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Looking for help with Colleen Bell

Hello, I'm looking for someone to help with updates to the Colleen Bell article and I wonder if anyone on this project might be willing to help get things started. In addition to being the current U.S. ambassador to Hungary, Bell is also a television producer known for working on The Bold and the Beautiful. The Producing career section of the Colleen Bell article says she is producer of the show, followed by a few sentences about the show itself. Since the Wikipedia entry is about Colleen Bell, not the show, I think it best if this section focuses more on her work with the program. (You can find the request here.) Please note that I have a financial conflict of interest: I am working on behalf of Ms. Bell through my firm, Beutler Ink, and SKD Knickerbocker, so I won't make any edits myself. Can someone look at my request and make the changes if they seem appropriate? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:07, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

This has been  Done. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:17, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking for help with Liz Sanbourne

Hello, I was wondering if anyone from this WikiProject could look at an article that I recently revised. I am not sure how to ask for that sort of assessment as it looks like this WikiProject has become inactive Aoba47 (talk) 19:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that is a great makeover/expansion! I'm especially impressed with the citations, many soap articles get expanded by well-meaning editors who just add plot. Thanks!!— TAnthony^Talk 20:07, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the response! I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything correctly since I just started making edits on Wikipedia this month. I would love to revise and expand the other Passions characters as well. If possible, I would really like to join this WikiProject as a participant to help expand all the pages related to Passions in particular and to learn from all the editors in the project. Aoba47 (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

List of supercouples listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for List of supercouples to be moved to List of fictional supercouples. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 01:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Just to be clear: This move discussion concerns whether or not real-life people should be on the list. If you really have no problem with the list reverting back to how it was years ago (the inclusion of real-life people), then (going by the current lean of the move discussion) there is no need to comment. If you do have a problem with it, then now is the time to comment. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:25, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Question about Reassessment

Hello everyone! I am new to the WikiProject and I was wondering if there was a section to reassess pages related to the topic (in a similar way to other WikiProjects). I have updated a few character pages that I would like reassessed but both WikiProjects for Television and Fictional Characters are very backlogged and neither appear to be very active so I was curious on how this WikiProject treats page reassessments. Sorry for the intrusion. Aoba47 (talk) 00:25, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Middle names, maiden names, married names, birth names, etc...

Why are we putting all these in the lead? The lead should be the page name and nothing more. All that extra clutter can go in the infobox. This is ridiculous! Nobody calls her "Nicole" and nobody ever has. As we all already know, "née/birth name" aren't supposed to be in the lead because characters aren't real, they were never born. All those different married names are nothing more than common sense. This is pointless. Who cares what the character's middle name is? It's never used for anything and just taking up space. Same with this and this. None of that matters. It could not be more trivial. The lead should be the page name. The rest of everything else can go in the infobox under "other names."Cebr1979 (talk) 13:38, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I feel like this has become an on-going issue and that this has been attempted to be discussed prior, and it did not lead anywhere. I think the on-going addition of marital names is ridiculous, especially where in a fictional soap world a character gets married all-the time within a 10-20 year radius. I believe the common-name should only be used for the opening paragraphs, since that's the only name that's to be used within an ibox and its image captions. The change of the "Alias" parameter to be "Other names" in {{Infobox soap character}} is messy, but it's there for those fan cruft-ish name changes. livelikemusic talk! 02:14, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

@Livelikemusic:, I agree about not putting the married names on the alias portion but I'd include the birth name of the characters. In the opening paragraphs, however I'd include the characters full name (including middle name) even if they are at times referred to by a nickname such as Sonny Corinthos and Nikki Newman. Jester66 (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

That's the very thing that's frustrating about this, though: so many editors don't seem to understand the difference between real people and fictional characters. Lady Gaga is a real person. Her real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Nikki Newman is a fictional character. That character's real name is Nikki Newman. "Nicole" is a plot point and nothing more (and a minor one at that): it's part of the storyline surrounding the character's history. That's why we have the storylines section. "Nicole" can get mentioned there... because that's where it belongs. In the real world, the character's name is not, nor has it ever been, "Nicole." Leads are done in a real-world format. Take Carly Manning, for example: In the real-world... "Carly Manning" is NOT a doctor. "Carly Manning" is a fictional character. Real people are doctors. Make believe people are fictional characters. Being a "Doctor of Medicine" is part of the storyline surrounding the fictional character of "Carly Manning." In the real-world (aka: the one we live in): "Carly Manning" is nothing more than a thing... an object. "Carly Manning" has never been to medical school. "Carly Manning" has never been married. "Carly Manning" is not real. There are storylines written about fake, pretend, make believe, fictional "Carly Manning" and those are mentioned in the storyline section of the Carly Manning page. In our real world, "Carly Manning" is not a doctor. In our real word, "Nikki Newman" is not "Nicole."Cebr1979 (talk) 04:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Your overall argument and these examples makes no sense whatsoever. It's quite obvious these are fictional characters, but even fictional characters have been their own history and occupation, same can be said for having a 'real' name and being known as another name in the story. This argument is sounding an awful like the whole familial argument involving these soap characters from several months ago. Jester66 (talk) 21:46, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm totally in agreement about the marital names. And I can even get behind excluding things like occupation titles such as "Dr." or "M.D." or "Esq." from the lead. However, you already know my stance on the character names and nicknames. It is my personal belief that the character's FULL NAME (middle name included) should be used in the lead and that's what I've ALWAYS seen. Before I became an editor -- that's just what was happening so I followed. Whether it's appropriate or not because the characters aren't real is not my concern at the moment. Right now, my concern is that no one else has made such a big deal out of stuff like this (names in particular) at all. --Nk3play2 ^{my buzz} 23:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Except it was, in another discussion thread, which no-one paid attention to. So it's happening now, and I think it's complete fan-cruft to have a fictional character's full name in the lead, especially when it comes to martial names. These are fictional characters, and nine-out-of-ten times, middle names are not used, unless during a marriage ceremony, funeral or on a tombstone. livelikemusic talk! 00:26, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

And that's a discussion I wasn't aware of until you just informed me of it. If that's the consensus then I'll abide by it.--Nk3play2 ^{my buzz} 23:32, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. We're also here to build an encyclopedia with notable information. If people wanna sit around and know what Lily Winters middle name is, they can build a trivial pursuit. LolCebr1979 (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

For the record, I see no issue with including birth names in the lead. My issue, per what I've stated in this, this and this discussion, is including married names in the lead...unless the married name is the title of the article or as common (or close to as common) a name as the WP:Common name. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The whole "born" thing has already been convered here.Cebr1979 (talk) 15:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

This is a much better way to handle the whole "born" thing (just pretend the fictional birth date is a fictional birth name).Cebr1979 (talk) 15:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about "born in [so and so year]" type of cases; I think those should be avoided in the lead when added like it's an actual biography; this is per WP:Inuniverse. It should also usually otherwise be avoided because of the SORAS factor, and problems that have repeatedly resulted on Wikipedia from listing the birth date of soap opera characters. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about birth years either (and I could not have made that more clear). I was talking about names, Flyer. That's why I said, "(just pretend the fictional birth date is a fictional birth name)." Easy to understand. You should also read the previous conversation I linked to. Even easier to understand. You'll be understanding in no time!Cebr1979 (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

This link you used to reply me is a "born in [so and so year]" type of case; it is not a birth name case. So your 15:35 and "15:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)" replies to me made no sense, and neither does your "20:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)" reply. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

All names a character has been credited with should be mentioned in the lead. But not maiden names or married names if they haven't been used. All the articles I edit take the format "Firstname Lastname (also Otherlastname)" but it could be changed to "Firstname Lastname (also credited as Other Name)". These are real-world names for fictional characters, not in-universe ones so I see no reason to remove them. In most cases, they are significant other names. AnemoneProjectors 23:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

All names? I disagree, per what I and others have stated about some of these characters having a lot married names. It's unnecessary cruft to include all of Erica Kane's married names in the lead of her article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Wow, she does have a lot. I do think significant other names that a character has been credited as should be listed, for example, Dot Cotton has been credited as Dot Branning since 2002, which is almost half of her entire history. Individual cases could be looked at individually though, or perhaps it's just down to the difference between British and American soap operas. Also, I thought I'd check Susan Lucci's IMDb page, and it seems to only credit her as Erica Kane (and a different character, Jane Campbell). So it might be right to only include the one name for that character if that's how she's credited. June Brown's IMDb page shows that the character has been credited with the names Cotton and Branning. But I'm all for getting rid of middle names across the board and also full first names if they are known by a shorter name, e.g. Dorothy Cotton for Dot Cotton. AnemoneProjectors 12:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

The whole "married names" thing has already been covered in this thread and could simply be re-read from top to bottom rather than going around in administrator circles.Cebr1979 (talk) 15:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

In this case, you removed a name that the character was formerly known by. While that name is not needed in the lead in this case, there will be cases where the alternative name that a character is significantly known by should be in the lead; this is per the WP:Alternative name policy. A character's common name may be the title of the article, but their legal name might be something different and almost as common as their common name; in such cases, both names should be in the lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

No, Flyer. That's where you're wrong and exhibiting that you don't understand the difference between real and fictional people. That fictional character was never known as that name in the real world. In the real world (aka: the one we live in), the character was known as Zarf and then Zoe. At some point in the storyline, it was revealed that Zarf/Zoe had previously been known as Fredrick "Freddie" Luper but, that happened after the character had already debuted. That was a plot point, made after the character had already debuted. In the real world, the character had never been "formerly" known as "Fredrick "Freddie" Luper." Same thing with Katherine Chancellor. Upon the character's inception, the name was Katherine Chancellor. Not Katherine Shepherd. That was part of a later storyline. Victor Newman was not "born Christian Miller." Victor Newman was created by Bill Bell and named Victor Newman. In the real world, Victor Newman was created by Bill Bell and named Victor Newman. A later storyline stated that, within the fictional universe, Victor was born with the name Christian Miller. Leads are not done "in universe." Victor Newman was never born as anything. Leads are done "real-world." In our real-world, Victor Newman debuted as Victor Newman. Katherine Chancellor debuted as Katherine Chancellor. Zoe/Zarf debuted as Zarf and then became Zoe (and thank goodness for that - how lame of a name is "Zarf?").Cebr1979 (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

"No, Flyer" does not work here. What I stated above does not "exhibit that [I] don't understand the difference between real and fictional people." That is just your usual, needless, confrontational self spewing out nonsense. Your points about Zoe make no sense. And nowhere did I state that the Zoe's previous name needs to be in the lead. My point was that this discussion was not about "formerly known as" cases that involve names that are not married names, and yet you made that change to the Zoe (All My Children) article citing this discussion as though there is consensus for that type of edit in this discussion. There is no consensus for it. There is no consensus whatsoever in this discussion for you to remove all names from the lead except the page name. And this discussion does not come close to trumping the WP:Alternative name policy. Do read that policy. You stated "Leads are not done 'in universe.'" And that statement is off since we leads may indeed include inuniverse information (such as when summarizing plot information), and a character's birth name is no more inuniverse than any other name a character has. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

So am I missing the part of this discussion where you all agreed to strip the lead down to article name only? I think consensus needs to be pretty clear for a project with thousands of articles. Also, has this discussion ever been taken up by WP:TV, WP:Novels or other Projects with fictional characters? I don't know if I agree or disagree but it's disturbing when global changes to a great number of articles are made by a few isolated editors. — TAnthony^Talk 02:21, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

First off, you need to decide if you agree or disagree because if you agree... you shouldn't be complaining. Second, not having married names in the lead is an idea celebrated by everyone here (even Flyer and I agree... WOW!). The Tina Lord page is the one you seem to be worried about and that one only had married names taken out of the lead so... Hurray! It's unfortunate you're late to the party but, it's not like this talk was started this afternoon and a few of us have already made some serious headway in accomplishing article clean-up.Cebr1979 (talk) 02:29, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Cut out the aggressive, condescending tone. TAnthony is correct that your mass changes have no consensus. You are not simply removing married names; you are removing all alternative names, the WP:Alternative name policy be damned. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

And you edit warring here and here with TAnthony to enforce changes that have absolutely no consensus is unacceptable. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:29, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

And to top it all off, you have been adding your incorrect comma usage to all these articles while making these mass changes, despite, as seen here, here and here, having been told by various editors that this comma usage is wrong. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Blah blah blah... Honestly? Like, I'm so over the "I've been damaged because I'm not getting my way BS..." Gimme a break, you guys! LOL! When TAnthony was in agreement... there was no "has this discussion ever been taken up by WP:TV, WP:Novels or other Projects with fictional characters?" There was: "Thanks for bringing this up..." and then an immediate edit from him... Grow up, guys. You're being childish. It's unfortunate a discussion happened without you but... that's nobody's fault but your own. We've moved on. Just like you guys move on when it suits you.Cebr1979 (talk) 09:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I already gave my thoughts on this but it seems like there has never been a total major problem with the lead names in the articles before like with the whole relationship between the characters, and of course the constant edit warring with the last airdate of Katherine Chancellor. Jester66 (talk) 05:51, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

"not having married names in the lead is an idea celebrated by everyone here" Really? I don't remember agreeing to it. AnemoneProjectors 09:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Well it seems like your perceived consensus is not so clear after all Cebr1979, as I suggested. Let's face it, there are like five of you who actively engage in Project discussions and edit/improve soap articles in a significant way. When you have a guideline change like this that will noticeably affect a great many articles, at some point in the discussion you should make a formal proposal to which the group can agree or oppose. If a majority can agree on something, you should update the guidelines at WP:SOAPS or the Infobox documentation as necessary. Those updates aren't made lightly, so this will confirm that everyone is in agreement and will also give you something concrete to refer to if you are challenged in the future. For now, you don't seem to have any grounds to revert my challenge of your change to Tina Lord. But I decline to fight with you about it.

These discussions about names and infobox details are kind of excruciating, so I haven't been following in detail. I was waiting to see how this one shook out. I'm confused Cebr1979, because above you say that "even Flyer and I agree... WOW!" but then Flyer is the one saying you don't have consensus for your mass changes. And Jester66 and AnemoneProjectors don't seem 100% with you either. I don't have a strong opinion either way at the moment, but you're shooting yourself in the foot by making mass changes and citing a convoluted discussion as your reasoning. You do realize that this has to be enforced in thousands of article moving forward? I'm pretty unfazed at this point by your recurring condescending attitude because I appreciate your efforts in general, but it says something that you are somehow always in the middle of these little controversies. This is a collaborative effort. Being bold and assertive when editing is one thing, being aggressive and disruptive is another. I'm not sure from this discussion if you had an actual consensus about names in the lead before you started updating dozens of articles, and Flyer seems to be suggesting that you are overstepping the scope of what was agreed upon. My point is, if you do your due diligence when you create these situations, you won't have to fight over them FOREVER.— TAnthony^Talk 14:21, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

My "perceived consensus" about married names is still 100% intact. Flyer does agree about that, and so does everyone else. Good.Cebr1979 (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Then why are you actively removing all names other than the article title from the lead in multiple articles? And, I should add, you're so obsessed with doing so that you remove citations in use elsewhere in the article, as here and here? — TAnthony^Talk 14:48, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Bots fix that and they do a good job. In this case, you came along before the bot. Lovely and thanks.Cebr1979 (talk) 18:49, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Since Cebr1979 is being disruptive on this matter, against consensus on this talk page, and is actively adding incorrect comma usage after repeated warnings, and after various editors (including WP:Manual of Style editors) have told him he is wrong on the incorrect comma usage, I will be taking him to WP:ANI over all of this hours from now. And I will ping all of you, and others, to that WP:ANI thread. Right now, I am busy. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Taken to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive editing by Cebr1979. WP:Permalink is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Years besides Step-mother, Step-father, Step-daughter etcé...

Why are we doing this? What is the point of having for example the parameter Step-mother= [character name] (2015-). Why is it necessary to put the years when a character was someone's step-mother? All the extra clutter for no reason. Articles that have this: Hope Logan, Wyatt Spencer, Noah Newman, Summer Newman, Paul Narita, and Dylan McAvoy. Especially Dylan's page, so much clutter. The years should just remain in the husband/wife area, no need to put it in all these other parameters. It is completely useless. I did not want to remove them because I want to discuss this issue beforehand.  — JJakathestrength (talk, contribs) 12:45, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Because other editors decided that legal parents had to be step parents from now on so if John Abbott is going to be listed as Ashley Abbott's stepfather... then the rest of her stepfathers need to be there too and without dates they'll all end up looking like polygamists, which they're not. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous but, John Abbott just absolutely needed to be a stepfather. Cebr1979 (talk) 19:50, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I know I use it because these characters typically develop relationships with their stepparents, and in many cases, when the marriages end, said character often maintains a parental relationship with that former stepparent. Hope Logan is one example but I wouldn't list every stepfather for her, I'd likely only list Ridge since he's had the biggest impact on her life. For example, when it comes to Noah Newman's stepfathers -- I agree with everyone on the list except Victor because Sharon and Victor's marriage didn't have any impact on Noah. The same with Michael Corinthos, Jasper Jacks was his stepfather for years and had a hand in raising him but Lorenzo Alcazar didn't. I think parameters like that should be based on relationships and the years should be included when to indicate when the connection was established.--Nk3play2 ^{my buzz} 16:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

You can't pick and choose which characters count as step-parents based on your own personal preferences. That's actually a Wikipedia policy (no original research). If we're gonna have a step-parent parameter, it needs to be correct. Victor was Noah's step-father... whether it impacted him or not. You feeling a character didn't impact another for whatever reason and deciding that nullifies his step-fatheriness lol is total original research on your part. If we're gonna have it, it's gotta be right. The question is: why do we have it? If someone wants to know how many step-fathers Noah's had, can't they just click on his mother and see her marriages? For people who constantly say the phrase "it cutters the infobox," Wikipedia's soap opera editors are the ones who create the most cluttering of infoboxes.Cebr1979 (talk) 17:26, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm against using in-universe dates for anything in the infobox, including spouse and step-family. I've brought it up before, see Template talk:Infobox soap character#Durations for spouses and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Soap Operas/Archive 10#In-universe dates in infoboxes. There are many reasons. I shall list some of them here:

• Fiction exists in a permanent present state
• It's in-universe information that doesn't need to be presented in the infobox
• The character may not have existed in that year (i.e. the show hadn't been created, or the character hadn't been created by the writers yet or hadn't appeared yet). Especially confusing if one character did exist in that year but the other didn't (e.g. Vincent Hubbard and Kim Fox, and peope still can't decide what year they are meant to have got married).
• Some editors think when a character signs divorce papers on screen, the marriage is over, when it actually takes a lot longer to be legally divorced (and indeed they could change their minds). Removing dates would avoid any confusion in that area
• Often the end of a marriage is never mentioned, for example, we don't know when Roxy Mitchell and Sean Slater divorced, but they must have done as Roxy remarried but Sean has never returned. Additionally, if both characters leave and are married, it is assumed that they are married until the end of the universe.
• If two characters are married when they arrive and still married when they leave, it's a bit daft to include years when it applies to their entire history
• I read recently that American viewers are about 10 years behind on EastEnders, so the years are complete and utter nonsense
• And of course, step-relationships often outlast the marriage.

I believe a list of spouses and (notable) step-family can be listed, without years and durations, without it being confusing. AnemoneProjectors 19:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The thing that makes things confusing for you is that you create these weird things and then, even after having it explained to you, you still go around as though those other conversations never happened lol... Vincent Hubbard has existed the whole entire time he's been married... and you know that. He was an unseen character... and you know that. We knew his name. We knew he was married. As a work of fiction, he existed... and you know that. The fact you hadn't seen his face yet is what (still) makes you claim he didn't exist is proof of just how many editors can't separate real vs. fictional people. Cebr1979 (talk) 20:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

All the better to remove the years then. AnemoneProjectors 19:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Ya, no. Not until this whole "Legal means step" nonsense has been straightened out.Cebr1979 (talk) 15:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I actually have no idea what the whole "Legal means step" thing is about. We don't seem to have this problem in the UK. AnemoneProjectors 09:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Really? You "have no idea?" 'Cause... uhm... you've commented on it so you clearly have some idea...Cebr1979 (talk) 09:57, 25 March 2016 (UTC)