one could have been tagged (Marvel Knights), (2004) likely would have been batter for this article.
3. A way to expand that plot summary/analysis since it would have shoot down in the character article. (As an aside - I've got a sinking feeling all 6 of the articles exist for this reason.)

At best, a general reader will be coming looking for either "The Punisher" or "The Punisher (comic book)" - both of which should be set indexes. "The Punisher (MAX)" or "The Punisher (2004)" are the closest to the likely search, so should, as per NCC, be used to tile the article.

That's all assuming the name change happens (likely) and sticks (way too early to tell, it depends on how long the "new" The Punisher lasts... sinking feeling #2... is the a The Punisher (2009) or Punisher (2009) yet?). Since the issue with the name change isn't due to be released until the 21st, changing the article now is crystal-balling to a degree. And how it's been done within the text of the article and with the reference material (like the image Camron mentions) is dishonest.

If the name change is to be covered in the existing article (preferable to starting another Punisher comic book article at this point) then it should be treated as the chronologically last thing to mention, not the first. That is:

"The Punisher, sometimes referred to as The Punisher MAX to note to Marvel Comics MAX imprint under which it is published, is an ongoing comic book series featuring the Punisher. With issue issue #66, cover dated March 2009, Marvel has changed the title of the series to Punisher: Frank Castle while launching a new series title Punisher under their main imprint."

Not:

"Punisher: Frank Castle (simply titled The Punisher prior to issue #66, sometimes referred to as The Punisher MAX) is a comic book ongoing series published under the MAX imprint of Marvel Comics featuring vigilante anti-hero, the Punisher."

Given the comments above in threads about bloated plot summaries, I would also think that it is a good idea for someone familiar with the runs to take a good hard look at the 6 (7? More?) articles and see if the can be compacted and potentially merged into a single The Punisher (comic book) article. That is if the resulting content isn't a duplication of the character article.

- J Greb (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we make an effort to identify the book by its most iconic name - so X-Men: Legacy should still be the adjectiveless X-Men book. That said, it's a more open question with the Punisher - multiple comics have had the title "The Punisher," and a new comic does have that title right now. The old title - The Punisher (MAX) - corersponds poorly to anything, as MAX is not an accepted disambiguation phrase, and the comic was never formally called The Punisher Max. I would say the best title is The Punisher (MAX comic), which respects the longest-running title of the comic while also sticking to our disambiguation guidelines. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorta already involved in this - the editor in question had also edited information about older covers and issues so they use the new title. So for example, he changed the cover art for punisher 1 to "punisher:Frank Castle 1" - which is completely misleading because regardless of what marvel do in the future, they don't have the ability to change the past! - I've reverted all of those changes and left a note on his talkpage. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:04, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Technically The Punisher (Max) is the correct disambiguation as we use the publishers and then the imprints, as in Sandman (Marvel Comics), Sandman (DC Comics) and Sandman (Vertigo). You'd never use comic in a disambiguation, although in theory (and such a case has cropped up) you might use something like "Sandman (Marvel Comics comic book)" but you'd try out other combinations and permutations first. It might be preferable solutions to the broader naming disucussion are "Punisher (2003 comics series)", "Punisher (2003 comic book series)" or "Punisher (2003 comic book)" (which would follow the TV series naming conventions) but I doubt we'd need it. (Emperor (talk) 00:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC))

Something that might be of interest here...

The Category:Fictional time travelers has been recreated as is currently up at CfD for review.

- J Greb (talk) 11:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Storm

Ahem - read from here on down. We need a call for civility first and foremost. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 20:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty much over now. Though you all might want to take a gander at the new Storm in other media page. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:BK Notability

There are currently two discussions on-going about possible changes to the book notability guidelines that may be of interest to project members. The first, Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Sales figures are not listed as a case for notability, is a discussion on whether sales figures should be considered as a sign of notability. The second, at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Translations = Notability questions whether the number of times a book is translated should be considered a new criteria of notability.

Additionally, the Comics project may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Graphic novels, discussion a suggestion that "graphic novels" be removed from the list of items not covered by the guideline. Your input in these discussions would be valuable here. Thanks. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Splitting Legion of Super Heroes

There has been some discussion about the LSH article being too long and a few ideas have been put forward to solve this - someone split off the entire PH which was reverted as that is the bulk of the article. Although I don't think it is necessarily too long a better proposal has been put forward to split off the three incarnations of the Legion, discussion here: Talk:Legion of Super-Heroes#Seperate articles for each continuity.

Worth noting that this could have implications for other big articles on teams that have had radically different line-ups over the years, for example Teen Titans, which I know we discussed a year or so ago. (Emperor (talk) 19:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC))

Is this normal?(infobox)

Dark Avengers - what's with the double infobox? --Cameron Scott (talk) 02:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Its a team/title infobox - it is something that has come up off and on over the years because such articles are both about a team and a title. I assume this is working up to the big one which is character/title. (Emperor (talk) 03:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC))

Helios Eclipse, Starz, Gempak and Malaysian comics in general

These articles are in urgent need of cleanup. --TS 21:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Watchmen characters problems

Seems there is still back and forth on List of Watchmen characters, specifically the character articles like Nite Owl, Comedian (comics), Rorschach (comics), etc.

Considering that this was done from a bold merge [27] I'd suggest we either put it to a merge discussion or put a solid protection on the pages (which I'd be loath to do as it came of a bold merge we should consider WP:BRD, it clearly should have moved to the D phase but hasn't). (Emperor (talk) 00:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC))

Uni-Mind/Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

[28] is there any way for these to co-exist, or should they even? This guy has re-added the section a few times already, so I'm leaving my hands off for now. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 03:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

No it shouldn't be included unless it can be shown that this is actually another version of that specific Uni-Mind. (Emperor (talk) 03:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC))

Agreed. BOZ (talk) 16:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

quick technical question

I've just (hopefully) saved willworld from the chop - however the correct title is Green Lantern: Will World. For technical reasons, I can't but : in the title if I try and move it? is that right? --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not? See Avengers: The Initiative. BOZ (talk) 02:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Good save but the correct title is Willworld so I've moved it. (Emperor (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC))

300

Just an FYI, I nominated the 300 film to be put on the main page as a Featured Article. If it doesn't pass, I'll re-nom for 3/9 as that date may actually be more appropriate. :) If you want to oppose this nom for that reason, I'll totally understand. ;) I want to nom the other remaining comics-related FAs for front-page coverage (roughly half of them have been on the front page), but obviously I can't do them all at once. BOZ (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey, cool, 300 was chosen to be the main page article for Feb 14th. :) I'll do my best to lobby to get all the other comics FA's to the main page sooner or later. BOZ (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Zod

Does anyone think the article should be at Zod, and not General Zod? --DrBat (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No. Doczilla _STOMP! 19:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I assume you do, and so yes, somebody does. But I'd guess that most people don't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

But isn't "General" just a title? It's not part of his name, like "Mr. Fantastic." --DrBat (talk) 22:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

He is, I believe, almost always referred to as General Zod. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

To elaborate on my "no": DrBat makes sense. Absolutely. It's just that, like Phil said, he is always General Zod and is most famous by that name. (Alternate versions don't alter the name of Superman's article or anyone else's, so they don't count for this issue.) Also, even though they don't seem to have their own Wikipedia articles as yet, there have been other fictional Zods. Doczilla _STOMP! 02:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Also remember this is a fictional character - he isn't an actual General and, in essence, his name is "General Zod" (like Captain America or Doctor Strange). (Emperor (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC))

Flagged revisions

Now that Wikipedia:Flagged revisions seems pretty sure to get a trial soon and may get extended to e.g. all BLPs later, a small technical question: is there an easy way to create a list of all pages that have the cat:living people on their main page and the comicsproject template on their talk page? Even without flagged revisions, it may be a good idea to make sure that all these pages are watchlisted by at least one of us anyway. Fram (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• There's a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/BLP which may be out of date, and changes to any article in that list can be seen by clicking here, as per the third item in the to-do list at the top of the page. Hiding T 11:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

And it is possible to add a hidden cat to {{Infobox comics creator}} that would only populate with the articles IDed as "living" - that is those with a date of birth and no date of death. I can see about doing that later today. - J Greb (talk) 11:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

@Hiding: stupid me ;-) @J Greb: that may be useful. Fram (talk) 12:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Comics creator BLP pop should be up now... it may be a good idea to add a link to it on the Creators workgroup... and it may take a bit for it to populate. - J Greb (talk) 01:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! 93 articles now, so it is indeed slow in populating (a page only gets added once it gets edited, I believe). Fram (talk) 07:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

IIUC the system puts the transclusion edits into a queue to run during slow/down time, and a large change (article count I believe) takes time to get to. That said, direct editing of an article jumps just that article "out" of the queue - the transclusion change happens, but the article will still be part of the automated "look". The creators infobox is on some 1200+ articles, so it may be very slow going through the mill. - J Greb (talk) 12:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

76.255.215.162

I think this anon is getting carried away with a few things. (S)he is categorizing fictional characters as murderers / mass murderers without any sources, much less an explanation. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I revert that stuff when I see it. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 18:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent vs Iconic... again

This has cropped up again with regard to the infobox on Bucky.

Nutshell is that an editor is again pushing to change the infobox title and image to "Captain America" (the recent costume and ID for the character) from "Bucky" (the iconic state of the character for what, 60+ years). This happened last year about this time as well - Talk:Bucky#Bucky image - and a short form 11 month prior to that with "Winter Soldier" - Talk:Bucky#Winter Soldier.

A lot of examples have piled up related to this and we really need to come to some sort of project level consensus about the infobox titles and images for characters that have had multiple codenames. Right now there is a set of three methods being used, mostly consistently, that can come into conflict:

• Iconic - The name and image most prevalently associated with the character (Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Captain Marvel, Jr, Hal Jordan)
• Most recent - "Today's" name and costume (Roy Harper (comics), Jean Loring)
• None - Where there is no clear choice (Mac Gargan)

There is also a 4th option that has been brought up recently as well:

• Secret ID - Where there are multiple "iconic" IDs, use the character's civilian name and an image sans costumes (under discussion with Hank Pym)

At what point do we stop rotating titles/image? Or at what point is it reasonable to change them?

- J Greb (talk) 12:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Really I'd like to keep it simple and keep it stable:

• The name of the infobox should be the name of the article
• The image should be a classic one

Clearly there are lots of combinations and permutations and this will sometimes need to be thrashed out (like Henry Pym, where I think J Greb's solution of him in labcoat seems the best). I think the last option should be "new for the sake of new" as that is going to lead to heavy turnover of most active characters which can get confusing.

I do wonder if Buck should be changed to Bucky Barnes though. I'd also suggest setting up sections in the PH for the different identities as it'd make navigating in the page easier and provides a target for things like Captain America (Bucky) and Winter Soldier (comics). (Emperor (talk) 00:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC))

1st, I want to clarify something. It was pointed out that "iconic" may be a loaded word in Talk:Bucky#Herobox - the current discussion about the infobox on that article. Right now the guidelines we have as a Project call for the "...most universally recognisable appearance of a character..." ([29]) which is most commonly thought of as the "classic" or "iconic" look. That's the reasoning behind my use of the term "iconic" above.

Beyond that, I agree there are times that the image is going to need to be discussed. Pym is a good example of a current discussion, Dick Grayson is a case where such a discussion was settled. But there needs to be a base line set.

I like the idea that the 'box should start as a mirror of the article title. That keeps it simple. It also uses the article naming guides to reinforce the "iconic/classic" aspect of the character (It's also a 2 way thing, using the 'box to support the article title). It's also fairly easy to see cases (Hal Jordan, Dick Grayson, and the like) where a costumed ID is clearly preferable to an image that mirrors the article title. But it eventually boils down to "which costume?"

For Bucky, it may indeed be time to move the article to Bucky Barnes, re title the 'box "James Buchanan Barnes". The image has one of three options:

1. "Iconic/classic" costume as per Dick Grayson ("Bucky" stays in the 'box);
2. No image as per Mac Gargan; or
3. One of the character sans costume and mask (and such an image is likely to need a consensus...).

The latter two would then see the "Bucky" image moved into the main text.

- J Greb (talk) 12:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The civilian identity option seems to work well for the Legionnaires with multiple different costumed identities and versions, like Garth Ranzz (Lightning Lad, Lightning Boy & Live Wire), Luornu Durgo (Triplicate Girl, Duo Damsel, Una & Triad), Reep Daggle (Chameleon Boy & Chameleon), Thom Kallor (Star Boy & Starman), Lar Gand (Mon-El, M'Onel & Valor), etc. Nutiketaiel (talk) 15:31, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes where there is dispute over the naming/identity then it is often best to go for their name, but, as mentioned, this should be reflected in the infobox. Dick Grayson is perhaps the most confusing example of this - you go there and the infobox is titled "Nightwing" and has a big picture of the cover of a Nightwing comic, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled onto Nightwing. Perhaps not too important for the comic experts that edit the article (you'd hope anyway ;) ) but if someone was clicking through from the 1960s Batman TV show to find out a bit more about the character it would be confusing and jarring. He wore the Robin outfit for far longer than seems sensible (didn't he get cold in those biting Gotham winters?) and it is well known outside comics through the TV show and early films - I know what people would recognise if you stop them in the straight and asked them (if they didn't mace you). That Nightwing image is pretty much the last thing I'd want there - either have him as Robin, have him in his civvies (not too bad an option as it is also petty iconic as he is seen out of costume lounging around Wayne Manor), have nothing and then finally go for Nightwing (and in fact isn't that a recent version of the Nightwing costume? The third or fourth one? So even if we wanted a Nightwing costume image I don't think it'd be that one).

With that in mind I'd suggest moving Bucky to Bucky Barnes and have no image in the infobox as I can't picture him out of costume (although I'm sure he has been) in the same iconic way that Dick Grayson and Hank Pym have been. (Emperor (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC))

Add Bart Allen to this with the reveal in Legion of 3 Worlds... the push has come to redo the 'box as "Kid Flash" again...

The more this goes on, the more I agree with the precept that the infobox needs to:

1. Be title to match the article (less dab suffixes)
2. The image either match that title, or, in the some of the cases of the tile "secret ID", the appearance most associated with the character.
3. If a consensus cannot be reached on the image, "none" be used as the default.

- J Greb (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Silver Age of Comic Books/GA1

The article needs a copyedit. I'm going to do one soon, but if anyone sees something that could be improved, and could fix it, I would appreciate it. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 10:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll run it through spellcheck at least. :) Where can we find a peer-reviewed academic university journal? BOZ (talk) 14:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Jounals and Books. The search in page (denoted by "limited preview") can prove useful (things like this could be handy, especially the bit about it being positive - I have the book if needed) and double check on Amazon.com's search in book as you can often find it in one if it isn't in the other. If there is anything you an find and not access then drop a note in and we'll see what we can do - there are certainly some I'm confident I can get, like this

On a sidenote this could be very useful for sourcing the comics terminology articles (although quite a few probably need merging). (Emperor (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC))

I wish that one was free. Here's a great free journal. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone should be able to get that paper - a good alternative might be to try and contact the author and see if they are interested in putting it online. Thanks for mentioning Imagetext - I was going to drop a note in but you saved me the time ;) (Emperor (talk) 02:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC))

User:Phil Sandifer writes for ImageText, which is how I found out about it. It sure would be nice to actually create notability. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, last time it came up I think I gave him a prod about keeping an eye open for press as it'd be handy to have an article on it (if I didn't do that then consider this the prod ;)). (Emperor (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC))

I am disappointed that virtually none of the scholarly books on comics are referenced for this article, but that's not necessarily a grounds for denying it GA status. Just thinking aloud . . . WesleyDodds (talk) 05:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It does reference scholarly books and papers, although not in preponderance. Most importantly, it passes the GAC (in my opinion, and I usually pass GANs pretty easily). If someone want to add some refs, that would be great. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I see a lot of news bits from mainstream and comics-specific news sites. The advantage of citing scholarly books devoted to the subject is that they are focused on the topic as a whole, draw upon a wide variety of sources themselves, and are often vetted more closely. It's one thing to piece a history together yourself; it's moe effective if you reference a soruce that has already done it for you. Also: Atomic Age? Who uses that term? WesleyDodds (talk) 05:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Atomic Age is from the Overstreet book. Adjust the sentences if you want, I always appreciate help.

I'm not saying that scholarly sources aren't better (although I personally prefer sources that can instantly be checked, by anyone, at anytime), but that it meets the GAC. The editor who failed it is having issues with their reviews in general, and I'm not taking that review too much to heart. I kind of went through this with my Jackie Robinson FAN: no (or few) specific complaints, people just didn't like what they saw in the References list. They were all sources that meet WP:RS of course.

One of these days I want to force the issue, and get something like "certain subjects require a high proportion of scholarly books and sources" added to the criteria, or else put it on record that this is not so. It's frustrating to go by the criteria, and then have an unwritten criteria used to fail you. Sorry, just a bit of ranting left over from the Jackie Robinson FAN. With the Silver Age GAN, I'm not worried about it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Scholarly papers you say? what papers did people want? I can get most stuff. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I posted these to the GAR:

• Lewis, A. David. "One for the Ages: Barbara Gordon and the (Il-)Logic of Comic Book Age-Dating." *IJOCA*. v5 n2, Fall 2003. 296 - 3111.

• Woo, Benjamin. "An Age-Old Problem: Problematics of Comic Book Historiography." *IJOCA*. v10 n1, Spring 2008.

also, above they are looking for:

• Trushell, John M. "American Dreams of Mutants: The X-Men—"Pulp" Fiction, Science Fiction, and Superheroes." *The Journal of Popular Culture*. v38 n1, 2004. 149 - 168. Hope that helps. Hiding T 14:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

OK - I have the Trushell article, who wanted it? --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Myself, Peregrine Fisher (talk) and Emperor (talk) if we can? Hiding T 09:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

email sent to you. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I can get this as I've got electronic access to the JoPC (and have downloaded other papers from it), but it would save me the hassle I suppose. As my email is all over the Net I'm sure (and I have enabled the email system here): the_emperor AT mail2emperor.com that is my main account - I have others but that'll get straight to me. (Emperor (talk) 17:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC))

Request for Comment

The desireability of moving/renaming the List of comic book superpowers article to List of superpowers is currently under discussion here. Since there are only three of us taking part in the conversation, we thought it prudent to solicit further comment before coming to a conclusion in an attempt to develop a broader consensus. Nutiketaiel (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that - it is always best to throw it open as it makes sure there is a good consensus behind things.

A general note but we now have 2009 moves on the notice board, so such moves can also be flagged there too (I have it on my watchlist, as will a number of other people), although given that the article has been a source of debate in the past it is best opening it up to as much debate as possible. (Emperor (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC))

Improve or die

To use a very poor title for what should probably be called the "comics article improvement drive" or something.

In any case, after bouncing around the idea a bit more, I'd like to start with the push I proposed a few sections up - tagging articles that need improvement, and going back in three months to start wiping sections that have sat tagged and unfixed for all that time.

I've tinkered our improvement templates to include a dated option, and to stress that sections that are not up to snuff can be removed.

What I plan to do is to create a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Article improvement drive, and then start tagging the plot/character history sections of our start-class articles with in-universe and real-world-chronology tags as needed, and leaving notes on the talk page explaining that the article has been tagged as part of our article improvement drive, that we'll be along in three months to check on the status of the article and remove any remaining in-universe content, and that people should feel free to ask questions or seek advice on the article improvement drive page.

Then, in three months, I'll go clean them up. It'll take quite a while to tag the entire start class - it's 5600 articles, so even if I go at 200 a day I'm looking at a month to get them all. So there'll be a staggered roll-out of this. But I think it will improve articles.

The main thing I need to know before I do it is whether I'll have the backing of you guys. It won't work if I'm a lone editor howling for change. But if we're willing to take a collective stand and to rebuff people who complain "you can't do this" or simply remove the tags, I think we can get it to where comics are a model of what fiction-related articles should be.

Should I go ahead with this? Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be tried. I'm not super active in comics, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As I've said above I think this is A Bad Idea and can't (as it stands) support such a move, especially if you target hundreds of articles at a time. There is no deadline and these things are a work in progress. I have outlined my preferred solution [30] and feel it could have longer term impact rather than going to war with hundreds of editors and gutting articles. (Emperor (talk) 14:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC))

There is no deadline. On the other hand, there is no obligation to keep sections that violate our policies. Every guideline on the subject says plot should not be in-universe. It's only policy if we enforce that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

By imposing an arbitrary deadline? Then removing the content if no one steps up and fixes it? I am unsure how that could be described as an improvement - you'd be removing information which the average reader would find helpful (there are after all only a few dozen of us who really care about whether an article follows specific guidelines as long we they can find and read the information they are after).

As I've said before articles tend to start shedding their in-universe content on the drive upwards through GA to FA (by which point they have usually accumulated a good solid set of out-of-universe sources). This is often a long task that requires a lot of work by knowledgeable editors. Saying: "rewrite this plot or else" is essentially demanding that random editors finish off the article for you (this side of some polishing). If you were to hammer this into dozens of articles the few editors that give a damn would be spread too thin to pitch in properly.

I'd have thought if you were aiming for an improvement drive then you'd want to pick a few articles to focus on (I have said before that articles like Cyclops (comics) need a solid improvement to match their importance, for example) and that the Comic Project is brought to bear on the handful of selected articles - we are the ones after all who have the guidelines at our finger tips and know the best places to look for more information. Doing it this way would also avoid the need for threats and it'd pretty much guarantee that the improvements get done and everyone wins (it could also improve the article in half the time). (Emperor (talk) 03:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC))

We seem to be creating GAs about once a month, maybe. We need to harness the masses if we want to improve stuff in our lifetimes. Setting up the correct skeleton, and letting people fill it in would work, I'm pretty sure. Looks like this is a non-starter, though. I really wish we'd just try it once, though. What if it worked amazingly well? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

All you need is a consensus to get this rolling and, as I see it, I'm the only one who objects. (Emperor (talk) 14:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC))

I don't object per se, but you can see where I'm coming from below. BOZ (talk) 15:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I don;t see the differences between Emperor's and Phil's approaches, to be honest, so I am unsure why there is conflict, nor why this is a non-starter. The simple reality is this: either we can clean these articles up, or someone else will. I'd rather it was done by us. I've been on an extended wiki-break partly because of the current head in the sand approach. I don;t think we should give up on this, I think we should do it and we should accommodate any concerns Emperor has, but I think we need to recognise that at some point the problems need to be tackled. If we remove material that is found useful, we need to make sure we place it back in an article in the right way, to encourage other editors to do the same. Let's give it a go. Hiding T 11:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the plan is we get an "improve it or loose it" tag, add it to possibly hundreds of articles and then come back in 3 months and remove anything in-universe. This would basically mean that articles like Ares (Marvel Comics) would be virtually emptied (and as Start class articles in particular are being targeted there may not be enough material yet in the article, leading to Abominations, see above discussion, - the best targets are higher quality or importance ones). When you say "If we remove material that is found useful, we need to make sure we place it back in an article in the right way" I read this as rewriting the out-of-universe material as in-universe - which is time consuming and not what is being suggested. You'd need something like what I mentioned to do this properly (and also WP:CMC/ID which I proposed just before I was ill and had to take a sabbatical from here, although I can't seem to find the discussion we had on this), using the Ares example I am sure I have read quite a bit of coverage on the mini-series and I'm sure we could dig up more but it'd also need consulting other sources for earlier material as well as writing the FCB as a PH - it should only take a week or so of focused effort but that isn't hat is being proposed. (Emperor (talk) 14:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC))

• I support it. Hiding T 11:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to get started - if they are in-universe, they are in-universe and I'm going to tag them. We either get started or we just talk about it and nothing gets done. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll get the pages for the improvement drive made up tonight. If you could leave talk page messages directing people to that talk page, that seems a good place to make sure we all can help out with both advice and enforcement instead of the tagger having to watch hundreds of articles.

I'll join in as soon as I get around to getting someone to make me a decent tagging script. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Green Goblin has taken a hammering recently - might be a useful "test" article. --Cameron Scott (talk) 00:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't even know how to start on Green Goblin. My gut instinct is to remove the fictional character biography and rewrite the other media section so that it summarises the material already there in three or four paragraphs. I'd possibly look to pick out the truly momentous events in the biography and integrate them back into the article in some manner. The personality section looks like it should go. That would be my approach. Thoughts? Hiding T 11:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Kpmoore10 (and an IP, who is probably the same person) has been going into all sorts of detail on Green Goblin recently, much as Scottandrewhutchins has done on Man-Thing. The writing is nice, but far too detailed for what it should be. A trimming is in order, but in this case I think the first step is to head to the user's talk page and/or the article's talk page to explain what needs to be done. The Other media section is crazily overdetailed. The publication history needs more citations, as well. BOZ (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Where to start on Green Goblin indeed!! It makes my head hurt. Here would be my plan of action:

• Split off the other media section - it is easily large enough to get its own articles. While you are at it kill the personality section - he is a fictional character and doesn't have one - he has whatever personality the writer-du-jour gives him (within certain parameters)
• Expand the PH. This should be pretty easy as there are a tonne of recent interviews where the creators discuss their thinking behind the transition of the Osborn character through Thunderbolts to Secret Invasion and Dark Reign (I have been adding them to the various articles and can bring them together and dig out some more. He is involved with some of the highest profile Spider-Man stories too and so there must be good background there - the origin is pretty nicely covered as it is. All that would be required is to expand that framework to hit on other major stories and or character development. I think we could manage this pretty quickly. You could then strip out the redundant plot elements and see where you are missing anything with an eye to dropping the whole lot. I suppose the start would be to drop in 4 or 5 sections into the PH to focus the material and make it manageable.
• I am concerned about Other Goblins as it really isn't the way this is usually done. I think we should either trim it down and merge it to Green Goblin or move this up to the top slot and moved the Norman Osborn article to Norman Osborn or Green Goblin (Norman Osborn). I suspect the first will be the least controversial and there will be plenty of space saved by converting the article to a more out-of-universe version and splitting in other media.

Given his high-profile role in Dark Reign he is going to be getting a lot of traffic and eyeballs and a good example of how this can work can't hurt the improvement efforts.

I put my money where my mouth is and expanded the PH (it'll need a polish I suspect) - I also started a discussion on the talk page (and added more resources): Talk:Green Goblin#Expanding Publication history. See the above section about possible name changes. It looks to be fairly straightforward to expand it then integrate some plot elements in an out-of-universe manner and kill the FCB. (Emperor (talk) 22:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC))

The real problem is that there are tons of articles that are this bad. We (by which I mean half a dozen editors) cannot do article improvement fast enough. We need to find a way to harness the people who write these articles to improve them. Hence "threat of removal." Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

List of minor comics characters by company

The big elephant in the room we need to address is that once we clean up these articles, it'll be clear that many of them won't stand to up a notability test 9if it wasn't already clear before). In addition to mass cleanup of unsourced sections, we need to consider mass deletions and mass merges into publication articles or character lists. Frankly, not every comics character deserves their own article. Hell, you'd be surprised how little out-of-universe information I've found on The Flash. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It is why I think this idea is the way forward - keep the main company character lists and have minor character lists that we can merge character articles too. They can then be expanded and if someone thinks they can create a viable article then we can discuss a split (everything can be held together with redirects to sections which are properly categorised. Sources can then be added to the sections and it should be obvious when they are becoming more solid). If we are going to improve articles we should be sure that we aren't wasting our time. I think simple merge discussions are a simpler way to go than telling people to improve it and then just removing the FCB and leaving a mess behind (which will only accumulate more plot again and nothing is achieved or it leaves it open for deletion so we end up losing all the information when there are better ways of dealing with this). Checking through the various stub categories can reveal a lot which might not even require discussion - if we start minor character lists then you could be bold with articles like Mole (comics), Hump (comics), Brute (Morlocks), etc. obviously err on the side of caution but where the content is minimal like that then I can't think anyone is going to lose any sleep over them - most smaller Marvel characters have good entries in the Appendix so adding a link or two shouldn't be an issue. (Emperor (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC))

It's nothing I'm fond of, given my inclusionist tendencies on my favorite subjects, but when faced between a choice of "delete or merge to list", I have to take merge just to retain the info. I've been forced to accept this on D&D articles, and a time will probably come where I take this road with comics characters too. That said, I like Emperor's idea way more than "stub everything and leave 'em for the vultures to pick at the carcass". :) If the current state of Ms. Marvel is the best we're going to be able to do when we don't have critism, commentary, and analysis to add to an article, then we're going to have a lot of articles that say nothing at all. BOZ (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. They've been pretty horrible. This is a different issue though, as it is a way of dealing with those solidly failing the criteria for inclusion. At the moment a number of these at Morlocks (comics) have already been switched to redirects and those I flag are wide-open to deletion. I'm happy to err on the side of caution if there is potential for proving notability (and I'm not advocating merging a large percentage of the characters) but there have been AfDs were the result should have been delete or merge but we had no adequate way of dealing with such articles other than deleting them - articles like List of minor Marvel Comics characters, offer us the opportunity to deal with these properly and allow us to provide the start of an article if someone comes up with good sources. (Emperor (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC))

• I've skimmed this, but I support Emperor's approach outlined in the comment above. Hiding T 09:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

We have had parallel discussion to this and while I agreed that some characters and titles were failing notability there wasn't really anything in place to deal with this (the third way between deleting something and keeping it even if it is weak). This is the kind of thing I had in mind for solving this problem and (as far as I'm concerned) gives us the best of both worlds. I am also unsure how to do it but it would probably be useful if we transwikied the information to the relevant project on Wikia. That way we can work on our version but the original needn't be lost either (so everyone wins). (Emperor (talk) 19:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC))