# Talk:Moon in science fiction

I'm trying to clean up the page Moon, and one of weak points is the section "Human understanding of the Moon". I think this section deserves it own subsection "The Moon in art and literature", and I am curious if anyone here would be willing to write a few paragraphs summarizing this? Lunokhod 10:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't mentioned here, it's hard to find so I haven't read it yet.  Does it depict the Moon as Inhabited?--JaredMithrandir (talk) 06:49, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

in the opening credits to the animated series, there is a brief mention and visual of the partial destruction of the Earth and the Moon. We see the moon split in two... is it worth adding to the list?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk
--FeanorStar7 01:00, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

So where is Moon in song? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Martinevans123 Category:Songs about the Moon for now. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

I would propose to sort the info by century / decade, and then (optionally) by the genre. It will better illustrate how the Moon-related fiction has evolved with the growing scientific understanding of the Moon --Thereisnous (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Done! --Thereisnous (talk) 09:24, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Text and references copied from Moon in fiction to List of appearances of the Moon in fiction.  See former article's history for a list of contributors.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:04, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

See fr:Discussion:Octave Béliard. This concerns a claim made in academic work here/mirror that "According to Wikipedia, Octave Béliard provided an early reference to these efforts with his 1910 ‘La journée d’un parisen au XXIème siècle’, where he invents a terraformed moon transformed into ‘a sanctuary for endangered species’." which would be relevant to mention here - but this needs to be verified with a soruce that doesn't attribute Wikipedia (see WP:CITOGENESIS). Right now we are having hard time figuring out where on Wikipedia this claim was made (the article does not say...), and I have trouble verifying the very fact too, up to an including whether fr:Octave Béliard wrote such a work. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:10, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

An older article of mine but I think resonably well referenced and relevant. Can we add a mention @TompaDompa. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, probably. I intend to expand this article significantly using a few sources I have found in the years since I brought it to WP:Good article status and hopefully get it to WP:Featured article standards eventually, but I have a few other articles I want to work on first, so it may be quite a while until I get around to it. I expect the wordcount to perhaps double or even more, so it seems likely that the structure will have to be adjusted as well. As a result, I'm a bit reluctant to expand the article piecemeal without an overarching structure or plan since that might end up making the later expansion more of a hassle than it needs to be. TompaDompa (talk) 20:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
Of course add it, nicely done. This page would be much better as a list, but it is what it is after the list purge of similar topics. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:12, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
Can't really agree that a list format would be better. The prose approach has resulted in, thus far, three WP:Featured articles: Mars in fiction, Venus in fiction, and Sun in fiction. None of the lists of similar topics have ever come anywhere close to reaching WP:Featured list standards, and community consensus has generally been in favour of replacing the TV Tropes-style lists with prose articles in WP:AfD discussions like WP:Articles for deletion/Eco-terrorism in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Earth in science fiction (2nd nomination), WP:Articles for deletion/Space stations and habitats in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Supernovae in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Neptune in fiction, WP:Articles for deletion/Genies in popular culture (2nd nomination), and WP:Articles for deletion/Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture. There is also actually a list at List of appearances of the Moon in fiction, which in terms of quality is rather poor. I think the track record quite clearly shows that a prose approach is better than a list approach when it comes to these kinds of topics. TompaDompa (talk) 02:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
I concur. A list exists in List of appearances of the Moon in fiction and on TV Tropes. I'll add something for now in prose here. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, yes, your pages have been well accepted and nicely written, I guess it's personal opinion as to which format works best at what point. In this case having the list article, which I'd forgotten about, seems a complimentary match to this prose article. I've linked List of appearances of the Moon in fiction to the words "appearances in fiction" in the lead which, although the link should be kept in See also, considering the connection maybe could additionally be presented as a hatnote. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:08, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Have you changed your mind about the prose articles? You lamented Mars in fiction being in a prose format as recently as June. You are obvioulsy allowed to prefer a list format, but I think the track record for prose vs. list format for these articles speaks for itself and is rather difficult to argue with. The fact that you had forgotten about List of appearances of the Moon in fiction despite having edited the article multiple times last year and it being linked in the "See also" section of this article perhaps says something about how successful that list has been. It is, to be frank, a misguided and abortive attempt at covering in a list format a topic which does not lend itself to it in an encyclopaedia like this. TompaDompa (talk) 09:28, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Your articles have been well received so on that there is no disagreement. They are good overviews yet lack the quicker search capability of a list. While leaving my recent comment I remembered the list of appearances but thought that it was for Mars and not the Moon, so based my comments on that. Thanks for pointing it out again, which makes it easier for me to view this list for what it is and isn't - they compliment each other although the list needs the addition of years at some points. That you view the list as a "misguided and abortive attempt..." points to personal preference again, and many other lists (that some people prefer) have been drastically changed in the last couple years, even if the results deserve feature and good article status. That you are good at what you do doesn't mean that other ways of presenting the information don't work, which is why the pairing on this Moon topic seems the best approach for similar pages. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
I call it a misguided and abortive attempt not because I dislike the format but because (1) it was explicitly intended to be improved from the state it was created in but hasn't, and (2) it doesn't actually do what a proper list on the topic would do. It's not a proper navigational list or a proper informational list. It's far from exhaustive. It has no proper WP:LISTCRITERIA. It relies almost exclusively on primary sources (which is the charitable interpretation – the alternative is that it's WP:Original research) in violation of WP:PRIMARY. Maybe it would have complemented the prose article if it had been constructed properly, but right now (and all since its creation) it's a TV Tropes-style mess. Maybe it's possible to create a quality list article on the topic, but nobody has done so as yet. TompaDompa (talk) 16:50, 11 October 2023 (UTC)