Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics

Wikiquette: Moving inactive users' sandboxed pages into mainspace

I've been working on Canadian comics-related articles, and was hunting down information on Ted McCall to start a page with when I came across this page in Bookcats' sandbox. Starting a page myself would just be duplicating that user's own work, so I would have just left it at that, but it doesn't look like the user is very active---last user contribution was 27 December, and the last one before that was 26 October. The last edit to the sandboxed page was 18 June.

I left a message for the user about it, but haven't gotten a response. I was wondering how terrible it would be to just move the page into mainspace. I've got different sources than the ones Bookcats used, so I think I could probably expand the page somewhat, as well. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Go for it, I say; just leave a message on the user's talk page. Article drafts in userspace are, after all, valid only if they are intended for eventual transfer to mainspace, and there's no sense in duplicating all that effort. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 23:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Figured I'd chime in... Curly Turkey, thanks for moving the page. I kept meaning to get back to it and haven't been wikipedia-ing much lately (as you noticed). It looks good in mainspace rather than just as my sandbox. First (and only) page I ever wrote from scratch... Bookcats (talk) 01:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a relief. I hope you'll be contributing more! CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 04:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Green Goblin - huge mess

Hello,

someone made a huge mess of the Green Goblin and related articles. I fixed that one, but I don't have time at the moment to fix them all. Could someone please help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.0.100 (talk) 00:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Already cleaned up. Thanks. - J Greb (talk) 00:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Hah, cool. 66.99.0.100 (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone's using multiple IP addresses to vandalize Maus

Someone's using multiple IP addresses to vandalize Maus. You can see it's the same person, because they keep adding "I dont know wether or not if the book is fiction or nonfiction but from the look of it I guess its Non fiction" to random places in the text. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 21:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Ask for the page to be protected. Kurt Parker (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And I wouldn't say "multiple" since some og the IPs look to have been trying to clean up another IP's mess. - J Greb (talk) 22:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Two addresses making the exact same vandalistic "contribution", I think, counts as "multiple". CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Newspaper Comic Collections Format

Lists of collections on cartoons' pages do not have any consistent format. We need to figure out what format works the best and fix the lists to be consistent.

Examples:

Dilbert (List)

Get Fuzzy (Tables)

Sherman's Lagoon (List)

RolandRock (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I think "best practice" recommendations would be helpful in the guidelines, but as long as the lists/tables are readable and self-consistent within the individual articles, I don't see it as being an issue. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 06:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Fictional couples

I have created this Project proposal that must cover fictional couples of any fixed medium, print or electronic, such as soap opera couples, Relationship of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and Sam and Diane. I wonder if you can join in the linked title rather than here. --George Ho (talk) 06:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Infobox edit wars

There is currently a couple of edit wars going on in Anya Corazon and Julia Carpenter about what name should go in their infobox. Both articles have the character's real name for their article name since they have both used two different aliases as superheroes so naming the article one of the specific aliases does not make sense, but they both have their currently used alias as the name in the infobox. I thought this is how it was typically, but an IP address (who is possibly the blocked user Brian Boru is awesome returning to continue is disruptive edits) has started an edit war over this. So should the infobox use the article's name or the character's currently used alias? Hopefully there is an MOS about this, but if not I vote for the article's name. Kurt Parker (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like User:Brian Boru is awesome is IP hopping again. - SudoGhost 21:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, the naming conventions state: "When confronted with a difficult or complex naming issue, please check for community consensus at the WikiProject talk page". So if the consensus is that the Infobox field for character_name should always equal the article name, then it should be stated in the naming conventions. That way, any editor who feels differently can be referred to a concrete reason, as to why their edit is being reverted. Fortdj33 (talk) 21:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The naming conventions page you referred to is for naming the article. So far no one has contested the article names, just the name shown in the infobox. Can we get a consensus here on what should go there. I already stated my opinion; what do other people think? Kurt Parker (talk) 14:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

To be honest? I'm more inclined to go with the article title first unless a very good, case by case, argument is made for something else. Most cases of characters with multiple codenames should have the infobox image captioned with "Character as ID from..."

- J Greb (talk) 22:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I went to check page histories to compare these edits to User:Forestlicious (to see if we have a wider socking problem), and found this surprising diff [1]. So do we have 2 sockpuppeteers edit warring with each other? - jc37 16:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If it weren't for the fact that Forestlicious is auto confirmed, I'd seriously consider semi-ing that article as limiting the disruption would outweigh the inconvenience to IPs editing in good faith. - J Greb (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Nod, I did that already, once the SPA sock of Forestlicious appeared, supporting him. - jc37 00:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I made edits ([2], [3]) to go with J Greb's suggestion. Hopefully with those sockpuppets being blocked we can finally get peace in these edit wars. Kurt Parker (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring at List of comics publishing companies

After being asked repeatedly to join the discussion over List of comics publishing companies, MikeWazowski has continued unilaterally to delete en masse large numbers of items from the least, despite the fact that at least two other editors have stated that they should be kept. After leaving a message (message deleted, here's what was there) on his talk page to cease edit warring, instead of either responding or joining in the discussion, he slapped me with an Edit War warning on my talk page. He still has not joined in the discussion or responded to any of my messages. Could a third party please step in and help us solve this? CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 04:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

He must have seen me bring it up here, because he has now deleted any evidence of our discussion. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 04:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Template: Marvel Comics films

Right now there is a discussion going on at Template talk:Marvel Comics films#Animated films regarding the current content and scope of the nabbox. Wider input would be helpful.

- J Greb (talk) 00:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Help referencing List of comics publishing companies

Could anyone help out getting citations for the companies listed on the List of comics publishing companies? I thought it would just be a matter of copy & pasting from the individual articles, but it turns out most of the articles themselves are poorly referenced. Mostly just looking for refs for country, date of foundation, and (if applicable) date the company went under. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 05:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I have some old comics-related magazines I picked up to reference other stuff. I'll see if any of them have that info. Cloveapple (talk) 06:24, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Life in Philadelphia

I created an article about E.W. Clay's Life in Philadelphia. I am currently researching on Google Books and getting permission to upload some pictures of the cartoons. However, I would like help with the article especially E.W. Clay's importance as a cartoonist and the series' influence in other cartoonist/cartoons.

CPsju 18:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC) (talk)

Comics MoS changes

I'm posting this here to get a wider range of input. And yes, I'm deliberately separating the topics.

- J Greb (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:PLOT

The Project level MoS needs to address plot, plot bloat, and only plot situations in articles we look after. I'm suggesting the following:

• Plot summaries in standalone articles covering a single issue cap at 150-200 words. Remember, inmost cases we would be dealing with 22 pages, max in an issue. And in some cases 150 words may be too much since older issues ran less pages.
• Plot summaries in standalone articles covering a story arc or event cap at 500 words. This is total not "per section". Most large events or long story arcs are equatable to films which cap at 700.
• Plot summaries in standalone articles covering an in-story element in comics - characters, places, equipment, concept - fall into one of two limits: 400-500 words for elements with long and complex back-stories, 150 words for those which are straight forward or cover few issues. It is preferable that these "fictographies" be reworked into sections with real world context and cover the notable aspects of the element as opposed to trying to include all appearances of the element.
• Plot sections within articles on publications or strips cap at 500 words if the publication/strip is one story, 300 words of individual story arcs, 150 for individual issues, or 50-100 for arcs or issues that have their own articles. Such sections should be limited to notable stories and minimized as much as possible. ie "Filler" issues should not be included and a notable story arc that ran 6 issues in an ongoing series might warrant 1 section, but not 6.

- J Greb (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Rather than cap, I'd say "strongly recommend against" anything longer than a given number of words. There are always potential exceptions---Chris Ware in particular is noted for the extreme density of his pages. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You may want to keep in mind that this is dealing with the in-story elements. Not with real people or real companies. Articles like Chris Ware - which is the biography of an actual person - should not be providing plot.

- J Greb (talk) 00:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course not, but I wasn't suggesting such, either. I wrote "Chris Ware" as a catch-all for all his works (Acme Novelty Library, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, Quimby the Mouse and Rusty Brown have articles so far). Certain issues of Acme Novelty Library (like #1 and #3) were stand-alone issues, and given the amount of writing devoted to his work (at least two stand-alone books), it's not unreasonable to suppose that someone might start a page on one of those stand-alone issues (not that I'm planning to do it myself, but I have seen multiple articles on both of those issues in reliable sources, so don't laugh it off).

Of course, I used Ware only as an example. It could easily happen with someone else. Besides, what's wrong with "strongly recommend against" or something similar? Why automatically exclude all exceptions? CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 02:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair point in a way. I'm looking at WP:FILMPLOT as a basis and that does use:

“

Plot summaries for feature films should be between 400 and 700 words. The summary should not exceed the range unless the film's structure is unconventional, such as Pulp Fiction's non-linear storyline, or unless the plot is too complicated to summarize in this range.

”

My use of "cap" is due to my understanding of guidelines - there are expected to be exceptions - and setting a bright line to shoot at for keeping articles in line with PLOT.

- J Greb (talk) 02:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

So how does my recommendation of "strongly recommend against" fall out of line with what you quoted above? CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 03:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

In universe details

There are a lot of pejorative terms that could be used here for the in-story material that wind up in articles, but the upshot is that we need to work towards making the articles appropriate for a general use encyclopedia. Not one aimed at fans or worse, one that tries to ascribe real world details to fictional things.

• Sections or articles on in-story elements should avoid ascribing transient details or fine tuning details where broader ones are more appropriate. That is, Batman is a martial artist, but giving a list of the various styles stories have stated he knows or are assumed by artistic depiction isn't necessary.
• Sections or articles on tools, equipment, vehicles, etc should not go into explicit and full detail about construction, contents, real-world components, etc related to the object. Giving a short list of firearms the Punisher favors or general examples of the contents of Batman's utility belt should be enough. Laminar construction of Iron Man's armor, fabric layers of the Batsuit, full handbook details of all the weapons in War Machin's armor, in-story build specs of the Batmobile, and the like are going overboard.

- J Greb (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

One other item...

• For articles on characters, creatures, items, places, etc that are feature in the stores, the names used in the lead and infobox should be the ones that are commonly used. Aliases noted in the infobox should be notable aliases. That would be "Peter Parker", not "Peter Benjamin Parker"; "Dick Grayson" not "Richard John Grayson"; and so on.

- J Greb (talk) 01:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• Aliases - WP:COMMONNAME comes to mind. We just have an interesting situation in that many of the characters we deal with have more than one. Peter Parker and Spider-Man, for example. That said, I do think we should have a place for full name "somewhere" in a character infobox (presuming it differs from a common name). - jc37 03:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• And I dunno about the specs of unique equipment. Especially since so many articles of a characters equipment are being merged/redirected back to the character's page. But I would be happy to discuss this further. - jc37 03:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation

While we're at it, that whole discussion on disambiguation never really came to a consensus. Even if you take my (unpopular) views out of the picture, the rest of those in the discussion never seemed to quite agree on something. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

General comments

Not to throw cold water on all of this, but does anyone seriously think that the innumerable editors of comics-related articles out there actually read the comics MoS? And further, so we expect that we will be able to point to the MoS during XfD discussions nd the like and that will be given any weight by the closer? - jc37 03:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If for nothing else, it's there to point to in the event of a dispute, and to provide some level of consistency. Personally, I think it would an awful lot more useful if it were heavier on providing a rationale for each guideline, though. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 04:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)