User talk:El Sandifer/Fiction essay

Thoughts

Now, I don't really have too strong an opinion on this one way or the other - I largely refrain from dabbling in fictional articles - but I do struggle to understand a few things. For one, are you saying that there isn't room in a general knowledge encyclopedia for in-universe information? Maybe there isn't - I don't really know - but still, isn't that a lot of context to lose? Don't we theoretically have room for both? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no... we have room for anything, and so that doesn't seem to me to be the issue. The thing is, the two visions of the article (fictional biography/summary and real-world article) are very much different, and I'm very much uncertain as to how they can be integrated. Certainly I've never found a good way to write an integrated article that does both. So while we have room, to try to value both types of articles ends up being a decision to fork. Phil Sandifer 19:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it mgiht create long articles - not that it's an issue anymore - but the way I've considered the "ideal" fictional character article is similar to how we handle movie articles. Just replace "plot" with the in-universe information necessary for context and comprehensiveness, and the rest can be dedicated to the real world information. Thus, some are balanced more in one direction, some more in the other, and the necessity for forking is reduced. I dunno if that's a flawed solution, though... --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Movie articles are fairly easy - there's only two hours of stuff to include, and lots of other material, because movies are high profile. Television is harder - there's 45 minutes of stuff, but often a lack of other material, so plot dominates. Something like a television character is positively beastly - the amount of stuff Captain Kirk has appeared in makes his fictional biography beyond monstrous. Phil Sandifer 19:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

A bash

I have had a bash, but I hit a wall when I read through m:Wiki is not paper for ideas. Specifically that There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia. I'm not sure which way Wikipedia is pulling at the moment, our external links policy pulls away from linking to trivia so maybe it's time to revise something a little. I like the idea of this page, but working out how it fits with the ideal expressed above is a tough one. I'm thinking it's a bit like we can build a web, but each strand has to carry its own weight; one strand too heavy collapses the entire web. Steve block Talk 19:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've always taken the paper issue as one of feasability that remains agnostic on whether things are a good idea. It points out that we could have an article on every episode of the Simpsons and every character - it poses no database or readability problems. But would all of the articles be able to advance beyond permastubs? Can all of them write beyond an in-universe perspective? Can, in short, all of them actually be good articles? If not, that's still a reason to whack them, pare them back, merge them, etc. As I see it, this is a page about how to write a good article on a fictional subject - not an inclusion guideline. (I tried to be very careful to avoid the word "notable," htough I may have failed.) Phil Sandifer 19:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

MoS

This is very interesting, Phil. Thanks for starting it. You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction), in case there's anything helpful there. I haven't read it myself, because the words "manual of style" make it impossible for me to look at the page. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)