Talk:Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

WikiProject Comics B-Class Assesment required

This article needs the B-Class checklist filled in to remain a B-Class article for the Comics WikiProject. If the checklist is not filled in by 7th August this article will be re-assessed as C-Class. The checklist should be filled out referencing the guidance given at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. For further details please contact the Comics WikiProject. Comics-awb (talk) 16:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment regarding lead sentence

Comment - I'd say that the Lehane should be shown, as this is the character's full name, from a notable, well-cited source. Just because her surname was not mentioned in the series, that does not mean it did not exist and as it does exist and is notable it should be included. By the way, I'd never heard the surname prior to today, and as such I agree with the article name staying as it is. --Worm | mroW 14:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I read the above discussion, and I support the usage of "Faith" without the surname in the first sentence. The fact that her surname is bolded later in the lead section seems to be an acceptable compromise. The majority of existing references seem to refer to the character exclusively as "Faith", so it seems a stretch to extrapolate the surname into the content provided by these references. With this in mind, the usage of the surname in the lead sentence seems like undue weight. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: This article is about a character from a multimedia franchise, not just about any one episode, season, or media. Within that franchise the character's name has been established as Faith Lahane, and the article should lead with that. However, since the character's surname is less well known there should be a footnote giving the specific source. —MJBurrage^(T•C) 16:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the RfC is for outside input about this issue. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Regarding the Buffy article mentioned by MJBurrage - Buffy is actually called Buffy Anne Summers in the show. .Only from Season 3 Episode 1 so there is a parallel here to a name being added later on and it being in the lead sentence .Garda40 (talk) 01:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The quote you refer to is pointing out that Buffy's middle name appears in the television show whereas Faith's middle name appears in a spin-off roleplaying game, not making a point about chronology.Hobson (talk) 12:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment article title should remain as it is (as the single name is what she is most commonly known as). I think the introduction should include the last name though. Something to the effect of "Faith Lehane is a fictional character of the ... created by Joss Whedon. Originally called simply Faith the character's surname is not established until...". Jasynnash2 (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment The article title should remain the same but merge the sentence with her last name into the first sentence, removing how she got the last name as it is meaningless triva. Regarding the point about how relevant the last name is to non fans, well the majority of the article wouldn't be known by most non-fans. The source for her last name is the creator himself and including the last name in the article in a second sentence doesn't make sense when you can use just one. 122.104.165.13 (talk) 06:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Please register if you are going to take part in RfCs. Being an unregistered user makes it difficult to make sure you have not comment on this in the past. Thank you.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd simply like to object to the above request on the grounds that it's made inappropriately. There is no need to register in order to participate in RfC's and stating such is misleading. If you'd like to encourage the editor to register so they may enjoy all the benefits of editing WP that's fine, but the above comes close to a threat and that's uncalled for. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 12:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Please assume good faith yourself. I made no insinuation that there was any requirement that stated anything of the sort in regards to the fact an Anon MUST register. I was simply making a request for them to register so that it is easier to identify who is giving their opinion (as there is no assumption of bad faith with the simple fact that 1. People can fail to login; 2. Please can use different computers; 3. Multiple people can use the same computer, thus making it hard to identify a new opinion that appears on the same IP address. Now, I'm not going to get into a full blow argument over this, as it is the wrong place for such a thing. I just want you to realize that you took some liberaties assuming that I was biting the Anon, when that was hardly what I was doing.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment I would keep the intro as is. The fact that you ever only know Faith by her first name during the entire run of the Buffy TV series is a significant element of the character, who wanders into the series without a family or known background. That a role-playing game recently introduced a last name for the character is comparatively trivia, and despite being "canon" it doesn't mean that the character actually had that name in the television series. Fictional characters don't possess qualities or elements that exist independently of or prior to their depictions. They have no existence outside the works that portray them, so if it isn't portrayed, it doesn't exist. Information about fictional characters is not "revealed," it's introduced. To put it yet another way, don't confuse what would be significant about a real person with what is significant about a fictional character. A last name is a fundamental fact of a real person, but obviously not necessarily so for a fictional one. So don't give undue weight to recent additions or modifications to a long-standing character made in peripheral media. Postdlf (talk) 14:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment, as the primary work is the television series, and it is the most common name, both the article and the lead should only use the name "Faith." The addition of a last name in the RPG would be appropriate to mention, with source(s) in the "Appearances in other media" section, if/when the current "Appearances" section is modified to be that rather than being limited to the television and books. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Keep the introductory line as it is, without the mention of the last name. The character is knowns primarily from the television series. The surname was added after the television series ended. Keep it in the "Concept and Creation" section. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 18:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Omit the last name from the lead. It has not been used in the series itself, and thus it would clearly be undue to state it in the lead (or in the page title, for that matter). Kindly note that this is not a matter of taste, but of accuracy. user:Everyme 20:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

comment I'm a non-zealous buffy fan, and would consider the character to be commonly named Faith, hence the aticle title and lead sentence should use that. The surname should definiately mentioned later in the article, or even linked to a note in the lead, but "faith Lehane..." in the lead just makes article confusing to the vast majority of readers who will know the character as faith.Yobmod (talk) 11:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

omit as per above; "common usage" should override jargon right off the bat. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 13:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Surely the "commonly known as" also applies to Xander Harris, whose full name appears in the lead (albeit he was - I presume - fully named during the show). The logic not to include "Lehane" seems to hinge on it being a later addition, and an implicit suggestion that the Faith in the series was not called 'Faith Lehane'. That's interesting reasoning, but since the surname was devised by the character (and series) creator, it's not "undue weight" to list it initially, since it's a creator-approved addition. Equally it's bizarre logic to imply that "Faith Lehane" did not appear in the TV series - "Faith (Lehane)" clearly appeared in the TV series, just without her surname being clearly stated. A further example: The Batman villain Two-Face was created as "Harvey Kent," but "Kent" is unmentioned in the lead paragraph because his name was changed fairly swiftly to "Dent." If Faith's surname had changed, this would be a more controversial issue (although Two-Face's example might still make it easy to determine). Since, however, the character has only been added to, the parallels to "Summers" and "Anne" are surely well made regardless of whether the names arrived in the film, series, a comic or an RPG. "Faith" should be identified early and briefly as "Faith Lehane," and then the surname should be ignored until its specific creation is mentioned later. (Incidentally, it makes no difference to my thoughts but... a query: Is it not conceivable that the RPG information was formulated earlier, and that it has always been her full name? Or has it been deliberately stated as a later addition? For another example, The Prisoner's village guardian is known as "rover" despite the dubious origins of it being named in-show, thanks to the scripts and widespread acceptance.) ntnon (talk) 15:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Despite being a rabid Firefly fan, I'm not familiar with Buffy and I hope that tangential connection though doesn't make my input "coloured". That being said, using a character or person's full name in the first sentence of the lede seems more appropriate than the current compromise of elabourating later and bolding there as well. Thinking about it, and circumstances when I might need to, I would find myself expecting either the introductory sentence or the infobox to have the right-off-the-bat full and correctly sourced name. While there may be precedent for the current style, I've never seen it. On the other hand, Whedon's own Derrial Book was unnamed for 99.7% of the franchise but is named so in that article (indeed, possibly at the wrong article location as the character was better—possibly, only—known as "Shepard Book, but I digress), and despite an ambiguity as to its meaning or intention, Dukat (Star Trek) opens with Dukat, S.G. There's obviously tons more precedent with non-fiction biographies; see Douglas Adams (Douglas Noël Adams), Calvin Coolidge (John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.), Anne Frank (Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank), etc. While somebody's already mentioned that character articles aren't biographies in the same sense, I like the continuity. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 19:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment. I agree with the reasoning of Postdlf and AnmaFinotera above: use just "Faith" in the title and lead, and explain the "Lehane" elsewhere in the article. Full disclosure: I was a fan of the Buffyverse TV shows but am unacquainted with the spinoffs in other media, so I had never even heard the name Lehane associated with this character until now. Deor (talk) 22:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)