Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:47, 30 September 2006

Template:Lost policy

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Banner

LOST image

Do we have a copy of the LOST title image (white text with black BG) on Misplaced Pages? It would be a good addition to the Project page. I know we used to have copy, but it might have been removed for copyright reasons...? - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 21:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I could take one now, the problem is we cant use it on the project page as fair use is only allowed in main namespace. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Could we "make" our own version (i.e. type some slanted text in Photoshop), or would that be a copyvio still? - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 01:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Episode lists vs. episode articles

I noticed that a lot of information in the singular episode articles is somewhat duplicated in the full-length season episode guides. I think perhaps these articles should be merged into List of Lost episodes, or we should go about merging the episode articles into these. At best, at least reduce the pages to short, paragraph-long synopses for each episode instead of as-is. --Tocapa 05:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

If you check the discussion at Talk:List of Lost episodes, you'll see that this was rather hotly debated a few months ago, and the general consensus, by a ratio of about 2:1, was that keeping episodes in individual articles was the way to go. However, there has been some disagreement on the definition of "consensus", which eventually resulted in a formal mediation (which has been dragging on for months, since the mediator went AWOL). If you'd like to follow along though, check Wikipedia_talk:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes. In the meantime, we get to maintain both the Season articles and the episode articles, until either an agreement is reached, or one side or the other just passes out from exhaustion.  ;) --Elonka 05:57, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I probably should've explained differently. What I meant was, the Episodes of Lost (season 1) and Episodes of Lost (season 2) articles both have long summaries of each episode, even though such information is already thoroughly covered by the individual articles. Why then, I ask, do the specific season articles continue to exist despite them basically condensing (and not especially well) the episode articles themselves? --Tocapa 06:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, Elonka, I'm disappointed by your characterization and reduction of this long and complex debate. My statements elsewhere stand for themselves, so I won't repeat them here, but the above is unfair and frankly a little offensive in its one-sided description. -- PKtm 05:07, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, and have removed the comment. --Elonka 00:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to throw this out there, and not to "take sides" or anything like that, but I mostly agree with PKtm's view on episode articles vs season articles. No matter how popular Lost is it doesn't make it except from WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information point 7, which says "Plot summaries. Misplaced Pages articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger article." as well as WP:WAF. This is a growing view on Misplaced Pages, that the idea that we can have an article for every episode is different than if we should. Trying to summarize every part of the plot actually means misrepresenting the plot because we're not presenting it in it's natural form (the TV show). Articles on TV shows should not aim to replace the TV show. -- Ned Scott 04:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

We've actually been in mediation about exactly this issue for months, but it looks like we're finally reaching agreement on a compromise, which will involve keeping the individual episode articles, and reworking the season articles into "all-season" summaries rather than episode-by-episode lists. We're also incorporating some of the decisions into a central guidelines page, which will be referenced on every episode's talk page via the {{Lost}} template. We're still getting final signoff on this, but if you'd like to follow along in the discussion, check Wikipedia_talk:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes. --Elonka 05:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. It's pretty much a compromise just so things will move along, rather than being motivated by logic. Don't get me wrong, if this is what you guys have to do to get on with it, then ok, but I shudder to think that this could become an acceptable example of how things should be done. The root of the matter is that it's either episode articles or season articles, and keeping one or the other for another reason is pretty much to avoid further dispute. -- Ned Scott 06:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Currently all of the Lost episode articles have "(Lost)" appended to their title (see Category:Lost episodes), except for Fire + Water, which couldn't be moved because of an edit conflict. Accordingly, I have submitted a formal move proposal at WP:RM to move it to Fire + Water (Lost). I'd appreciate if anyone interested could pop into the discussion at Talk:Fire + Water to indicate whether they support or oppose the move. --Elonka 23:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

We need to make offical guidelines/rules on various aspects of article design, including episode titles. Then we can bring all the articles into line with that rule. There already exists an appearant stand in this case, so it make sense to me to change Fire + Water to the current convention. - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 12:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, most of this kind of stuff is already addressed in other TV and fiction related guidelines on Misplaced Pages (that is, they already follow the same idea that we've been doing). I'd suggest just making an example page that uses Lost specific examples and then links to the full explanation of the guidelines per example. That way people only have to look at one page instead of several just to see what they should do in the context of Lost.

Speaking of List-specific guidelines, we should probably mention {{Lost policy}} on the project page as well. -- Ned Scott 04:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

COTM

the community needs to choose a collabartion of the month via a concensus, would anyone like to "nominate" an article we should all collabarate on for the remainder of this month  ? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I say List of songs featured on Lost because it is muddled and practically all listed. SergeantBolt (t,c) 06:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Episode article structure

Do you think it would good to formulate a way to go about the articles? Right now they pretty much summarize the episodes from start to finish pretty well, but it can be quite clumsy when it comes to the way the article is written. There are a lot of "at the beach" or "in this flashback" kind of lines, and I was just thinking, do you all think it would be something to try to seperate the two in each article: Have one section be for the island story and one for the flashback story? It appears that (as of right now) the Exodus article does that to some extent, and it makes both sections flow a bit better (at least in my opinion). So I was thinking, should this be something to consider in future work on the articles? Radagast83 07:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think having a written set of guidelines on "How to write a Lost episode article" would be an excellent idea. --Elonka 00:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and started a page at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines. Feedback and additions are appreciated. --Elonka 18:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Getting ahead of ourselves

I understand that everyone is all happy and eager to get stuff done via a WikiProject.. but it doesn't actually seem that the Project's real value is even known to it's current participants. Lets slow down here and think of why this is a good idea, because, don't get me wrong, it is a good idea.

A WikiProject is a way to help organize collaborative efforts to related articles. One of the best things a project like this can do is make it's participants aware of the tools that already exist. We don't have to re-invent the wheel here. Lets make ourselves aware of some of the existing fictional and TV-related guidelines so people know what's appropriate or not. A WikiProject is not an independent ruling party, or it's own government that can make up it's own rules for "their" articles. As a WikiProject we should hold ourselves to a higher standard to learn about and follow existing guidelines, policy, and consensus in related matters.

We haven't even added {{Lost policy}} to the project page yet, and people are already talking about a COTW and making newsletter graphics. Don't over-extend yourselves, get the basics covered first, or you'll just run out of steam. If we really want this project to be effective (and last longer than the average TV-related WikiProject) then we should think about why we're here as a project and how best to use our efforts. -- Ned Scott 08:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you code perl? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 12:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added that template to the project page. We should definitely link back to wikiproject television as they have some useful guidelines. Notability guidelines and writing about fiction are other links that might be useful. I think maybe image guidelines might be appropriate too. In terms of the templates section I think it would be useful to explain where to use them. I don't think it is too soon to discuss a collaboration. One of our main stated to goals is to improve Lost related articles and this is a good way to get started. I agree that cosmetic issues should come after the basics but some wikipedians are much more skilled than me at such things and I'm happy to have some of them working on the wikiproject!--Opark 77 14:15, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Lost tie-in novels

Many months ago, after reading Bad Twin, I started creating an article for the Lost tie-in novels. I stopped working on the article after a few days because I was preoccupied with work related projects and as I was reading the other tie-in novels I discovered they really sucked. However, with the creation of the project perhaps there are people who would be interested in reviving this article and finishing it off. I would be happy to help of course, but I probably won't do anything with it unless other people want to as well. I noticed that there is a collaboration of the week, so this article may be a good one to start with. You can view the last edit I made to the page in my sandbox. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 22:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Participants Link

Participants Please feel free to add yourself to this list appears to be broken.

Completed mediation

The mediation is complete, with unanimous agreement on a compromise. :) See Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for mediation/Lost episodes for the full story.

One of the elements of the compromise, was that the agreed-upon guidelines need to be posted on each episode's talk page. I'd originally suggesed a {{Lost}} template to accomplish this, which linked to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines, but upon reflection, this might be better included in the Lost WikiProject banner, to reduce talk page clutter. In other words, instead of the current template which says:

This page falls within the scope of the Lost WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve all Misplaced Pages articles relating to Lost.

I am going to change it to say:

This page falls within the scope of the Lost WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve all Misplaced Pages articles relating to Lost. All information on the television show, especially in episode summaries, must comply with the Lost television series guidelines.

Thoughts? --Elonka 06:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to use a separate comment box (below). I don't think clutter on the talk pages will be a problem because all discussions regarding multiple episodes should be discussed on List of Lost episodes. I don't see every indidivual talk page becoming as active as some other Lost talk pages. I would also like these rules to be clearly stated so that there is no confusion, or someone can't say that they couldn't find them. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 11:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)  The article is part of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost. Drop by the project page to see how you can help!
Please follow the agreed guidelines concerning episode summaries.
To maintain article quality, episode summaries:

• should not contain brilliant prose, speculation, fancruft or original research
• should only mention events important to the central character and his/her flashback, events that relate to the ongoing or future story lines, and events that emphasize the story elements and thematic motifs sections in the main Lost article
• should contain little or no references to actual dialog, other than (as a rare exception) lines that are pivotal to plot swerves or character revelations
• It is expected that following these guidelines, episode summaries should be limited to 500 words per hour, more or less.
• Trivia sections should be kept to a minimum, since the preceding guidelines are paramount. Trivia, if included, should follow the following guidelines:
• Trivia that exists entirely within the fiction of the story (e.g. The song John sings while exploring the jungle is The lion sleeps tonight. ) should be avoided. Insignificant details do not meet guideline 4, while significant information should be included in the main summary.
• Trivia that exists entirely outside the narrative of the episode (e.g. The underground scenes were filmed in an air-raid shelter built for families of sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor. ) may have a place somewhere but not in the episode summary article.
• Trivia that crosses the fourth wall (e.g. The storm was written into the episode after a real storm damaged the sets on location. ) may be included provided it is properly sourced.

All of those are already listed on the Guidelines page though, right? The advantages I see to putting it into the WikiProject banner are: (1) The banner is already on all the necessary pages, so they'll automatically be updated with the proper wording; (2) The banner is also on the other non-episode pages, which I believe can also benefit from being pointed to the guidelines, since most of the same rules apply (keep things short, don't included unsourced info, etc.); (3) reduce clutter, which increases the possibility that things will actually be read. --Elonka 17:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

No, they DON'T seem to be listed on the Guidelines page, especially the part about how trivia should be kept to a minimum. I side with Jtrost on this. Explicit (and unavoidable) trumps brief. -- PKtm 18:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify/extend: what is on the Guidelines page should be verbatim what we agreed to in mediation. Not moved around or summarized or parts left out. We owe that much to the process and to all its participants. -- PKtm 18:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I am confused, because as near as I can tell, it is on the guidelines page, though it's in a paragraph form instead of presented as a bulleted list. If there's anything on the guidelines page that you disagree with though, then please, by all means feel free to edit it so that it meets your expectations: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines. --Elonka 18:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I just did point out one thing, above, which is not there (mention of trivia being kept to a minimum). Fine; I'm going to make it verbatim. I'm puzzled as to why that falls on my shoulders at this point, following a successful mediation where the results are evident to all. We shouldn't be recasting things. -- PKtm 18:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

My heavens. I see no harm in being specific, especially if doing so helps set minds at ease. I suspect we are mostly concerned with casual editors who will drop by to make minor edits after the articles are set up by more frequent editors, and who will be less likely to follow the links to the wikiproject pages. Thatcher131 18:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, why are you against putting these guidelines on each talk page? Chances are that new editors will not seek out every single page regarding Lost policies we have adopted, so stating these clearly on the top of every page will only help. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 19:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, there's a savings in hassle, since the WikiProject banner is already on all the necessary pages, so they'll automatically be updated with the proper wording. Also, the banner is already on the other non-episode pages, such as Mythology, Thematic motifs, individual character pages, etc., which I believe can also benefit from being pointed to the guidelines, since most of the same rules apply. Further, most new users aren't going to read the talk page anyway, so it doesn't matter how big the banner is -- in other words, the main people that are going to have to deal with it are us, the frequent editors, and I hate having to deal with talk pages where I have to scroll down past umpteen banners that I've already read before.  ;) And lastly, much of the wording on the guidelines page was placed there by our mediator, so I want to ensure that we have a link to it from all necessary pages. --Elonka 21:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Two birds with one stone? (It could be prettied up, but tables aren't my forte.) Make it a template that does both jobs, and use the smaller template for non-episode articles. Thatcher131 21:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's hassle you're concerned about, I'll volunteer to add the template to each talk page. These guidelines only apply to episode articles, so I don't think we should be using them on non-episode articles. We could develop separate guidelines for non-episode articles. I feel like that by not putting these guidelines on each talk page that we're hiding them from other editors. We didn't go through this entire mediation just to have the results be completely ignored. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 19:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Why not use these guidelines for all Lost-related articles, instead of just the episodes? --Elonka 20:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the first bullet point would be able to be incorporated into other articles, but the rest of them are generally geared towards episodes. I would fully support creating guidelines for other articles, though. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 22:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

My recommendation is that for ease of use and reference, we keep everything on one page, like at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines. The page can easily be moved to a more generic title (feel free to pick something that you're comfortable with), and then we'll include the mediation guidelines in a specific section of it. --Elonka 23:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This might be just me, but I thought things like brilliant prose, speculation, fancruft or original research, and trivia where all things to avoid per existing guidelines on the matter. Such as WP:FICT, WP:WAF, WP:NOR, WP:AVTRIV, WP:1SP#Check your fiction, and so on. This is hardly anything new, and I'm really surprised that they bothered to discuss this on the mediation case. The issue was season articles vs episode articles, sounds like these guidelines were thrown in simply so everyone had something to agree on. I'm not saying they're bad at all, or anything, but this isn't new.. We got PKtm yelling his head off about "verbatim" guidelines on things that most people didn't know they were talking about.

Even if it says pretty much the same thing, I'm not seeing the point in "pushing" this, especially if it can't be changed. It's nothing more than a fork of existing guidelines that already say this. Like I said, most of us thought they were just talking about season articles vs episode articles, so what right does the mediation have in dictating "verbatim" guidelines outside of that issue?

I do have some advice if you want to link to guidelines directly in the WikiProject banner, though. You might take a look at {{WikiProject DIGI}} for an idea of how to utilize hide/show as to not make the banner an eyesore. You also want to avoid over-pushing every guideline at every situation, because people get overestimated with stuff and become blind to it. It's like seeing a wall covered in warning signs, so many you miss the one that applied to you, or you start to ignore it because it becomes white noise. In other words, don't try to include everything in the project banner. We want to guide editors, not make them read a phone book on every talk page. -- Ned Scott 23:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Please avoid falling into unfair and negative characterizations of other editors, Ned. I was not "yelling my head off" about verbatim guidelines in general; I was calmly pointing out something only in context of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines and what had been clearly omitted from that page. My comment was "what is on the Guidelines page should be verbatim what we agreed to in mediation", and I stand by that comment. Please remember to assume good faith. It'd also be nice if other editors (besides the one who is attacked) would speak up at times like this. -- PKtm 23:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't really mean to single you out. I was just worried that we'd get caught up into the details and such. But I do find it odd that the mediation case came up with guidelines that we were already supposed to be following. -- Ned Scott 01:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

New season articles

In terms of the new articles which we agreed upon on mediation (Lost Season 1, Lost Season 2, Lost Season 3), I'm thinking that the easiest way to handle this, would be, once the old season articles (Episodes of Lost (season 1), Episodes of Lost (season 2), Episodes of Lost (season 3)) are "emptied out", to Move them to the new titles, since that way we preserve the talkpage history, and then we just have to remove the insides with the individual episode titles, and replace with a general season overview. However, I'm also open to creating new pages, and then just keeping the old ones as archives. Does anyone else have a preference on this? --Elonka 23:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having Lost (season x) pages that give a 1000-2000 word synopsis of the general themes are major storylines of each season. The problem I see with it is that if we have a season 3 article for that, then people will fill it with detailed information about the latest episode and forget the big picture of that article. Also it's difficult to determine themes and major storylines during an ongoing season. I see two solutions for this: We could come up with some strict guidelines for the article and heavily monitor it, and see how it goes, or we could just not create the article until the end of the season. I would prefer not creating the article until the season is over so that it is one less thing we have to monitor and edit, and it will be easier to write a quality article after the season is over rather than constantly edit it for the next seven months. Jtrost ( | C | _#) 01:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists, unused