Talk:Jacqueline Natla
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Fan fiction
[edit]Not sure if fan fiction needs to be covered here. Fan fiction isn't usually remarkable enough to be covered in articles. Further, since we're talking of a major character in a really famous game series, it'd be more remarkable if there weren't stories featuring her. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm in agreement with this one. --WhiteHand
- Agreed. - TexMurphy 06:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- How pompous. A user-written Net encyclopedia feels like it can be snobby about fan fiction! If this character had been mentioned in a comic or spotted on a poster in the background of a film, you'd probably allow the trivia. People who wish to find out more about Natla are bound to be interested in her background, which has at least partially been invented by fan fiction writers. You don't think that the game company Eidos started this encyclopedia entry do you? Ostercy —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.38.200.62 (talk • contribs).
- Please don't confuse pomposity with having standards. The fact that we're editable by anyone doesn't mean we don't have a confusingly huge number of rules, you know =) First of all, let me say that I'm not against fan fiction; it's just that fan fiction is a very problematic source for material in Wikipedia, for several reasons. Consider this example: You have a Work A (a really famous and well-written 200,000-word piece of fan fiction that explains, in chilling detail, the world domination plan of Natla Technologies, starting from the Early Days in Middle Ages when it was Ye Olde Boulder-Smasheers Corpyratyon (run by renegade Atlantean priests in Natla's absence), including surprising revelations who really killed JFK - oops, that's a spoiler) and Work B (The Rather Predictable, Almost a Page Long Femslashfic™®© someone wrote one morning halfheartedly and another person almost read without weeping). You're certain work A is better than work B as a source for interesting character background details - it's common sense, after all - but how do you go about proving that? The person who wrote Work B defends that work and thinks Work A isn't worthy discussing, and since there's no rules, you're both right and we'd have to deal with that on case-by-case basis!
The problem here is really three-fold: notability, canon, and reliability of the sources. The first issue is notability; the problem with fan fiction is that anyone can write it, so we'd need to set bars on whose material we take, whose we don't, and why and when and how; if we don't do that, we get some rather complex results, and evaluating the worthiness of the source in each and every case is difficult for someone with no expertise on the field. The canonicity is another thing: the article has to make clear difference between canonical material and non-canonical material; also, if a fact is explained in official canon, referring to fan fiction is redundant (though in cases illuminating, but again, it's difficult to say whose material is best for illumination) and if a fact is explained in fan fiction but not in official canon, it's notability and reliability is again in question. Third, need reliable primary sources; the source material would have to be vetted by experts outside of Wikipedia and we don't know who could possibly vet the fan fiction right now. There's no problem with reliability when referring to the material published by the game company itself.
In short, even if it seems that "this is a good piece of fan fiction and it could provide interesting details", we just have to offer sympathies and say that regrettably a mere gut feeling isn't enough to say what's a good, appropriate piece of fan fiction, and what isn't. We need someone with any authority to say so; a review or a recommendation from Eidos/Core/CrystalDynamics/Whotheheckmakesthegamestomorrow would qualify as such, as would such recommendation from an actual edited journal on fan fiction. I hope this is a conclusive explanation. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Please don't confuse pomposity with having standards. The fact that we're editable by anyone doesn't mean we don't have a confusingly huge number of rules, you know =) First of all, let me say that I'm not against fan fiction; it's just that fan fiction is a very problematic source for material in Wikipedia, for several reasons. Consider this example: You have a Work A (a really famous and well-written 200,000-word piece of fan fiction that explains, in chilling detail, the world domination plan of Natla Technologies, starting from the Early Days in Middle Ages when it was Ye Olde Boulder-Smasheers Corpyratyon (run by renegade Atlantean priests in Natla's absence), including surprising revelations who really killed JFK - oops, that's a spoiler) and Work B (The Rather Predictable, Almost a Page Long Femslashfic™®© someone wrote one morning halfheartedly and another person almost read without weeping). You're certain work A is better than work B as a source for interesting character background details - it's common sense, after all - but how do you go about proving that? The person who wrote Work B defends that work and thinks Work A isn't worthy discussing, and since there's no rules, you're both right and we'd have to deal with that on case-by-case basis!
- I strongly disagree. Not mentioning fan fiction would be like ignoring fan films as a part of Star Wars fandom. I would recommend asking one of the fandom veterans like Ostercy or Sarah Crisman to write a paragraph on the subject; they know their stuff since they've been founding members of the TR fan community.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.47.157 (talk • contribs)
- Yeah, except that you can just say that Star Wars fans have created tons of fan films - you don't have to take the details from them and present that alongside of the canon. For the sake of the comparison, here's one thing: I'm a giant fan of the Star Wreck series, and luckily, we have an article about the series. Why? It's been covered by news, SW:ITP was shown on TV and also released by a major film distributor - in other words, the Real World has taken notice. However, had Wikipedia been running in 1992 with the same rules we use today, they probably would not have covered the release of Star Wreck 1 - absolutely no demonstrated notability then and it would have probably been lost in the giant sea of more or less funny Trek parodies - back then, it probably would have been very very difficult to say why this particular example was so thrilling that we would have needed to cover it. We regrettably have to set the bar somewhere. Also, note how the articles on Star Wreck are independent of the actual Star Trek articles - we're covering them as independent works and separate canons. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 10:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)