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Fictional characters known by initials - what qualifies as the "preferred style for their own name" ?

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Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography

MOS:INITIALS

WP:Requested moves has consistently interpreted the "Initials" section as also applying to names of fictional characters.

An initial is capitalized and is followed by a full point (period) and a space (e.g. J. R. R. Tolkien), unless:

  • the person demonstrably has a different, consistently preferred style for their own name; and
  • an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use that variant style for that person.

In such a case, treat it as a self-published name change. Examples include k.d. lang, CC Sabathia, and CCH Pounder.

Would the "preferred style for their own name" for fictional characters be the owner's name for the character? Examples:

  1. Owner: E.T. for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, style followed in secondary source
  2. Owner: C.C. for C.C. (Code Geass), style followed in secondary source
  3. Owner: MJ for MJ (Marvel Cinematic Universe), style followed in secondary source
  4. Owner: JD McDonagh for JD McDonagh, style followed in secondary source
  5. Owner: O.B. for Ouroboros "O.B.", style followed in secondary source
  6. Owner: K.K. Slider for K.K. Slider, style followed in secondary source
  7. Owner: B.A. for Knights of the Dinner Table#Boris Alphonzo "B.A." Felton, style followed in secondary source

starship.paint (RUN) 13:37, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would support the above in adherence to key content policies, when we adhere to the owner's name of the character, we satisfy WP:V and avoid WP:OR, and we are less likely to run afoul of WP:NPOV because sources tend to follow the official name as the WP:COMMONNAME. However, if the official name differs from the most widely used name in reliable sources, then the official name would not qualify for the exception. starship.paint (RUN) 13:40, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There is absolutely nothing like a "key content policy [to] adhere to the owner's name" of anything. Quite the opposite. See WP:OFFICIALNAME and MOS:TM. And WP:V and WP:OR and WP:NPOV are satisified by doing what a large majority of independent reliable sources are doing, not what is found in a primary source. Making up your mind based on a movie poster or a title card that the trademark holder must be upset about spacing or dot placement in a name just because they style it one way and we and various other publishers style it another way is OR by definition. Bending over backwards to satisfy trademark holders' stylization demands is entirely a POV exercise. And V is dependent on independent secondary sourcing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP cares most what independent sources are doing, not (per MOS:TM) what the trademark holder prefers, when it comes to any style questions. Fictional characters do not have feelings that can be hurt and preferences that can be offended, so the "preferred style for their own name" or "self-published name change" idea (or anything else derived from WP:ABOUTSELF) cannot apply to them. This initials stylization stuff is pretty much arbitrary, so there's no particular reason not to just follow MOS:INITIALS's default of "J. D. McDonagh", except in a case where a style like "JD McDonagh" is pretty close to universal in independent reliable sources. However, some of the above are not initials, but two-letter acronyms/initialisms, including E.T. and C.C., so the question about them would really be whether to remove the dots. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a work title, so we'd generally be inclined to leave it alone (unless "ET the Extra-Terrestrial" was well represented in sources, too), and thus to write the character as "E.T." to agree with the work title. As for C[.]C[.], I dunno. If the indepdendent sources near-univerally write it as "C.C.", then we would, too. But if they sometimes use "C.C." and sometimes use "CC", we would probably use the MOS:ACRO default of "CC". PS: Googling around, I see some highly speculative claims the C[.]C[.] character actually has an original human name in her backstory, that also has initials of "C. C." (though they can't decide what that name actually is), so that case might be futher complicated/debatable. But only weakly because of lack of any definitive and reliable sourcing at all. Expecially since the human name is not the source of the acronymic CC code name, but just an [alleged] fictional coincidence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • BTW, this really is a matter for WT:MOSWAF; it has nothing to do with MOS:BIO.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I've moved the discussion here, to the page where it is on-topic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:SPACEINITS is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography which is why it was started there. Gonnym (talk) 16:18, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously, but that doesn't make a big discussion of non-biographical subjects pertinent to a biographical guideline's talk page, especially when there is already a corresponding page for writing about fiction. This discussion involves quite a number of MoS and other P&G pages, and is not confined to SPACEINITS matters.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose any outcome that provides for C.3.P.O. or R. 2. D. 2. Largoplazo (talk) 16:07, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
C-3PO and R2-D2 are not initials so won't be affected either way by this discussion. R2-D2 for example, is a droid from the R2 series. Gonnym (talk) 16:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While OP brings a few examples, other than ET, none of the articles have been promoted, so they haven't been checked against any MoS guideline. Even the ET article (as I've told the OP before) was promoted years before MOS:SPACEINITS was even written, so that too might not have been checked.
That said, lets talk about the actual issue of fictional characters vs real life people. With fictional characters we have the original text (book, film script, official sub-titles, end-credits, etc.) so there is always an official place where we can see how a name is written. RS in these situations just copy from that text (and each other) when they review a film or episode. The question is, does MOS:SPACEINITS apply, and we do we want a consistent style used across Wikipedia or should fictional characters be exempt from it? This might lead to situations where we have in cast list something like: * A. B. as C.D.
If we decide that we follow the source material then that should be added to the guideline so future discussions shouldn't be needed each time this will arise. Gonnym (talk) 16:30, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We follow the independent reliable source material in pretty much everything to do with styling of names of things, and that generally does entail discussions on a case by case basis. In particular, per MOS:TM and various other pertinent shortcuts, don't apply a stylization that differs from MoS's default for a particular type of rendering, unless the independent sources overwhelmingly prefer some particular other stylization. We don't blindly follow primary sources (or MOS:TM could not exist at all), since they don't determine real-world usage. If we were to follow primary sources on C-3PO and R2-D2, for example, we'd be writing "Seethreepio" and "Artoodeetoo", which are what the original novel used (if I'm remembering the spellings correctly), 6 months before the film. If the name in question is using human-name initials, e.g. the McDonagh example above, we would follow MOS:INITIALS and render it "J. D. McDonagh", unless sources independent of the subject near-universally give it a different rendering, such as the claimed "JD McDonagh". But injecting a bunch of hand-wringing about things that are not human initials, like C-3PO, and E.T., and C.C. (which might really better be rendered as CC per MOS:ACRONYM) is not constructive.
There is basically nothing magically special and different fictional characters; just do what we always do. If we are not going to spell "Kesha" as "Ke$ha" or render "Seven" as "Se7en", or give "Realtor" as "REALTOR", etc., etc. (despite preferences of fans of these things and in may cases preferences of the trademark holder) then we should not be using something like "JD McDonagh" unless the expected "J. D. McDonagh" is virtually unattested in independent source material. The reason we have exceptions like "Deadmau5" with a letter substitition and "Spider-Man: Far From Home" with a capitalized "From" in it are because case-by-case consensus determinations have done the source research to demonstrate that these divergences from the expected style very strongly dominate in independent sources. Just create redirects from other forms like "JD McDonagh" and "J.D. McDonagh".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we have e.g. J. K. Rowling as M.K., it's not going to be very common. I don't think this would require to change all our fictional characters' spelling to ensure that a potential minor point of confusion would never occur. Instead we would have even more potential minor points of confusion on why our spelling deviates from the most common names used by sources. Note that we already have differences in initials, for example CCH Pounder as Ethel B. in Funny Valentines. starship.paint (RUN) 07:41, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SMcCandlish: - a simple Google Search for "J. D. McDonagh" shows me that every source on the first page lists him, the wrestler, as "JD McDonagh" (your mileage may vary, but do try). I did use Google Books and Google Scholar but the results were contaminated by non-wrestler results. Am I understanding you correctly, that we should simply follow the independent sources say, so "JD McDonagh" above? starship.paint (RUN) 07:01, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, though I'm now confused why that entry was given as an example to discuss, if it's not a fictional character. Since this is a real person, it's the exact same kind of case as CCH Pounder: subject prefers it and sources almost entirely go along with it. But it's not actually relevant to the above discussion after all. Maybe "K.K. Slider" is an approriate one to examine since that does appear to be a fictional character.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:13, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @SMcCandlish: - that's because "JD McDonagh" is a character portrayed by real person Jordan Devlin, just like how "Harry Potter" is a character portrayed by real person Daniel Radcliffe. For K.K Slider, in Google Scholar "KK Slider" seems to be dominant, in Google Books there are some "KK" but "K.K. Slider" seems to be dominant, and in Google Search, at least on the first page, it seems to be ~70% "K.K.", ~30% "KK". I haven't seen any "K. K. Slider" in all three searches despite that being searched for. starship.paint (RUN) 07:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The first point seems rather dubious to me; we generally treat stage names, even rather "peformative" ones, as alternative names not as "fictional" separate subjects, e.g. Buster Poindexter for David Johansen. And in fact the article presently at JD McDonagh is a biography of Jordan Devlin, not an article on the persona. Doing the latter is very, very rare here. The only case that comes immediately to mind is Stephen Colbert (character), because both the real Stephen Colbert and the alter-ego character are independently highly notable and there's more than enough material for well-developed articles on both. The only difference between the McDonagh and Johansen cases is that "JD McDonagh" is the WP:COMMONNAME and thus used as the article title, while "Buster Poindexter" is not. McDonough is not comparable to Potter, because Potter is an invention of an entirely unrelated party (Rowling). A wrestling persona is not analogous to casting as a fictional character in a film/TV/theatre role; it's directly analogous to adopting any other kind of performance persona like Poindexter, or like Angela White's Blac Chyna, a name/persona she abandoned this year (though our article on her is outdated and doesn't go into this).
    On the Slider matter, that data strongly indicates we should do "K. K. Slider", since there is no overwhelming preference for "KK Slider" across the RS material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:18, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A simpler way to get at this is that the original question was "Would the 'preferred style for their own name' for fictional characters be ...", but it is not possible for a fictional character to have a preference about anything. The guideline addresses variants as a matter of whether "the person demonstrably has a different, consistently preferred style for their own name; and an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use that variant style for that person. In such a case, treat it as a self-published name change." A fictional character is not a person, cannot prefer anything, and cannot self-publish anything. The "and" in there (not "or") also means that a style preference in sources (which are not written to our style guide) cannot be used to override our own MoS (otherwise MoS simply wouldn't exist; we'd always use whatever was the most common style for the subject in question, on every matter, but we do not and there are good reasons why). There is no way in which this guideline provision can be bent to support using the style preferred by the author (who often will date to a period when the norms of English usage were different), and the guideline itself already says "WP:Requested moves has consistently interpreted the 'Initials' section as also applying to names of fictional characters", so this question has already been asked an answered by the community repeatedly. To get at the OP's desired result would require a quite substantive "ignore our style manual and do whatever the primary source likes better" change, which would have to be its own proposal and which is almost certain to fail.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:28, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Writing_about_fiction#List_of_exemplary_articles

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Would it be a good idea to add some plays? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:29, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:PLOT and nonfiction

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I've sometimes seen editors refer to this page to imply that citations are not needed for synopses of nonfiction works. If that is true, it should be clarified, as my understanding that the guidance here exclusively applies to fictional work and plot summaries, not nonfiction creative works. czar 11:12, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming that if what you want to cite is clearly shown in the film then there is no need for a citation as the primary source itself is the source, however, if what is written in the plot section needs outside context, then yes, that should be cited. Gonnym (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thinking primarily nonfiction books: history books, essay collections, biography and autobiography. They have claims that are based in the real world rather than imagination. Is the standard that they need to be sourced to secondary sources (like all other Wikipedia content) or does this fiction guideline on Plot/Synopses also apply to nonfiction? I can move this discussion to WP:V if better discussed there. czar 13:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
NOT#PLOT and WAF extend from the idea that we should not be over reliant on a primary source to discuss a topic in detail if there is not independent or secondary sources about that specific aspect of a topic. So the contents of a published work, fictional or not, are typically not the type of thing discussed at depth, (reviews may touch on one or two specifics but rarely engaging in a thorough discussion of the contents) so the principle that we should stick to short summaries for nonfiction should be true as well. Masem (t) 13:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the face of it, I’m inclined to agree that PLOT does cover non-fiction in a substantially similar way—and not require citations—but such a plot summary should of course be presented as the opinions, hypotheses, narratives or theories of the author (something like: “the author contends that X was the consequence of Y and Z”). The truth or consequence or mainstream acceptance of the work could easily be covered in a later section, with appropriate sourcing.
I would still want to see examples though, because this sort of thing can be hard to discuss in the abstract. — HTGS (talk) 09:40, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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