Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction/Archive 5

message: The "Key principles" section is good in principle, though it could use some more work before it's ready.  In particular, it needs some tweaking to make it more consistent with WP:FICT, and to keep closer to the spirit of the current version; I made of few changes to the draft version, but it could use more time and attention before that section is implemented.  The "Perspective in fiction" section in the draft adaption was an unacceptable watering down of this guideline; I think nothing needs to be changed regarding perspective.--ragesoss 00:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I, clearly, disagree with you entirely on the last sentence. I'd recommend adopting Dr. Aaron's draft revision basically as he wrote it. DCB4W 02:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: My thoughts on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28writing_about_fiction%29&oldid=99256899 draft adaptation]

message: I was hoping by not removing anything and only adding the "key points" that it would be non-controversial enough to be a shoe in. Even now I can't help but think people are objecting simply because "a change happened" which isn't a good reason in itself.
WP:BOLD applies to guidelines too. We do not have to wait for a grand discussion to improve something. A consensus does not always mean a fresh discussion on a specific matter. You can reflect a consensus without even talking about the issue. As long as the change isn't massive, doesn't change the meaning of the guideline, and in good faith is something people are likely to support, don't get all upset because someone didn't ask you specifically for your two cents. Don't object simply because you can object, object because you have an actual reason to. If it's a simple change then do it and be done with it.
Personally, I don't have a strong feelings about this right now. What's important is the spirit of the guideline, and most of us agree on that. So I'm not going to argue for the change I made, because it doesn't really matter that much. My whole rant here is just to let you guys know that you shouldn't get so worked up over the change itself without addressing what the change was about.
Pretend nothing happened in the edit history of this guideline, and with a fresh mind consider this version on it's own. Don't let the whole change thing throw you, just put that out of mind. I think you'll find that it really is a rather trivial change that helps to tie this guideline with others and makes for a more inviting intro. If not, lets improve upon it rather than dumping the idea all together. That's what happened last time and a lot of good ideas got overlooked. -- Ned Scott 04:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, Ned. I'll take another look at your proposed changes later today and offer some more commentary here. I originally felt that the changes repeated too much information from other places, but perhaps a fresh look after some time has passed will give me more insight. I apologize for any ruffled feathers. -- BrianSmithson 05:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem, and maybe it was too much of a change without discussion. Like I said, I don't really feel strongly about the change, I just wasn't sure if people were objecting because a change happened or because of the change itself.  -- Ned Scott 05:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, some more comments on the "Five key principles": If we're going to do this, let's go ahead and merge in everything from Wikipedia:Notability#Fiction rather than summarizing and adding a "See also" link. And I think the five principles need some formatting. Let's convert them to prose rather than super-long lists, for one. Take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution for a well-formatted policy proposal that also includes "Five principles" and aim to format our five like that. I fiddled with it a bit (check the draft's edit history), but it won't work unless we prosify the lists. Part of my hangup with the addition (and with the whole draft replacement guide) is the overuse of bold, italics, and subject headers. I know it sounds horrible, but if these issues of ugliness were addressed, I'd be able to give a more unbiased opinion on the "five key principles" and the whole shebang. — BrianSmithson 12:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we can do something like what's done with WP:FU and WP:FUC, where one is transcluded in the other. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a bad idea. — BrianSmithson 08:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: One specific idea that we can borrow from Wikipedia:Attribution is to offload some of the heavier details and examples to a FAQ subpage. I think that the question-and-answer format would work well for this topic, especially since it seems somewhat counterintuitive to many people. — TKD::Talk 09:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  where's the fire? 

message: I find this talk page is almost like a discussion board with the essays that get posted here - that's why I wrote a draft revision - so I could put my views down in completion without having them swamped. I figured I'd say a few things before this pages gets archived again :)
I agree with TheDJ and DCB4W that there are several main points that seem to be coming up:
* How much fictional detail can be put into an article before it goes from comprehensive to a copyright violation?
* Is the ulility of succession boxes in organising information completely offset by their propensity to spurn useless articles?
* While it can be extremely convenient to write in an in-universe style, does it encourage too much unreferenced garbage and fan-commentary to be written?
Personally, and I tried to encapsulate this in my draft revision, I find the current guidelines too prescriptive. While I can certainly see where it is coming from, I'd prefer to focus on saying what we want (i.e. my 5 key points) rather than what we don't want. I also think that while lots of fictional detail, succession boxes, and in-universe writing can create problems, it is more important to focus on having a guideline say why they are bad and what problems they create than generating a blanket ban.
I'm glad that people are talking about it though. Eventually, I hope some consensus will be reached. I didn't mind the current page being marked as disputed (hey, I dispute it!), but I don't care as long as contributors are working to make things better.
Dr Aaron 10:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't we move your comments up under "disputed template" above so that we avoid fragmenting the discussion more? (It shouldn't be archived as long as the discussion is live.) — BrianSmithson 11:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion board

message: Where did the stock introduction "[name] is a fictional character in [book]" originate? To me, this wording comes across as excessively pedantic, or even redundant, except perhaps in cases of historical fiction, where it may help prevent confusion. What are peoples' thoughts on this? Is there a history behind this wording? Feezo (Talk) 04:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure of a "history" behind the formulation, but each separate article needs to stand on its own, so to speak, so, for a fictional character, the important context to establish is that the subject is, indeed, fictional; which work(s) of fiction the character appears in; and who created the character. You can't assume that the reader is already oriented to the context of the overall work, since the article can be linked to from anywhere inside or outside Wikipedia. — TKD::Talk 05:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think that it would also be okay to do something like, "Curious George is an orange monkey in children's storybooks written by Whatsisname Creator" or similar. In other words, if the fact that it's fictional is strongly implied, I don't see why it's necessary to always flat-out state as much. But to answer the original question, I think it comes from WP:FICT. -- BrianSmithson 01:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, personally, I'd be okay with that, but, in general, experience has shown me that it's much harder to actually err on the side of giving too much context for comprehension than it is to give too little. :) — TKD::Talk 06:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stock introduction 

message: I'm also finding a lot of excessively long summaries in Doctor Who articles. Take for instance The Empty Child, which has a beat-by-beat rundown of every single scene in the episode. --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 05:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Excessive plot detail in Doctor Who articles

message: * Holy cow, this is longer than the summary in The Lord of the Rings, for a single TV episode.
* Also long.
;Borderline: (in my view) ,  (two episodes after all),  (on retrospect, perhaps below the limit)
It is hard to establish a hard-and-fast length rule in bytes since the nature of the summary affects how much it infringes on copyright (see Wikipedia:Fair use). But how about we establish some guidelines with a max function thus: Acceptable length, paraphrased plot summary max(% of article, # bytes, level of detail, legal limit) for example? After all, copyvio is not the only concern. Writing well and balanced, and WP:NOT is also important. Is this House episode something to go on? --GunnarRene 23:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Excessive plot detail in Stargate articles

message: Related: Shouldn't there be a process, like for image deletion, for this? As it stands now, owning editors can just delete the  tag and carry on.... --GunnarRene 23:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be happy to work on anything that will help to reduce plot summaries. --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 23:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Process?

message: Long plot summary as active copyright violation discussion. Discussion here: Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 February 19/Articles ----GunnarRene 17:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long plot summary as copyvio 

message: I recently wrote an essay about how I think these plot-summary-only articles should be handled, in a world of ideal Wikipedia policy.  Participants here may find it interesting, even if few are likely to agree.  --ragesoss 18:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually a very large population of users who agree with you, we are just all spread out. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text: That's a great example of what a good episode article can be, but it's a very rare episode that has anywhere near that many sources available.--ragesoss 17:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What should an article for a TV episode look like?

message: Wow, there a lot of nerdy battle articles on here. See :Category:Fictional battles. Every single one of these articles' subjects is already covered in the article about the work in which it is described. Few of these have elements other than plot summary. And many use  inappropriately, per this very guideline. --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 09:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like those infoboxes really help pages like Battle of Yavin.  It's a good way to concisely summarize the battle. - Peregrine Fisher 09:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In a completely in-universe way. What's more important: the number of fictional people in a fictional battle, or the name of the fictional work? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, I guess we should make a specific infobox tailored to fictional battles.  Definitely should have Star Wars mentioned prominenty. - Peregrine Fisher 05:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And what would you put in that infobox? The name of the work, and...? I'm having trouble figuring out why we need articles on most of these battles, let alone infoboxes. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking it would be similar to the current infobox, but add some elements like fictional universe, whether it's from a film or TV, stuff like that.  Maybe put the word "fictional" somewhere prominent.  Any other things you can think of that I should add? - Peregrine Fisher 06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm with AMIB on this one. Even if you really do want to write about it in Wikipedia, why break it up as a "battle" instead of writing about "that part in the story". The only reason we would break it up like that is if it were... real.. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Breaking it up like that is how you do real battles, so it seems an obvious way to do fictional battles.  It's like a lot of infoboxes for fictional subjects that contain in-universe info, like some of Star Trek infoboxes, for instance.  If you have a wish list of what you'd like to see in the infobox, I'd like to hear it. - Peregrine Fisher 06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Breaking it up like that is how you do real battles..." I think that covers the problem. The vast bulk of fiction related material should not be treated as if it were real. At least not here. In the Star Trek Wiki, or the Star Wars one, or the Middle Earth one, or the comic book centric ones, or the like, sure. Those projects are geared to treat the in continuity material as real bios, places, and battles. The main Wiki isn't. Fold it into the article about the film/novel/episode/comic as a part of the non-overly-detailed plot discussion and let it go at that. — J Greb 06:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I disagree fully with Black, Ned and JGreb, perfectly valid infobox, does not violate WAF. Perhaps we do need a separate one, however, for fiction. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think you understand my point. One example brought up, Battle of Yavin, why think of it as the Battle of Yavin... I had to click on it to know what the hell it was about from that title. It's simply one of the battles from Star Wars, and of course I've heard of that before, but never thought to separate it like that. These "battles" are not notable for being battles, they're notable for being apart of a story. It doesn't make sense to break them up as real battles when we could break them up as parts of the story. -- Ned Scott 06:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In other words, my concern is about how we organize the information, not about if we should or should not write about it. -- Ned Scott 07:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  As someone who has never seen Star Wars (because it doesn't really exist), I found the infobox exceedingly useful. The lead-in and image gave it away to me that it's fictional.. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 10:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

text: We need to burn like a wall fire through the cruft in the fictional events category tree. I'm not sure why I never thought to explored these categories before, but there's a lot of cuft in there. --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 23:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional battles 

message: I just slightly modified this guideline (which I still heartily detest) to reflect that the no original research and verifiability policies have been merged into one - Wikipedia:Attribution. I tried to do so without changing any of the content of the policy, but people should feel free to modify my changes. Cheers. Dr Aaron 11:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes to policy - [[WP:ATT]]

message: After stepping away in frustration a few weeks ago, I came back and look another look at the MOS. I note a lot of recent discussion focuses on overly long plot summaries. While they are often a symptom of an in-universe perspective, I still don't feel the current guidelines really focus on key issues like the scope and level of detail that should be in an article. Also, I think more point could be made about notability of subjects and attribution.
I suggested about 3 months ago a revised MOS, with lots of changes. I think they were all a bit much - trying to change everything at once. While I personally think that an in-universe style isn't inherently bad, I have decided to let that crusade take a back seat.
I have altered my draft revision - it now contains all of the same content as the current page, but just adds a bit at the beginning to highlight how the core policies of WP:NOTE and WP:ATT apply to fictional subjects. It also talks about detail and scope - something that seems to be a big topic in this talk page of late.
:I encourage people to take a look at it and give me some feedback
Hopefully this time some sort of consensus may be reached. In my opinion, the draft changes do not represent any significant change in policy at this stage, but to my mind stresses a few points that could be brought out a bit better. Dr Aaron 12:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Point taken - I like your changes (see the talk page) & the new version is even better. Dr Aaron 00:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me that the draft conflicts with the current version, in that the draft encourages the use of primary sources (eg where is says "In the case of serial fiction ... the specific fictional works should be cited as appropriate"). I don't think you can cite the fictional work - that would be original research. Wikipedia editors using the fictional work as a source is probably the reason for overlong plot summaries.--Commander Keane 01:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, there is no conflict (I didn't see "In addition to the source material..." in the current version). So both versions are incorrect (in my opinion) and need to be changed - you should not be using the film/book to write the article, you need to use third party sources.--Commander Keane 01:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an unenforcable rule. There is so much fiction out there atm, you cannot require everyone to ONLY use 3rd party sources and non-original for writing articles about it. Plot summaries are a advised part of the content of articles on fiction. You cannot fully copy plot summaries from anything because it would be a COPYVIO (at least in the cases where it's not ripped from a vague fansite), so if you are gonna have to summarize in your own words, you might as well do it by referencing the original material. However that's only for plot summaries. Any external "real world" information should be sourced without using the fictional material. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 02:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Overlong plot summaries and the current MOS

message: I added another example to the OOU articles: Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, which turned a character list into an article discussing their creation, a brief overview of major characters (only the two main protagonists are given seperate articles), and character merchandise information. It is 40 KB of prose, and 25-26 KB of references. Feel free to revert if you disagree. — Deckiller 02:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another example added

message: I was just meandering through Wikipedia (as I do) and noticed that the Ah! My Goddess: The Movie had the entire plot summary deleted and replaced with a several sentence version (by 202.41.213.141).
While I agree the original was probably a bit heavy on the detail, I strongly disagree with this approach. I think a person should edit the offending material themselves (with a note on the talk page saying why the existing summary has been condensed) or tag it and leave the expanded summary for someone else to cut down. Removing the text makes it a real challenge to summarise.
For instance, I noticed that someone expanded Howl's Moving Castle (film) plot to about 3 times its original length a couple of months back. Rather than deleting the whole thing, I spent a couple of hours making it more succinct and focussing on key points. 
I think something to this effect should be added to the "in universe" template section. Also, considering the {plot} tag (see Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup) links to this manual of style, some mention of the {plot} tag should be in the page. Dr Aaron 13:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Policy on {plot} tags and spontaneous plot summary deletion

message: I changed the prose examples quite a bit, check out the diff.  What do people think? - Peregrine Fisher 18:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the newest version looks good to me.  Better than what I wrote. - Peregrine Fisher 22:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems alright. This did get me thinking, that section starts off with talking about plot summaries, as does the exceptions section.. maybe a bit of merging/retiling/something is in order? -- Ned Scott 03:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably. The guideline is evolving, so that would make sense. — Brian (talk) 22:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I changed the prose examples quite a bit 

message: Ugh. I just found this thing. I think it's best just to wipe it and start over. Thoughts? --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 09:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Noted and voted. But this article led me to an even more troubling area: :Category:Plot summaries. There are tons of this kind of thing on Wikipedia. Now, I'm not suggesting that we go on a crusade to delete all of these, but the lot of them are currently violating WP:FICT, WP:WAF, and WP:NOT from what I can tell. — Brian (talk) 09:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No crusade? But I bought this pretty saddle and sword and everything... --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 10:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, couldn't a lot of these be AFDed in groups? --Chris Griswold  (☎☓) 10:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Naruto plot articles are periodically nominated for AFD, and always survive.  I would love to see them improved, but unless you get a closing admin willing to ignore the keep opinions, then survive deletion review, deletion probably isn't going to work.  TheronJ 13:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added my thoughts into the AfD, albeit pessimistically. Although plot summaries encourage new users to contribute, I can't bear to read a wall of text, even if the topic is interesting. After reading the discussions here and at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not, it's clear there's no consensus. Not sure what direction this guideline should take though. UnfriendlyFire 00:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Plot of Naruto: Shippūden]]