Talk:Mars in fiction
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False titles and recent reverts edit
I saw the recent reverts. I don't know if this article is in British or US English; if the former, I would suggest getting rid of the "false titles". They don't bother me, but then I've spent decades in the US; I think they grate on British ears. If it's in American English I see no reason to change them -- as far as I know they are normal usage in the US. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:12, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- The article is not written in either of those varieties of English, nor was it intended to be. TompaDompa (talk) 01:22, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe the most telling thing is that this feature article went through the feature article process (which would have flagged incorrect usage). Randy Kryn (talk) 01:47, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
Variant title - which one to use? edit
Regarding Umiński's W nieznane światy. It had ~10 editions, from third or so the title changed to Na drugą planetę. Which one to use? (No wiki article yet, I'll translate my entry from pl:Na drugą planetę eventually). Also, which date do we prefer? Magazine publication or book publication? 1894 vs 1895 for the record. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:41, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- Definitely prefer the original publication date. My intuition says to prefer the title used by the original edition, but I suppose if later sources typically refer to it by the other title we should use that one? TompaDompa (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think source usage vary (and, sigh, at least one "reliable" soruce I found had an error claiming those were seaprate works, and calling the one with the later title a "sequel"). Btw, when you say original date, do you mean magazine or book? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Whichever came first, which in this case is the magazine. Likewise, H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds was first published in 1897 as a serial and then in book format in 1898, and should be referred to as an 1897 work. There are some cases where it's not quite that simple, and I think those have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. For instance, George Griffith's A Honeymoon in Space was first published as the serial Stories of Other Worlds in Pearson's Magazine in 1900 before being published in book format under the title A Honeymoon in Space in 1901, but the serial was substantially abridged (not the novel expanded, mind you – the magazine version left out material that had already been written) so I've opted to refer to it as a 1901 novel. Something like John W. Campbell's Islands of Space (which we discussed recently at Talk:Warp drive/Archive 1#date of story), which was published as a serial in 1931 but not published as a book until a quarter of a century later in 1957, is probably more appropriately referred to as a 1931 work than a 1957 work – even though the book version was "extensively edited" according to our article. Fix-up novels should in my opinion always be explicitly labelled as such and given the date of the fix-up publication rather than that of the original stories (which may have been written across a fairly long period of time). TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think source usage vary (and, sigh, at least one "reliable" soruce I found had an error claiming those were seaprate works, and calling the one with the later title a "sequel"). Btw, when you say original date, do you mean magazine or book? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Image of canals edit
Perhaps something from commons:Category:Martian canals may be of use? Note subcategories (Lowell's work). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:45, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- We currently use File:The_American_Museum_journal_(c1900-(1918))_(17539936613).jpg (the FAC raised copyright questions about File:Lowell_Mars_channels.jpg that I sidestepped by replacing it). It's in the "Nostalgic depictions" section, however; I didn't want to have both the Sagan quote and an image in the "Canals" section so as not to overcrowd it, and I prioritized the quote (easier to find another spot for the image than for the quote). TompaDompa (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2024 (UTC)