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Comics Project‑class

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comics character article more like a Misplaced Pages article.

Per of what was said here, I think we need a change of style on comic book character articles. Lot of times it's just mainly plot which is something we don't need in Misplaced Pages. We seem to copy Comicvine's style a little bit too much on how to make them. I really think we need to focus on those 90% character articles (and I quote) "contains nothing but character bios, plot lines, and appearance". If it wasn't for common sense, (when it comes to sources) we still haven't proven that Green Lantern and Flash have met notability guidelines yet on the article. Yikes! Jhenderson 20:10, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

For most comic books characters, "Character/Fictional history" or "Biography" sections need to be incredibly trimmed/summarised, or perhaps even removed entirely (for example on a FA without a "history" section, there's Homer Simpson. Though Homer Simpson probably isn't a perfect example, coming from an episodic negative-continuty-filled show). And we really need to stress the importance of a "Reception"/"Cultural impact" section somehow. For instance, looking at Jimmy Olsen, it goes into far too much detail on in-universe matters, and I can't see any reception for the character. I say "I can't see" rather thane "there isn't" because the TOC is so large that there may be be the off-chance I have actually not been able to find it. Harry Blue5 (talk) 20:24, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

How about Superman and Batman. Are they a good example? And for GA we got Spider-Man, Anole (comics), Batgirl and Batwoman. If we follow these character's tracks we could go somewhere. I do think Spider-Man can go for some improvement and experienced attention though definitely his supporting characters and villains article though, they are terrible when it comes to Misplaced Pages standards. Jhenderson 20:41, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep. WikiProject Comics has long had a guidelines against overdetailed synopses, the Project consensus is now to follow Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (writing about fiction), following the months-long debates and decisions in the deletion of Fictional history of Wolverine, the deletion of Fictional history of Green Goblin, and the deletion of Fictional history of Spider-Man. It's just a matter of finding time to do it. One model of an updated FCB with third-party, real-world-oriented content is Spider-Man#Fictional character biography. As as JHenderson rightly says also the Superman and Batman articles.--Tenebrae (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful with the powers and abilities section too. Lot's of POV and trivia can happen with that kind of section. And why is it necessary if the infobox already explains what power the character has? And why is there no reception section of characters? That helps determine notability. And the "in other media" sections and articles are too much plot sometimes. And a "cultural impact" section seems more important than a "in other media" section does. I like the way Batman did it, the IOM sections is a subsection of the Cultural Impact section. Jhenderson 20:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I think a cultural impact section is a great idea. A few representative samples of parodic appearances and such, as examples of points made in context by third-party authorities, would be much better than the catch-all, generally uncited lists we now have. I think that would help create a much better understanding of the impact a character has had. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

A few thoughts...

I agree in general terms that the in-story bios need pruning - with fire and backhoes in some cases. And we have a number of good examples of what should be the aim of a GA or FA. Some of the articles that will continue to exist as Start or C/B class may not need to hit that standard.

Powers and abilities also need serious revisions. We shouldn't be going into the OHOTMU style "how the powers work in detail", but in some cases the evolution of the powers are tied to how a character has been used or abused - Power Girl and Iron Man both come to mind here. So there are going to be cases where the Powers section is justified, but not to the degree we've got them right now.

As an aside to that... and this may be something to repost to the new FC Project... We need to draw a bright line about assumptive skills categorization. I know we've been around it on things like "anti-hero" and "vigilante", but we need to be crystal clear that including "Fictional mass murderers", "Fictional bojistu practitioners", "Fictional <fill in the blank>" cannot be added to an article without the term/category being mentioned in the article. And in the vast majority it will need to be included with a cite that labels the character as <fill in the blank>.

IOM should be cases where the character has been prominently featured in a book, film, show, play, etc. Not just mentioned or referred to obliquely. These can be relatively through lists, unlike Cultural Impact which really can't be all encompassing. I guess the IOM can sit within the CI, I'm just leery of the conflicting scopes.

AVs... another nice hot one. FWIW, I would think these should be compressed into the PH - "Marvel used a revised version of the character in "Age of Apocalypse" and Marvel 1609..." and so on instead of pushing them off to their own subsections. We've got scores of cases where we have sections that consist of a single sentence or sentence fragment. And yes, this means I think we should commit the ultimate sacrilege - screw only worrying about the "current" continuity in favor of treating the character a whole from initial appearance through to now.

One last thing... And I know this bucks V, R, and N, but I think we are going to run into non-notable characters that will need some sort of article if they keep cropping up in other articles.

- J Greb (talk) 22:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are worried about having many non notable comic book characters being out now, you are too late. It's already been going on. I don't know of where to begin as examples. I think the main problem for it sometimes is we don't have a decent place to put information of them. But seriously we got comic book characters that have appeared in only one or two issues around in some places and that isn't notable. We need list articles for the minor characters to be placed at. Jhenderson 22:58, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica 00:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Primary sources used for content

I think an addition/alteration should be made to the Project's MOS page. I'd like to request responses on two separate points:

1. Primary sources can be used for the purpose of sourcing the content of a work, such as its date, plot and credits. This is why plot summaries of articles books, TV shows, movies, etc., typically do not carry citations, and is explicitly indicated by the MOS pages of projects on those media, specifically WP:TVPLOT and WP:FILMPLOT (both of which quote WP:PSTS). Here's a snippet from TVPLOT:

Since TV episodes are primary sources in their articles, basic descriptions of their plots are acceptable. WP:PSTS says, "...a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge... Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a primary source."

I'd like to add a similar passage to the Comics MOS page. Any objections?

2. Also, the section on Citations says,

"In general, any statement for which a citation has been explicitly requested by another editor should be provided with one as well."

This is wrong. What if a newbie editor who doesn't understand policy comes along and requests a citation for the publication date, plot info or credits of a comic book? Nightscream (talk) 01:07, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. By default, the credits for a comic book should be assumed to be sourced to that comic book, at least for anything post 1970. We do not need a ref after a mention that an artist worked on SwordGuy #327 that sources it to SwordGuy #327. And yes, this has actually been a point of contention from a purposely-contentive editor at Steve Lieber. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

In other media section

Can it be worked on to create a paragraph discussing this section (or sometimes pages) regarding what should or should not be included? In my personal opinion, these sections should only be limited to actual appearances, not just mer mentions or slight references in passing. It could be modeled after the already existing "Popular culture" guideline here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:46, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

This isn't really a meaningful post out of context, so it's surprising that you haven't explained why you think it's a problem that needs to be solved or why it keeps coming up. This has been a recurring issue at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Comics, particularly regarding the TV and movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which have mentioned characters that have not yet been depicted on screen. Sometimes it's worth including in the character's article, sometimes it isn't, but the fact is that even mentions of a character have brought a lot of secondary source commentary as there's a lot of interest in the expansion of the MCU and the incorporation of more from the original comic book source materials. So a simplistic prohibition of the sort you're seeking is not only a bad idea that would often disregard how sources treat the subject, but it's also an idea without consensus. postdlf (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I basically agree with you Favre1fan93 on this (if you couldn't tell by all the related threads I've started on WT:COMICS), but I wonder if such an inactive talk page like this is the best place to start it - although an RFC could bring more attention to this issue. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for not providing the context for which I was posting here. However, I still think there is some benefit to having something regarding this, beyond the (mainly) isolated incidents regarding MCU mentions. What if a character is just mentioned in an animated TV series, or is referenced in a comic-themed video game (this instance came up recently on the project talk)? It would be nice to have something where we can point to, that says something along the lines of "Are a number of secondary sources talking about this? Does it have importance given its context for which it appeared?", things like that. And through this guideline, I'd like to create a consensus for the matter, because at the moment, I feel it is a lot of varying opinions. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me - I would say start an RFC to attract some responses. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 22:09, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Misplaced Pages style and naming Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines Misplaced Pages proposals When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

The current WikiProject Comics Manual of Style reads:

"When disambiguation is needed use (comics), or (company) where that is not appropriate."

This should be reworded to make it clear that (comics) is a fallback when something more general is not available, especially in the case of characters. Perhaps:

"When disambiguation is needed and a more general disambiguation such as (character) is not applicable use (comics), or (company) where that is not appropriate."

—Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as nominator per rationale below. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support Project MOS should supplement the site-wide MOS. Would also be fine with "is not sufficient". AIRcorn (talk) 08:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: "(comics)" is a sufficient disambiguation for all comic book-related content; characters, groups, locations, objects, etc. If a particular incarnation of comic book-based character because notable in its own right then it should have its own article such as Batman in film or Superman in film .--TriiipleThreat (talk) 10:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• Sitewide consensus is that disambiguation should be as general as reasonable—when there is more than one "Schloing", "Schloing (band)" is preferred to "Schloing (rock band)" except when there are two bands in different genres named "Schloing".
  In the cases of articles that are specifically about comics—say, Louis Riel (comics), which is about a specific book, and not a media franchise—"comics" is the most reasonably general disambiguation.
  On the other hand, Hulk (character) redirects to Hulk (comics), even though (a) (character) is more general; (b) Hulk, the character, is a long-established media franchise, in movies, TV shows, etc etc.; and (c) the article is under both {{WikiProject Comics}} and {{WikiProject fictional characters}}.
  There are precedents for this: there is no Tintin (comics) (the series is at The Adventures of Tintin), but there is Tintin (character). Outside WP Comics (character) appears to be the norm in these situations. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

To be fair on the Hulk redirect, a quick scan of that article suggest that it actually has very little on non-comics uses of the Hulk; while the fact that it has been adapted to other forms gets two sentences in the lede, searching for "television" and "movie" and "film" through the article finds me one paragraph on reaction to the Ang Lee movie. There is no mention of David Banner. So I suppose the question is whether, in the general case, these articles 1) really are about the character in a cross-media sense, and 2) they do not more frequently need to be disambiguated from similarly-named character in other media (much as, say, Rocky (character) would still leave you wondering if it meant Rocky Balboa or Rocket J. Squirrel). --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@NatGertler: If there are two "characters" called "Rocky", then further disambiguation is warranted—there are well-established conventions for that (check out The Sleepers (San Francisco band) and The Sleepers (Chicago band)). The further disambiguation is only done when necessary—there's obviously no necessity when the more general title redirects to the more specific one, as in the case of Hulk (character).
(And isn't it suspicious that there is no mention of Lou Ferrigno in the Hulk article? Kinda tells you there's a lot of work to be done on it to meet the standards on comprehensiveness.) Curly Turkey (gobble) 22:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, not everyone agrees with this idea, as evidenced by the recent discussion at Talk:Hydra (Marvel Comics). The policy is "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." (WP:AT) The scope of the articles in which this project takes an interest varies; some are wholly focused on comic books, some are more broadly focused on several types of media. So, to my mind, it needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. I don't think that we ought to say that "character" is the preferred term of disambiguation, because in some cases, it won't be. Perhaps we could change the wording to give the option of "character", "comics", or "company" depending on the scope of the article? --GentlemanGhost (converse) 22:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@GentlemanGhost: The argument given there was that Hulk (comics) falls under WikiProject Comics, and that the WP:CMC guideline states only (comics) or (company) as acceptable disambiguations for articles under the Project. Of course, this interpretation contradicts policy. What is necessary is not a longer list of options that this Project agrees to "allow", but clarification that this Projects supplementary MoS does not override the sitewide MoS—that the Project-specific disambiguations are not default disambiguations.
The spirit of the current wording is that we prefer "comics" to other terms ("comic", "graphic novel", "comic book", "graphic album", "sequential art", etc). It was never meant to mandate "comics" over something more general, and it was never meant to override (only supplement) sitewide guidelines. Curly Turkey (gobble) 23:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey:Alternatively, instead of "is not applicable", we might say "is not precise enough." Every term which is more general would naturally still be applicable, much like the example of "band" vs. "rock band." Rock bands are a subset of bands, so both terms are applicable. But in some situations, merely using "band" may not be precise enough. Also, for the specific example of Hulk (comics), on the face of it, I would think that would be a great example of an article which might be titled "Foo (character)" instead of "Foo (comics)." The character has a well-established history—indeed a life of its own—in media besides comics. Of course, it sounds like the article doesn't reflect that and is limited in scope to mostly the comics medium. But I am inclined to your argument that it ought to cover more, at which point a name change would be appropriate. --GentlemanGhost (converse) 00:48, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

As long as the wording doesn't put the idea into people's heads that the disambigs here should be the first option, I'm more or less fine with it. I'm afraid that "is not precise enough" likely would encourage those who are not familiar with the rationale behind having general disambigs to find something ever more precise: "Oh, this isn't just comics, it's a graphic novel ... but not just any kind of graphic novel, it's a ..." As a comics fan, I'm sure you're more than familiar with the obsessive hairsplitting comics fans are naturally drawn to.
How about "is not sufficient"? Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:59, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

That would work for me, but of course, I'm hardly the only opinion on this. :-) --GentlemanGhost (converse) 03:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

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