Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Heroes task force/Archive 3

Episode Trivia sections

Per WP:TRIVIA, I think that the episode's trivia sections should be gotten rid of, as they are inappropriate for an encyclopedia. I'm going to start editing/deleting the trivia sections if there are no objections; I hope to try to incorporate them into the main article. This is just part of a longer cleanup process that would involve reducing plot summaries (also more appropriate for fan websites or TV.com) and removing other extraneous information. --iTocapa ^t 03:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that WP:TRIVIA does not dictate "getting rid" of the trivia sections. The guideline does speak to a useful role for the sections in certain circumstances; I mention this only because I don't want to see a repeat of what has happened elsewhere, where certain editors have just deleted entire trivia sections outright using WP:TRIVIA as justification. (I realize that you've said you would try to incorporate, which is appreciated.) As I interpret the guideline (since it is open to individual interpretation), we should incorporate the information that can be moved into existing copy, remove the material that is irrelevant to the article, and leave text that is relevant, but may not yet have a place. This preserves information that may help to add real-world context, for example. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, that had been my intent. I think, rather than trivia sections (and this applies universally, but I will focus on Heroes for now), there could be a section about what makes an episode notable that is not relevant to the plot, and does not really have a place in the article itself. I do not think such a section should be called Trivia. The problem is, trivia sections in my opinion too often end up being just facts that are not relevant to one's understanding of an episode and its place; facts that are suitable for a Heroes-specific wiki, a fansite, or a place like TV.com, as I mentioned, but not for an encyclopedia such as this one. If Wikipedia is to be taken seriously, it needs to be serious. I apologize for sort of ranting and getting off my point, but I think it is necessary to understand where I am coming from on this issue. --iTocapa ^t 05:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Kudos for keeping the ball rolling re: article cleanup, by the way. Please see what you think of the revamped "Genesis" article, as there hasn't much feedback so far. Cheers. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Character pages

These need serious work, they're currently just big character biographies, which is in violation of WP:WAF. I have only tagged some pages, but all of them need looked over and rewritten. Please see Jabba the Hutt, Padme Amidala, Jason Voorhees, and Jack Harkness for examples of well-written charcter articles. Character biographies should be replaced with "Appearances" sections, and be written from an out-of-universe perspective. Real-world info such as characterization, casting, creation, and critical receptions are also necessary, and can probably be found on the DVDs. Paul730 21:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes

A discussion was held here on whether 'Family' - though it could apply to anything in the form of a list - should be listed in a character's infobox. Consensus evetually decided on 'no' and I believe the same reasoning applies here. Infoboxes are meant to be succinct and only include 'at a glance' information, two excellent examples being [1] and [2]. Looking at Claire Bennet's infobox, it is easy to see that it is being abused. I suggest that any lists are removed. If people agree, I would be happy to do it myself. asyndeton 22:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

While I think that 'abuse' is a bit of an exaggeration, the infobox is full of crufty categories. I am going to make some changes to the infobox, since very little in the way of dialogue has been responded to in regards to it. Maybe it will prompt further discussion if folk feel it is warranted. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 13:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Fallout

The article for "Fallout" was tagged as a copyright violation earlier today based on the lengthy plot description. I've reverted that tag and replaced it with a more appropriate "plot" tag. We should get to work cleaning it up, however, as well as the other Season One articles. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm thankful for Ckatz's changes, but very concerned that I've seen no action since them. The episode articles, as they stand, are clear copyright infringements and are really far outside of the scope of an encyclopedia article. We should write about the episode, not retell it. I'm just commenting here to emphasize the importance of this. If there is no interest in writing actual encyclopedia articles on the episodes these articles should be deleted. I, personally, don't see a need to write articles on the episodes.. the coverage in the show article is already fairly good. --Gmaxwell 18:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Phirazo said the same thing on this very talk page over three months ago, and from what I can see, the articles are still just plot summaries. I'd like to redirect all of these to List of Heroes episodes unless there's a reason not to. 17Drew 22:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Now that the show is back on air, the project is getting more active. One article has already been rewritten, and more will follow. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:40, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Which was the pilot. The season premieres and finales are usually more notable than the individual episodes themselves, and I'm not seeing why there's a need for 21 articles of plot summary for the first season. And now that the new season is airing, that only means that more articles of plot summary are being created. 17Drew 00:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Helix fancruft.

The Helix section of the main article is in serious danger of becoming a pile of steaming fancruft. I'd appreciate other editors weighing in on this, i'm about ready to drop the page and project fom my watchlists, because the fans are rapidly outweighing the editors who seek a good article, and the high level of IP attacks on me is not worth it. ThuranX 19:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Death of Candice Wilmer

I was just checking for updates on the characters and saw that the Illusion Caster named Candice Wilmer was killed by Syler to "start to rebuild his power base." True Syler did kill an Illusion Caster, and based on the available evidence that the Illusion Caster was obese it just may have been Candice Wilmer. But I remember reading that confirmation was needed prior to changing active to deceased. Do we have enough confirmation to keep her listed as deceased? After all there was nothing in the episode that indicated that she was Candice Wilmer other than the assumption that Candice Wilmer was obese. But the Company was not even mentioned and since we are only speculating that Candice Wilmer was obese we have no idea what she really looked like. Thank you. JCSR

She stated her name was Candice, but had changed her name to avoid trouble. Further, After Sylar attacked her, she was seen unmoving on the floor, and he stated that he couldn't get her powe to work. Since we know he eats brains, and no one yet has survived brain excision, she's dead. It would require some bizarre amount of proof to say otherwise, at this point. ThuranX 02:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I've not seen the episode yet, and the comment above didn't mention that the name was used. Apologies for the inconvenience. --Ckatz^chat_spy 02:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

See ~ Syler did not acquire Candice's power. Now that may be due to Syler's injuries or even some other reason like his powers are being blocked somehow. But since Candice can cast illusions, even to the point that she had young Micah Sanders running around in circles when he tried to escape. And her illusions seem to be real enough that people think they are feeling the actual object, also alluding to Micah being confused by the illusions. Given that there is still not enough evidence to indicate Candice is dead. An example of not leaping to conclusions is the list of Syler's victims and the powers he has acquired. It is logical to assume that Syler acquired his freezing power from James Walker, but that is just an assumption and since there is no conclusive/confirmed evidence the power obtained from James Walker is listed as "Unknown." I am just saying that if confirmation is needed on the one hand it should be consistent throughout. And because of the nature of Candice's power and Syler's lack of that power it has not yet been confirmed and it would likely be best to wait to see if this is later confirmed either in the web comics or the episodes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcsrauch (talk • contribs) 03:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I did wonder aboout that, but I'm not sure that we can make that call. I'd support holding off on editing the article to change her status until after next week's episode. I doubt they'd keep Sylar in an illusion for a whole episode out of a 12 episode storyline. (unless 'volume 2' is the first half of the story arc, but then, why call it vol. 2?). Anyways, I'd support that patience. We can state that 'in episode (whatever the title) she appeared to be killed by Sylar.' until we know for sure. ThuranX 04:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good - there are too many unanswered (and currently unanswerable) questions to verify if she is dead, Candice, dead Candice, or none of the above. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we have to keep it until next week for confirmation even if I believe she is dead. -- Magioladitis 16:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There is no way to prove any of Sylar's victims, therefore I propose an "alleged victims" because unless we saw him kill them, take part of their brain, and use their power, ther is no proof. Any of them could have been shapeshifters and he didn't get the actual power. Just saying. Hooty88888 (talk) 20:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Heroes Main Page Summaries

Could someone please take a look at the summaries for both seasons? I just edited the content for season 2 as it was horribly written. Really bad. I had re-written it in a list format, like season 1 was written, only to find the recommendation to turn it into prose. I essentially just turned it into one paragraph, though I could use someone else checking it to make sure it is ok. I know there are too many commas, though I was more concerned about removing the poorly written content. Season 1's summary needs changing into prose. Please and thank you!Magkaz 02:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

An Image Proposal

I noticed that most (with the exception of Hana Gitelman and possibly Daniel Linderman [his image won't show on my computer]) of the Heroes character articles don't have any images of the characters' protrailes in the webcomic. Should pics of some of their comic adaptions be more included on Wikipedia? Or would that not get by fair use?

Oh, and while we're on the subject, the following character articles don't have images at all:

• Maya Herrera
• Alejandro Herrera
• Eden McCain
• Angela Petrelli

--Is this fact...? 02:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody finish this?

I started Portal:Heroes. It's probably not needed, but the name linked to Portal:Horror so I figured that something should be done.

Anyhow, I need sleep and, after tonight, I probably wont be able to get to it for weeks. So could somebody either trash it or clean it up? Thanks... --Is this fact...? 03:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Crufty infobox coloring

I have noticed a white text on black background for all of the characters. As was true with the Harry Potter, Highlander and Star Wars projects, pretty little infobox colors are not encyclopedic. It needs to be removed right away. Where is the actual template for the characters located? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcayne (talk • contribs) 16:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Here --Is this fact...? 04:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, ThuranX helped me to square it away. Aside from removing the unencyclopedic coloring, I removed some cateogries which weren't really useful (ie, gender, as anyone can see the gender of the person from the placeholder pic or the body of the text), and I replaced the awkward 'portrayer' with 'actor', the latter being gender neutral and more natural. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The Book

Is Activating Evolution, the book that Daddy Suresh wrote in this series, notable enough to start an article on? It should at least get some sort of an honerable mention in Mohinder's article. --Is this fact...? 08:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it warrants a full article yet as really all we know about it is that "Daddy" Suresh wrote it and a number of characters have read it. I would be like writing a whole article about the Harry Potter book within a book on Harry's Potions' Book from Book 6 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We know about the book and some of the content, but not enough to go into any kind of detail. JCSR

Infoboxes

I would like to suggest we remove some information from the infoboxes, as they are quite overused at the moment and infoboxes should contain only the most important information.

First of all the general family section should go. This is obviously important to the series and we could create a section in the character's article dedicated to family, which would idealy include a family tree, with the appropriate prose.

Occupation, like putting a character's age in the infobox, prevents the article from being written in the continuous present tense. The occupation, like the age, will always refer to the character's last appearance, in what was considered canon, and so is obviously not the continuous present and so it should be removed.

Aliases seems too much like fancruft and so I don't think it deserves to stay. Also, 'real name' - though it doesn't feature in many articles - seems unnecessary and can be discussed in the article's intro.

On a different note, in other Wikiprojects characters usually have a caption beneath the picture in their infobox, such as 'Peter Petrelli <br>as portrayed by Milo Ventimiglia</br>' or something similar. It would improve the article, however mildly, to include this, though I don't think it is worth including which epsiode the image is from or whether it is a promotional photo. What do people think? asyndeton 19:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think these are actually very good ideas, and improve on some of the changes already recently made to the template and character pages. My thoughts on the proposed changes:

• The family stuff is just convoluted, and a family or heroes flow chart might work much better. It could be put in one place, like the main page for Heroes, and the character pages (and any other relevent pages) could link to that, saving space and time. Also, when the flow chart is updated, as it undoubtedly will, it can be done (after the requisite amount of argument, obviously) in one place, efficiently.
• Also, the occupation stuff is just non-essential to the character. Yes, Noah Bennet worked for the Big Bad, but since we don't really know about the true nature of the Big Bad, it seems awfully stupid to say, 'oh, he's the assistant manager at Kinko's' or whatnot. What they do is secondary to what their purpose to the storyline is.
• I agree completely about the aliases and real name stuff. They are just non-intrinsic to the story, and most of the decceptive uses of the aliases (and I'm thinking of Syler's usage of Mohinder's name to get access to listed folk) is better handled int he body of the article.
• I had originally expressed concern with the captioning box, as a number of examples were crufty or pointless. Using the caption to name the actor (again, not 'portrayer') in the format that Asyndeton noted above helps us avoid the in-universe complaint that plagues these types of articles. I also agree that the caption is to identify the subject of the picture, not what episode it is from.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the proposed changes to the template. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless I meet with opposition by 21:00 UTC today, I will go ahead with these changes. asyndeton (talk) 10:04, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Individual Episode Articles, part deux.

Per this thread at AN/I, I have gone to TTN, and told him we will be handling this internally. Let's not make fools of ourselves.

In brief, the above states that TTN, a prolific editor, is redirecting the vast majority of TV episode articles. Those articles he redirects are

1. articles consisting of lengthy plot summaries, esp. the overlong, nearly shot by shot sort.
2. articles with big trivia sections
3. Most importantly, Articles that lack real world context. A good TV episode article needs to show why it is actually important outside the plot development of its' series.

As such, I suggest an immediate review of all articles, with a centralized discussion here, so that points brought up an argued for one article, can be easily referenced for the next. If an article can be 'saved', by adding media coverage, critical analysis and such, then it should be done, if not, redirect it to the episodes list, and expand the list of... article description for it to reflect the major thrust of each character/group of characters' actions in the episode.

This isn't likely to be an optional situation, folks. There's a LOT of debate going on there, but the 'ILIKEIT' crowd isn't doing well over there, so these reviews will, and I feel SHOULD, continue. Let's step up, show the other projects how it's done, and get something moving here. Let's start with episode one today. ThuranX 16:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I talked to TTN, who offered up this Simpsons episode as a great model for a notable episode Cape_Feare. ThuranX 17:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

ThuranX, it is great if we can improve the episodes. The process has already begun with "Genesis", and more recently with episode two. However, TTN's methodology is lacking in many ways. Obviously, that is a subject for discussion elsewhere; I mention it only to illustrate that we should clean up the articles - but we do not have to blindly accept the "unmerged merge" as default. While it can certainly be improved, "Genesis" already meets the WP:EPISODE parameters, and there are reviews, DVD commentaries, director's blogs, and other material to do the same for subsequent episodes. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Not every episode has enough, and we should be ready to accept that some articles may be better off as redirects to the LoE. TTN's methodology isn't in question here at all, since we're talking about how to refine OUR material, not about how, when, and what notices to give before redirecting mass lists. the Law & Order pages were great, at least a while back, when I looked at them. The L&E LoE had many epsiodes as single para precis onthe LoE, but others diverged into articles, often discussing the real world counterpart cases and correlations. That might've changed, I don't know, I haven't looked in quite some time, but That struck me as a good way to do it, to only make articles for those which could really get a good article, not just having for sake of having. ThuranX 19:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

For more episode examples, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Episode coverage#Featured articles and the Television Episodes header under Wikipedia:Good articles. TTN 21:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, TTN. ThuranX 21:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Resources for this clean-up

[3] (from Alientraveller) Also, Heroes is on the cover of two or three magazines now, including Empire, I think, and a few others. ThuranX 21:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Episode One review:

here are my thoughts on the first article. Foremost, I'd like to preserve and improve, NOT redirect the first episode article, because I think it allows us to tell uninitiated viewers trying to come on board more about how the series started. However, I don't want us to do that by means of 'here's what you missed' style plot summary. Here are my thoughts:

• The lead is perhaps a little weak, and might need re-examination after the rest of the article is fixed.
• Do we need a synopsis and a plot? can we refine the plot to two or three paragraphs, merge the two as a 'plot synopsis', which seems mildly redundant as a title?
• On it's own, there's a way too long plot summary, but as it's the first episode, we might be able to look past much if that, as it sets groundwork for any other episode articles, and for the List of Episodes (LoE). Also, the critical reviews by ign.com and the producer's comments don't belong in there, but in a 'critical review', 'reviews', 'media critiques' or something style section.
• Production might be a good place to put some of the budget stuff that we heard about later, when Kring was talking about things like sylar going out a window due to the budget contraints near the season's end. I'd suggest some basic season overview comment about not having a big enough budget for some of wht they wanted to show.
• Do we really need a narration section? This comes off as something of a quote farm liability.
• DVD stuff is fine to me.
• The awards could perhaps be merged into the above referenced criticism section? (remember, criticism isn't automatically negative.)

That's all I see. Thoughts? If not, later tonight, I'll make these changes, and then keep going. ThuranX 16:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The "Synopsis" can be expanded to incorporate plot-like details from the "Plot" section, and the analysis in that (misnamed, my bad, couldn't think what else to call it) section can be kept and renamed. (It is all sourced from the IGN review, not personal analysis.) "Narration" is fine, as the top/tail quotes set the tone for the episode. "Criticism" is a bad title, as it invites random complaints. (This is a Wiki-wide issue, not just TV - perhaps "Reception" would work better?) --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

"reception" would work better, and in fact, TTN mentioned it, and I intended to bring it back here, but had Real-World stuff distracting me until now, and you've beaten me to it. I still don't want narration in, it's not out job to 'set the tone', it's our job to handle real world responses to the topic. On the other hand, a section discussing the introduction of the Evolution theme would be good, and since that narration's from Mohinder's speeches about the evolution of humanity, that might be a way to incorporate the quotes with them getting a trophy section. ThuranX 19:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Characters

While you're on the topic of improving episodes, you also should probably try to improve the characters. Like with episodes, characters need a good chunk of real world information in order to require an article. The in universe information should also be cut way down. It should be proportional to the amount of real world information. Otherwise, the main characters probably only require two or three paragraphs on a list. For some featured character articles see: Jabba the Hutt, Jason Voorhees, Padmé Amidala, Felix the Cat, and Palpatine. TTN 21:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

On behalf of hte project, thanks again for the support! (And keep it coming... also, reviews once we get something accomplished.) ThuranX 23:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it OR by synthesis?

While editing in the Peter Petrelli article, there was a bit of a dispute about the nature of his powers (what to call them), and it occurred to me that we are classifying all of theHeroes characters' powers by wikilinking them to another article, List of comic book superpowers. My question is this: is it original research to connect these? Often, in the series, there is no name put to the abilities that the various characters have, and the ones that are given are not precisely the ones that are being connected to in the articles. Linking them in this way is synthesis OR. I think we need sources that clearly identify these abilities, so we can then connect them with an official name. The alternative is to remove these power identifiers from the infobox altogether, contstraining ourselves to talking about it only in the body of the article, and perhaps even in its own section, with a description of how it manifests itself within the scope of the episode/webcomic/etc. in which it appears. I am anot asking this to be a killjoy; I would prefer the articles be bulletproofed against a speedy deny come GA or FA candidacy time. As well, I think that in their current states, allowing the synthesis to remain sets a bad example. Thoughts? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 03:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

While there may be controversies, Kring and numerous others have called this to a superhero drama enough to substantiate the comparisons, and we ought to have a means of identifying the powers. Unless we're going to hit every character page and write up their powers on each page, then link to those, there's little other choice but to use the current comics powers page. Further, that might be considered thoroughly in-universe treatment, which we're now trying to avoid. Since there's enough hwork to do substantiating the characters as is in their articles, per the project page talks about such, let's use what we've got on this front for now, and use talk pages to work things out. Not a bad question though. ThuranX 03:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If I'm understanding this correctly, we're linking to a vague article (List of comic book superpowers) when a character's power cannot easily be categorized among existing powers. If we cannot define a specific power, then it does not seem that any wiki-link would help understand it. It seems most appropriate to link these characters to superhero, since that is not an issue. (I really need to get to watching this sometime... gonna be starting Jericho soon.) —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think he's asking about ANY of the links to powers. I think that most of these can be substantiated as comparable to comic hero powers; the cast/crew in interviews, and the general media have compared claire's healing to wolverine's, used phasing for DL, used 'talk to machines' for micah, and so on. Flight is straight-foward, mindreading, and so on... While Sylar and Peter's powers are tougher, and Maya's especially tough so far, death aura. perhaps? but still, there's enough comparison from the writers, cast ,critics and wider media to back up our use as an acceptable means of explaining it to the general readership.ThuranX 20:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The Heroes characters powers are far better explained in List of comicbook superpowers. While, obviously, some powers won't be exact, as some attributes would be added, this list is still a great foundation and summary of the powers. While a character like Matt Parkman, who has other character's powers together: like Telekinesis, Mind Control (Eden McCain), Illusion Casting (Candice), Memory restoration (Angela Petrelli), Memory deletion (The Haitian), etc. (All explained by Bob, when he quoted: "You control whatever the mind controls"); his powers can be linked to various powers in the List. For the sake of special powers like Isaac Mendez, Gabriel Gray and Maya, we can invent sections in their articles, or completely invent a new section in the List of comicbook superpowers article. Lex^{94 Talk Contributions Guest Book} 00:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)