Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction/Archive 5

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Plot summaries as copyvio

It has been stated several times on this talk page that excessive reliance on plot summaries can amount to a copyright violation. I think there was even a court case in the U.S. where a publisher of a book about the TV series Seinfeld was successfully sued for copyright violation because the book relied largely or entirely on "in-universe" information. I think this needs to be added to the guideline (perhaps in the section "What's wrong with an in-universe perspective?") and probably added to {{in-universe}} as well. What do others think, and can anyone help hammer out a good way to express it? —An gr 12:41, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

very true about the us copyright law: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=2nd&navby=case&no=977992

The key case is one in which the Seinfeld Aptitute Test, a book of trivia questions about the show, was found to be a copyright infringement because by copying "facts" from the show (really just describing incidents and dialogue) it substantially copied creative expression and did not sufficiently transform it to constitute fair use.

"Unlike the facts in a phone book, which do not owe their origin to an act of authorship, each ‘fact’ tested by The SAT is in reality fictitious expression created by Seinfeld's authors. The SAT does not quiz such true facts as the identity of the actors in Seinfeld, the number of days it takes to shoot an episode, the biographies of the actors, the location of the Seinfeld set, etc. Rather, The SAT tests whether the reader knows that the character Jerry places a Pez dispenser on Elaine's leg during a piano recital, that Kramer enjoys going to the airport because he's hypnotized by the baggage carousels, and that Jerry, opining on how to identify a virgin, said ‘It's not like spotting a toupee.’ Because these characters and events spring from the imagination of Seinfeld's authors, The SAT plainly copies copyrightable, creative expression." Castle Rock Entertainment v. Carol Publ'g Group, 150 F.3d 132, 139 (2d Cir. 1998)

82.3.228.210 13:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing that link! If we don't have an article on Castle Rock v. Carol Publishing, we should get one. So how do we incorporate the lessons learned by Carol Publishing into this page? (And possible into WP:C and WP:FU as well?) —An gr 14:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If someone wrote a book full of nothing but Seinfeld trivia, and tried to make some money off it, I'm not surprised that they got hammered. That's exactly what copyright laws were intended to stop. I went and had a look at the law section in WP:FU - these are what I think are the most relevant quotes to this discussion:

the fair use of a copyrighted work... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

For any given work of fiction, how is Wikipedia treating it? I don't mind if we have some articles which are primarily real-world analyses, and others which focus on in-universe details, since in that case, as a whole, Wikipedia is providing sourced commentary on that work. If the only page we've got about a show is a list of trivia, like this book, then we're in trouble.

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

The fact that Wikipedia isn't commercial gives us a bit more leeway - not much, mind you, but a judge would look more harshly on Wikipedia if we were selling articles instead of distributing them freely. However, that should not be taken as a licence to copy-paste.

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

Another thing mentioned in that court case link (thanks for adding it, btw) was that around 5% of a specific episode was quoted, word for word, in the book. If the copyright work we're discussing is a single pilot episode for a show that was never approved, we can't talk about the characters in great detail, since there isn't much information there, and we'd risk basically rewriting the episode. However, when dealing with shows that have been running as long as the Simpsons, for example, we can add more content, since the copyrighted work itself contains much more information to draw from. Quack 688 15:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, the case in point that brought me here is the article on the book Flowers in the Attic. The article is almost entirely plot summary, and the plot summary is extremely detailed. Certainly if you have read the plot summary you have no need to read the book if all you're interested in is the basic plot. (Of course the plot summary is no substitute for the artistic components of the book.)

The point you make about Wikipedia being noncommercial is somewhat tenuous -- the whole point of Wikipedia being free content is that its content should be reusable downstream for commercial purposes. This is why we don't allow images released under a "noncommercial use only" tag (unless we can independently make a viable fair-use claim for them). So even though Wikipedia itself is noncommercial, our fair-use and copyright policies are designed to apply as if it were commercial.

I also don't think it's really safe to take the position that it's okay for some articles to consist of in-universe descriptions as long as other articles consist of real-world analysis, because of the difficulty of knowing where to draw the line. If article A is allowed to be in-universe because articles B, C, and D are real-world analyses, what happens when someone writes article E that is also in-universe? Is that person then obligated to write real-world articles F, G, and H? Does the proportion have to remain 3 to 1? And so on and so on. I think it's much simpler and much safer to treat each article separately and simply ask, does this article contain too much copyrighted in-universe information? —An gr 19:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at Flowers in the Attic, and I agree with you, chapter by chapter is far too much of a plot summary for a single novel. However, I think this is a case where "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" is applicable. If "Flowers in the Attic" was actually the entire first season of a notable TV show, then each chapter paragraph could be tidied up, and used as a stub for each episode's page.

Regarding looking at Wikipedia's coverage as a whole - we shouldn't be forced to physically combine all the information on one page just to avoid a copyvio. In cyberspace, weblinks do the job just fine, and are much tidier. However, these articles should be integrated as much as possible, to make it clear that they're both part of the same work. If the articles are integrated, they should be judged as a whole. Judging them separately would be like banning a book for a plot summary on page 12, when it comments on that plot on page 14. However, this is only applicable under "fair use" if the pages are intertwined - that is, if we have other pages that link to and rely on the page in question, and the page links out when appropriate. With regards to Flowers in the Attic, it actually links to Dollanganger Series, which contains another plot summary, but not much else. The article also has inbound and outbound links on a variety of things like incest, child abuse, and 1980's trends, but these things really need to be discussed somewhere. If there's some published work which goes into more detail on these topics, we can include it. But summarizing a whole book, then saying, "it's notable cause it deals with taboo topics" simply isn't enough to count as fair use.

(This is off topic, but I think there should be a much greater effort to co-ordinate the content of pages on similar topics - not just to avoid copy-vio issues, but to make sure that all the pages link to each other when appropriate, so you don't end up with essentially the same content on three different articles. There's a lot of useful things we could do with "What links here".) Quack 688 15:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem with Flowers in the Attic isn't that the plot summary is written in-universe, it's that all of the information is plot summary and, more problematically, there's a heck of a lot of it. In-universe writing styles and copyright protections are unrelated issues. DCB4W 16:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As with all case law in fair use, you don't want to rely on it too far. Facts are not copyrightable. The triggering factor in the Seinfeld case is the fact that there is a defined licensing market for trivia books. Compare the Seinfeld case with more recent case law out of the 2d Circuit (the same circuit the Seinfeld case was in) -- the Dorling-Kindersley case, in which a series of thumbnails of concert posters did not infringe the copyright for the original poster because they are for a different purpose -- an encyclopedic review of the history of the Grateful Dead. If you're confused about how to apply these two cases together, then you begin to understand why you shouldn't conclude too much from reading any one particular fair use case.

In short, facts about fictional universes are still facts and not copyrightable. Moreover, plot synopses are almost a classic fair use that would be needed in any review of a work, whether encyclopedic or simply a book review. If you think that writing plot synopses infringes the copyright on a screenplay or novel, then you leave basically no scope for fair use. --lquilter 20:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

"Facts about fictional universes are still facts and not copyrightable." I'm not sure that's true; see the comments of Postdlf (who is a lawyer) at Wikipedia talk:Fair use/Archive 13#Characters from books, films, TV, where he says, "'J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit' is a fact. 'Gandalf is one of the Maiar' is not a fact for purposes of copyright, it's creative expression. Such a short statement is going to be too insubstantial to constitute infringement, but the more you summarize, the more you've just made a derivative or an abridgement of the original work." I've already asked him to comment here. —An gr 21:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, we can argue about facts about fictional universes, but plot synopses are quite distinguishable from facts about fictional universes. A plot synopsis is a fact about a particular work. Facts/trivia could be any number of things: statements about plots, quotes, actors, fictional facts, and so on. (And I'm a lawyer, too. Lawyers will disagree on these matters as much as non-lawyers.) --lquilter 22:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your attempt to distinguish the Seinfeld case, there's also a defined licensing market for in-universe fan reference guides, such as the Star Trek Encyclopedia, or The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Those are works of fiction that are simply written in an encyclopedic style, and in-universe "articles" on Wikipedia directly compete with those products (and they're probably copied from them most of the time). And I'm not sure you're understanding the fact/fiction distinction in this context, or perhaps I'm not understanding your comments. Could you elaborate as to why you think "facts about fictional universes" are not copyrightable, or how a plot synopsis is "a fact" rather than an abridgment of fiction?

I'm also glad you brought up the Grateful Dead poster case, because the fair use defense was largely successful because the inclusion of the poster thumbnails in a timeline with historical captions was transformative. It wasn't just a page of unexplained posters to represent the creative expression in those images, but rather the images were recontextualized in a factual, historical timeline. It's that factual, transformative context that is key to our fair use justification for using copyrighted material, and in-universe articles and summaries lack any such transformative context. Postdlf 04:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

IANAL, but I think the main difference between a trivia book and a wikipedia article is the intended purpose. A trivia book is intended to entertain, which is also the intention of the fictional work. An article is intended to inform, which is a completely different purpose to that of the fictional work, so there can't be any harm done to the copyright holder. --Tango 22:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We are ignoring the fact that copyright holders willing to sue to retain their rights are not likely to take the more generous interpretations of what a "fact" is, or what the purpose of a work is. As long as they can make a case that another work significantly threatens their own ability to license the material, they have a good chance of winning a suit. A popular but modest fan website is likely to help stimulate DVD sales, so copyright holders aren't going to try to shut it down. The world's largest encyclopedia (which is free, to boot) most certainly is a threat to the after-market book industry. Why buy a licensed A-Z guide to the characters and episodes in Veronica Mars when you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about the show from Wikipedia? Sooner or later, we'll be called on this if we don't take care to be more succinct. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Just as a comment, a lot of this stuff has been discussed before (if you trawl through the archives). Dr Aaron 02:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I know it has -- my main point here is that I want to explicitly say on this page, and in {{in-universe}}, that another reason for avoiding too much "in-universe" content is that it is a potential copyright violation. I'd like help working out a sentence or two to add here that gets the point across accurately and succinctly. Can I add a sentence to the section "What's wrong with an in-universe perspective?" that says:

One reason to avoid both in-universe perspective and lengthy and detailed plot synopses is that in sufficient quantity, these may be construed as a copyright violation. Information about fictional worlds and plots of works of fiction can be provided only under a claim of fair use, and Wikipedia's fair-use policy holds that "the amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible."

Suggestions for tweaking? —An gr 08:17, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good so far, I like it. -- Ned Scott 08:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you up to a point. We certainly want to avoid copyright violations, and if our synopses of fictional works are getting to the point they challenge the fan reference guide market that postdlf was mentioning, then we certainly need to pare them down. But that is an entirely different thing from the in-universe issue. All academic plot summaries are in-universe; it is generally correct to speak of the storyline in present tense, in ways that this guideline would characterize as "in-universe" and hideously evil. Look at, for example, the Encarta description of Hamlet's plot-- it's long, it's detailed, and it's in-universe. That would violate this guideline, either as written or as you propose, notwithstanding the point that Hamlet predates the concept of copyright. I worry that we're conflating different issues. The copyright problem is the amount and detail of protected works that we're working into the articles, not the style in which the articles are written. (Yes, another lawyer.) DCB4W 16:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Does Encarta have equally long and detailed plot synopses of works that are still copyrighted? If not, there might be a very good reason for that, namely that long, detailed, in-universe plot synopses push the envelope of copyright law. We can certainly tweak the statement to say that in the case of public-domain works like Hamlet, copyvio clearly isn't an issue, but there are still the other editorial reasons outlined on the page to avoid too much in-universe discussion. —An gr 16:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I really don't think there are good reasons to avoid in-universe discussions. Plot summaries and fictional character biographies should be in-universe. It's a purely stylistic issue, and I think the existing guideline is poorly considered. Probably the most fatuous statement I've yet to see on Wikipedia is the following: "Consider this analogy: Would it be acceptable to write an article on flight based solely on watching birds flying?" No, but it would pretty well conclusively establish that birds can fly, if someone wanted to make that statement. It might be a verifiability issue (how do we know the editor saw birds fly?) except for the minor detail that we're discussing articles about other works. An article about a documentary entitled Raptors in Flight would be perfectly free to state in the article "ospreys can fly" based on the footage contained therein, and to cite that information in the article on ospreys. Nor am I persuaded by the one logical argument that the article does in fact raise: fictional creations are subject to constant revision, which raises the danger that articles about them could easily become out of date. That's certainly true, but most scientific theories are also subject to revision as new information is discovered; when an article is written calling an emu a flightless bird, we don't fret about the chances of someone finding a new subspecies of emu with massive wings on an island near Tasmania. If new information crops up, you just amend the article. It's the simplest thing in the world, and one of the advantages of having a wiki over a print encyclopedia. The best we can ever hope for is that the article is correct when written, and that an editor will think to update the article as needed. Fictional and real subjects are identical in this regard, although in most cases recent fiction will be subject to more frequent and more radical revision than most real life subjects. It's still not clear how that justification would apply to Hamlet or the Iliad at all, though.

As I said, the in/out-of-universe distinction is a red herring as it applies to copyright violation. The Encarta descriptions of copyrighted materials are still in-universe, but much shorter; in the case of Attack of the Clones the plot summary is a paragraph, half a paragraph for Star Wars, and in Lawrence of Arabia it's a sentence. All of the useful purposes served by this guideline are mere restatements of the existing doctrines of verifiability, citing sources, and fair use. I think the rest of the guideline is genuinely counterproductive. The "nutshell" at the top of the page should read more like, "Excessive summaries and in-universe discussions of fictional works could constitute copyright violations and are not fair use." — DCB4W 19:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

That's all I'm really trying to get at here; at present the page doesn't mention the fair-use/copyvio issue at all, and I think it should. I'm not saying we should completely eliminate all summaries or statements that are only true within a fictional world; all I'm saying is that in addition to the editorial reasons already given on this page for keeping in-universe writing to a minimum, we should also at least mention the fact that plot summaries/synopses can only exist under a fair use claim, and that if they get too long and/or too detailed they could exceed the bounds of fair use and become copyvios. —An gr 19:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The in-universe issue is not unrelated to the copyright issue, because in-universe writing simply is fiction, rather than being about fiction. In-universe summaries are just abridged and paraphrased copies of the fiction they "describe," because they lack real-world description and context to make the character of our use of that fiction transformative. This seriously undermines any claim to fair use, and as mentioned above, puts us directly in competition with licensed in-universe fan reference encyclopedias. Postdlf 18:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I still disagree with you on this issue. Think about my "Hamlet summary" example for a minute. It's in-universe but it's not a copyright violation because there's no copyright. And consider TV Guide summaries-- the Yahoo! TV listing for Inherit the Wind reads "A fundamentalist orator (Fredric March) opposes a liberal lawyer (Spencer Tracy) defending a Darwinist teacher in the 1920s South." There's nothing transformative about that unless you consider the parenthetical mention of the actors' names to be a transformation, but it's fair use because it's purely descriptive and limited. Nobody's disputing that it's possible for an in-universe description to become a copyright violation; what I dispute is your claim that any in-universe summary is per se a violation. It isn't. DCB4W 19:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, TV Guide's plot summary falls under fair use because it's limited; our summary of Flowers in the Attic isn't limited at all, and it isn't really transformative either. I'm not saying that any in-universe summary is per se a copyvio, and I don't think Postdlf is saying that either. We're saying that in-universe summaries mustn't get out of hand (as, I think, FitA has gotten). —An gr 19:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you absolutely. If that is in fact what Postdlf was trying to say, I've misunderstood him entirely and I apologize. (Although I still think the guideline page needs a massive rewrite, because it plainly is claiming that in-universe descriptions are inherently bad.) — DCB4W 19:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "in/out of universe" and copyright are two different issues. Rewording Flowers in the Attic into an out-of-universe style would do nothing to fix its copyvio problems. The problem is content - both in this individual article and in the inbound/outbound links, there simply isn't enough discussion about this individual work on Wikipedia to justify this kind of coverage. In any case, chapter by chapter summaries are just too much, IMHO. Quack 688 00:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I was never saying in-universe was the only issue; the length of the summary, whether in or out of universe, must also be no longer than is necessary for our academic purpose. The TV listing described above is probably just too minimal to qualify as copyright infringement, and if not, it's certainly no longer than necessary to give an idea of the plot and it is highly abstracted and simplified. But both that requirement of "copying" (paraphrasing or describing the contents of the copyrighted work) no more than is necessary and the requirement of making a transformative use through out-of-universe, real world description must be considered. Keep in mind too that we're not only considering articles that are about single works of fiction, but articles about fictional characters that have been used in multiple works. A purely in universe character article would just amount to a fictional biography (and a copyright infringement, if long enough), while an out of universe article would be a publication history explained by what about that character was developed in each publication, movie, etc. Postdlf 03:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that excessive plot summaries are a serious issue on Wikipedia. If we have an article like Final Fantasy VIII, which lists the major events in its synopsis and describe the setting/characters (and their development history), it's fine. On that topic, it's hard to defend fictional articles against newcomers who want to destribe every motivation, reason, or minor event (see the recent additions to Final Fantasy IV). We need to make things clear in this guideline, which means getting into detailed descriptions and providing examples. — Deckill e r 03:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's an extreme example of an inappropriate, in-universe character description: Darth Sion, a Star Wars character who only appears as one of three main villains in one video game. Aside from the bare mention of the game title in the beginning, the rest is completely lacking in any real world context, and so is just in universe fiction stylized as fact. That lack of grounding in real world facts, such as explaining how the work of fiction establishes the story, poses multiple problems. 1) It's ridiculously uniformative, as you cannot tell in the slightest how the game actually communicates any of this to the player, such as what is backstory at the start of the game, what is communicated by NPCs talking to the player, and what is participated in during actual game play. 2) It's vulnerable to OR, as the in universe writer interprets, extrapolates and infers in order to make a complete "factual" description that the work of fiction itself does not make so explicitly and unambiguously. 3) If not OR, it's quite likely a paraphrase of a fan reference guide, under the misconception that those guides just repeat "facts" instead of just being encyclopedia-style fiction. 4) Even if it's not OR and not a paraphrase of another source, it's still just a play-by-play copy of the copyrighted fictional story and character elements, with no transformative character. Just because it's posted on Wikipedia doesn't mean that, as is, it serves any other relevant purpose other than to entertain Star Wars fans by "informing" them about the fictional universe—to tell them the story. I cannot imagine a valid fair use claim for this. Just adding out of universe context such as "The game manual explains that..." or "If the player reaches the 10th level, he will see that..." would go a long way towards transforming it, though inevitably such descriptions should be severely trimmed. Postdlf 04:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a fan of the KotoR series - I had a look at that article, and I must admit that I agree with a lot of what you said. Plot summaries (and character bios) from computer and video games are a whole new ball game, though. In my opinion, CVGs are a modern form of "interactive fiction", so some plot and character articles for notable games are valid. My basic line of thinking is that when writing about about a computer game, especially one with branching and optional plots like KotoR, to be verifiable, you need to say exactly where that information appears. It's not enough to say "play the game and you'll see it", because with branching games, there's no guarantee that you'll see every bit of dialogue. It shouldn't turn into a full game walkthrough, but it needs to include enough information so that someone with a copy of the game can verify it for themselves. The difference between CVGs and TV shows is that having a copy of a episode allows you to see every line of dialogue, guaranteed, so no further guidance is necessary. Citing a computer game is like citing a reference book that you have to decode, or read backwards in a mirror. It's still a valid source, as long as you tell the reader how to access the information you're drawing from the reference. Quack 688 08:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

There are two big cases about plot summaries as copyright violations, the Seinfeld case and the Twin Peaks case. (I will try to look up the names if I get time). The Twin Peaks case is significantly scarier to the Wikipedia plot summaries than the Seinfeld case -- if I recall correctly, the court said that something like 11 pages of episode plot summaries for the entire Twin Peaks series was sufficient to violate fair use. (And, of course, has sufficient "significant copying" to be a CR violation in the first place.) WP isn't exactly the same, because it's non-commercial, but I still strongly recommend that plot summaries be grounded, as much as possible, in a larger analysis of the work. (This itself is somewhat difficult, because most of the analysis of works with thin secondary sourcing will be forbidden as original research). TheronJ 17:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't remember reading the Twin Peaks decision; can you find a citation? Also, the "non-commercial" claim is really irrelevant as Wikipedia content is supposed to be as reusable as possible for commercial purposes, and as the Napster decision established, copying to avoid a purchase is a commercial use even if no one makes any money from it, and excessive, in universe articles obviate the need to buy official fan reference guides...though this more collapses into the fourth fair use element, of the effect the use has on the commercial value of the original. Postdlf 17:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  - The "Twin Peaks" case is Twin Peaks v. Publications Int'l, 996 F.2d 1366 (2d Cir. 1993). I think the commercial-non-commerical distinction is still live. (In particular, I don't see the Napster distinction as eliminating the "purpose of use" prong, just as saying that non-commerical use wasn't enough to decide that particular issue.) In general, though, running these legal decisions on the talk pages is tricky; maybe if we're cconcerned enough, we should see if the Wikipedia foundation wants to make a decision. Thanks, TheronJ 17:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Avoiding the temptation to start a runaway discussion on the general merits of the guideline, I'd like to support a brief NPOV description of the legal repercussions of decisions like these. In particular, that sometimes too-detailed accounts of a creative work with all rights reserved, without any transformative context, may be found to constitute copyright infringement. This should not be taken as license to go butchering hundreds of potentially useful articles (Wikipedia:Don't panic), but may be taken as additional justification for stripping down a too-detailed description to a more useful summary and for adding out-of-universe details which place it in a transformative context. I'm not one of the "in-universe is evil" people - and I think even detailed descriptions sometimes have their place - but the important thing is to emphasise that an article has to be more than a verbose and too-detailed description sourced almost entirely from the primary source. Deco 03:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It sounds to me like there's no great objection to my adding the sentence "One reason to avoid both in-universe perspective and lengthy and detailed plot synopses is that in sufficient quantity, these may be construed as a copyright violation. Information about fictional worlds and plots of works of fiction can be provided only under a claim of fair use, and Wikipedia's fair-use policy holds that 'the amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible'" to the guideline, so I'm doing so. —An gr 04:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

IANAL, but my perception is that if the in-universe and out-of-universe descriptions include the same information, they are equally infringing. The "fact" that James T. Kirk is the captain of the Starship Enterprise is a copyrighted expression and so is protected no matter how it is expressed. It is excessive detail that is a problem, not the style used to express the material. Jordan Brown 04:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Angr. Jordan: A problem with the in-universe style is that it incourages detail without transformation. SmokeyJoe 04:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Jordan, you can't say that James T. Kirk is the captain of the Starship Enterprise in an out-of-universe style. Stating that "fact" will always be an in-universe description. —An gr 07:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

From the examples and discussion given, "At the time of Star Trek: The Original Series, James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is the captain of the Starship Enterprise is an "out-of-universe" style, whereas "In the mid-2200s, James T. Kirk was the captain of the Starship Enterprise" is an "in-universe" style. My point is that for copyvio purposes, I don't believe it matters - any time that you provide any fact about the characters, their relationships, or the events in the work, you're getting into a gray area. (It might be very light gray... but gray nonetheless.)

It occurs to me that the key problem here is that what fans want (a comprehensive encyclopedia of their universe) is precisely what they can't have because of copyvio problems.

Jordan Brown 21:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is correct, too. A fictional fact is someone else’s creation and you cannot reproduce it. You can, however, comment on it (or do various other transformational things to it). The real-universe style makes it natural to comment, whereas the in-universe style doesn’t. Comments about the fictitious facts also better lend themselves to citation from secondary sources, which is in my opinion a good thing. The use of secondary sources fits better with verifiability, as opposed to original research, and demonstrates notability at the same time.

The fans may want wikipedia to be an extension of the fiction itself, but to do so would violate copyright, as well as not be encyclopaedic. I think an easy test of whether something is violating copyright is this: Consider taking the material and publishing it in your name for profit. Would you get away with it? SmokeyJoe 00:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

That's an easy test, but not necessarily an accurate one, since one of the factors in fair use is the purpose of the use, and Wikipedia's purpose is to be a non-profit, educational reference, not a for profit enterprise. Another problem is that we, by and large, can't comment on facts pursuant to WP:OR. You can include facts from another source, and you can include commentary that someone else has made (in which case the commentary itself is probably copyrighted), but your comments have to be fairly unoriginal and unobtrusive. TheronJ 03:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Theron: I didn’t mean for it to be highly accurate, just helpful. There are a lot of young enthusiastic contributors for whom a test that is “easy” is a lot more help than “accurate”.

RE: purpose. Would it mean that material on wikipedia might be entirely OK with regards to copyright, but then fall foul of copyright when someone takes it for other purposes. Does this mean that wikipedia’s content is not necessarily free?

RE: OR. That is along the lines of what I intended. In-universe writing disguises WP:OR while violating it. Real-universe makes OR obvious. I feel this is a positive because I believe in WP:OR. SmokeyJoe 04:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: purpose, that's probably not the case. The case that has dominated most fair use discussion that I've seen on WP has been Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, 150 F.3d 132 (2nd Cir. 1998), aka the Seinfeld case. At the risk of getting too legalistic, fair use is defined as an exception to copyright law; if a use is fair, then by definition there's no infringement by it. The purpose is only one factor in determining whether something is a fair use, one out of the four factors in the statute, which is written to suggest that those four factors are not the only factors that can be considered. ("In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include - (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." 17 USC §107.) The Court went to some lengths to point out both that those factors were guidance rather than limits on its determinations, and that infringement judgments always involve balancing several competing factors; in that opinion, the Court found that some factors favored the defendants, but others favored the plaintiffs. It specifically commented that factor (1) was not critical in its opinion. The Supreme Court had previously observed that most of the uses that §107 on its own terms aimed to protect are usually conducted for profit, and further quoted Samuel Johnson for the proposition that "no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," which arguably makes Wikipedia editors a right bunch of nitwits. It seems likely that if a Wikipedia entry is otherwise fair use, a downstream commercial use of it will also most likely be fair use, as the only additional factor in the downstream user's evaluation would be the factor that courts think is least important. The more crucial thing seems to be the extent of the use, which is why long, detailed plot summaries of works still protected by copyright are bad, no matter what universe they're written in. (Important caveat: I am a criminal lawyer, not a First Amendment or copyright lawyer, so my evaluation may well be less informed than, say, Lquilter's.) DCB4W 23:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Alternative draft

This got archived a few days ago, before many people got a chance to comment because of the the Xmas break. Basically, I have drafted a draft revision of the Manual of Style that focuses more on good referencing and notability and has key examples of good articles with why they are good.

I'm not a big fan of the current page, which I find isn't very helpful on how to actually write a good article about fiction. I welcome comments on it. Dr Aaron 02:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned before the archiving, I think your draft is vastly better than the current version. I urge its adoption.DCB4W 16:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I definetly think we should try it. If you put it in place, people will notice on their watchlist and come and complain :D you waited long enough if you ask me. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

They might also notice if we just added one of those disputed tags that was on WP:N for a while. G'day, Dr Aaron, good to see you back! Let's get this rock show started. :-) Quack 688 01:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You see ??? I told you people would come and complain! Works a whole lot better than just letting it sit around :D TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about all of it, but most of it does seem to be a step in the right direction. I think one of the minor objections last time was the lack of emphases on out-of-universe perspective. I do like how the draft isn't just about the perspective, but it could discourage the in-universe a little more. Just a thought. -- Ned Scott 01:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and rework some of the "key points" parts, then incorporated that into the current version. -- Ned Scott 02:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

There was not much discussion about making changes like this. I've reverted until more comments can be heard. (For example, the large numbers of people who approved of the original draft have been silent on this one; that should not be assumed to be support for the changes). — BrianSmithson 02:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

That's not really how things work here.. Do you actually object to part of the new addition or are you just waiting for a grand decision? Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. The parts that were actually objected to were not added at this point, so more discussion could occur. The rest is good stuff that I doubt anyone has a problem with. -- Ned Scott 03:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't presume to tell me how Wikipedia does or does not work; I think I've got a pretty good feel for the place by now. (And you may have been looking for Wikipedia:Consensus, since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy doesn't say anything about consensus building or grand decisions). As for the addition, you're right; it seems to be non-controversial material. My problem with it is that it's completely redundant. It simply repeats information found at other policy and guideline pages, specifically Wikipedia:Notability, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and Wikipedia:No original research. The rest of it simply moves information that was located elsewhere in this guideline.

Again, I can see that merging Wikiipedia's two or three guidelines/policies on writing about fictional topics would be a good thing, but this addition seems to parrot too much information from other policy pages and is therefore redundant in my view. — BrianSmithson 05:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that, in my opinion, those policies and guidelines you've mentioned are often misquoted when used to refer to fictional works. For example, WP:OR already says that primary sources are allowed, as long as editors don't use them as a basis for speculation, but we still hear the occasional argument that anything sourced from a work of fiction is unverifiable.

Actually, for an idea on how to deal with related policies and guidelines, have a look at the related policies section of WP:OR. It links to other relevant policies, provides a brief summary, and explains exactly how they're applicable to OR. How would you feel about a similar section in WP:FICTION, which discusses how the policies and guidelines you mentioned are applicable to fiction works specifically?

In regards to adopting the new proposal, I'd rather not see bits and pieces added and removed piecemeal. I'm happy to wait for a while and see where the discussion goes on the whole thing before making any snap decisions. Quack 688 07:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's parotting too much. It's needed in order to write proper articles on the fictional subjects. Especially with them being sooo prone to the fandom/fanboy problem. And the in-universe vs. out-of-universe issue in relation to those other guidelines is something not well understood by many authors of articles. It needs a clear and succint explanation, specifically targatted to said problem. I consider it to be a great improvement over the current guideline and I hope we can expand it with more hints towards proper writing about films, tv, games, comics etc. There is a lot of overlap between their various WProjects, and we should strive to centralize the "guidelines" on that as much as possible as to not continiously reinvent the wheel. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Sucession boxes revisited

Yes, I'm aware this was discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction)/Archive3#Infoboxes_and_succession_boxes

I'm bringing this up again because the rationale currently listed in WP:WAF for keeping out succession boxes doesn't totally make sense and is overly general. The argument boil down to three points, each of which have weakness as a basis for policy:

Continuity may not exist.
- Just because some fiction lacks continuity is no reason for ignoring continuity in works that have it
Continuity could be broken or retconned
- Articles can be updated to remove the succession template if continuity is broken
"The events within one work of fiction are always in the present..."
- This one's patently false. We give plot summaries, don't we? Those describe a sequence of events with continuity. Using a succession box is really no different from describing the continuity in a work of fiction in prose form.

It seems to me that the decision to avoid succession boxes was made without really achieving consensus one way or the other. Some people pointed out the pitfalls of using them, and others pointed out cases where they made sense. I think we should refine the policy to say: Don't use succession boxes in these cases, but they may make sense under these circumstances. —Dgies^t c 06:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I've never found succession boxes useful, fiction article or non fiction article. -- Ned Scott 07:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

As one of the people who urged the adoption of the succession box guideline, I remember that most of the opposition came after it was originally inserted; apparently it had enough consensus to stick. Anyway, as to your points, I suppose that succession boxes could be useful if and only if:

there is undisputed continuity and canon in the fiction; and
there are already existing, non-stub, useful WP:WAF-conforming individual articles on each of the components of the succession box.

In practice, those situations are rare. What usually happens is that editors will create the succession box, and then try to organize articles around the box, which is often not the best way to organize articles on fictional characters; often (not always, but often enough), the "link" for the succession box is a position about which you could write a stub, at most, so the box encourages the creation of that stub, which later has to be merged.

So the solution that works in 95% of the cases is to discourage the succession box. Where the criteria for the box are met, it's nevertheless easily summed up in a sentence or two in the lead or perhaps with some alternate notation in an existing infobox. — TKD::Talk 09:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally I don't see the point of succession boxes, a mirage of them just uglify the article. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 09:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by a "mirage" of succession boxes? —Dgies^t c 13:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Presumably what was intended was a barrage (in the sense of "an overwhelming, concentrated outpouring" of succession boxes. —An gr 15:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I think we should enforce the guidelines about trivia in fiction. If a title/position/attribute has a significant impact on the plot of a work of fiction, it deserves mention (or a succession box). If it only serves as detail in the fictional world, like "Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx", then leave it out. I think in most fictional characters there is only justification for at most one or two succession boxes. —Dgies^t c 17:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

We actually do use succession boxes (The television epsisode infoboxes often have them for instance). However, like with Infoboxes, and Subject boxes, people seem to think these things should go anywhere and everywhere sometimes. Yes they can be useful, but unfortunately that isn't a requirement that is checked that often by people. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yup, succession boxes make sense for tying together episodes, which exist as real-world artifacts and have a real-world sequence. What the guideline discourages are succession boxes to describe relationships that occur in-universe. — TKD::Talk 07:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

this is an official guideline

Hi, please dont forget this is an official guideline, so its best to discuss first before making major edits! cheers. Catherine breillat 11:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

There was discussion. I consider this to be an act of WP:BOLD, however apparently, people want to discuss more afterall, let's hear it !!!! TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I have also taken the liberty to inform most of the original authors/voters of the article trough there Talk pages. Hopefully it will help improve the discussion. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

What major edits? Can anyone bring those returning here up to speed? Thanks. Carcharoth 16:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Draft of alternative version, which spurred the following Major edits. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try and find the time to take a look. At first glance, the changes are not something I would be worried about. Either version looks fine to me. Carcharoth 18:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not crazy about the edits on first glance. (1) the "in-universe/out-of-universe" explanation is helpful and clear, and should stay, IMHO; and (2) the "sources" section at the end is also helpful and should stay. TheronJ 17:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
- Could you also explain what you don't like ? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 17:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  - Those deletions are what I don't like so far, I'll try to take a look at the rest. (There are so many changes, it's hard to pick apart, but I'll be happy to comment on the changes to any section). Thanks, TheronJ 17:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
    - Like I noted below, there are differences between the draft version and the draft adaptation, which is an addition that doesn't remove anything. (-- Ned Scott 20:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed under the "which style to use" section that some of the examples are somewhat time specific. If the article is improved over time those will no longer be appropriate examples. Perhaps links to specific revisions rather than the article itself could be used so that new examples won't be needed everytime an article is improved. I think while the information here is helpful IMHO it could use a bit more revision before being a guideline. Stardust8212 18:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Please note there are differences between the draft version and the draft adaptation I put up. Specifically, nothing was removed in the adaptation. I don't feel strongly about it, but I did feel the format of the "key points" to be more inviting than a large block of text for the first part of the article. The changes don't actually change the meaning to the guideline, and didn't remove anything, which is why I decided to be bold with the edit. Sorry for the confusion. -- Ned Scott 20:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually there's been rather a lot of discussion, so I'm not sure you really did anything wrong. (Although, to be fair, there wasn't a consensus for change thus far.) I prefer the original draft revision to the draft adaptation, because I have a number of significant problems with the current version that are replicated in the adaptation. Additionally, I disagree with the claim that in-universe prose is not considered encyclopedic, as most encyclopedias use it for discussions of plot and character. An entire article written in-universe would probably not be encyclopedic, but that isn't what either the current version or draft adaptation say. DCB4W 23:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts on the draft adaptation

The "Key principles" section is good in principle, though it could use some more work before it's ready. In particular, it needs some tweaking to make it more consistent with WP:FICT, and to keep closer to the spirit of the current version; I made of few changes to the draft version, but it could use more time and attention before that section is implemented. The "Perspective in fiction" section in the draft adaption was an unacceptable watering down of this guideline; I think nothing needs to be changed regarding perspective.--ragesoss 00:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I, clearly, disagree with you entirely on the last sentence. I'd recommend adopting Dr. Aaron's draft revision basically as he wrote it. DCB4W 02:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Disputed template

I put the disputed template up on the main page. It was removed. I'm inclined to put it back, for the simple reason that this guideline's content is now disputed. I'd agree that the specific template was not precisely appropriate, because the existence of the guideline is not subject to debate, only its content. However, I have been unable to find a more precise flag to post. For what it's worth (in response to the edit summary) I never said discussion was bad; I said the guideline was bad, so I think discussion is quite good. Consensus can change; this one apparently has, and hopefully will further. However, the amount and nature of the discussions do undermine the claim that the contents of the page accurately reflect the consensus of editors. Perhaps we should invite comments at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)? DCB4W 02:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

And i'm the one who removed the tag. Just to get that clear to the others. I don't consider the guideline to be disputed.

I see three big discussion points atm

How best to tell people that there is a difference between a plot summary and a copyright violation (improvement)
How to use succession boxes (4 disputed lines, that most editors agree was worded a bit too strict when it was added)
Reword the guideline and examples to create a better readeable guideline (improvement)

Beyond that we have a lot of QUESTIONS on the talk page in archive, questions that spurred #3 btw. I don't see how you can call that a disputed guideline. I mean WP:TV-NC went all the way to ArbCom over a problem, and that didn't even got to "disputed" status. This guideline is not set in stone, and I don't think anyone here ever expected to catch all the different cases of this problem in the first official version of the guideline. We are 3/4 year further now, we've learned new things, seen new cases, and some amendments need to be made consequently. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 03:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd add a fourth discussion point (the one that's attracted most of my contributions on this page so far): the in/out of universe discussion, which is the part of the guideline that I find most objectionable, and which seems linked to your (1) above. My point in putting the disputed tag was that if there are 3 or 4 (depending whether your (1) and my (4) are counting as essentially the same issue) major tenets of a guideline that are still contested, it's hard to say that the guideline on the page reflects consensus. My goal was to let people who see the {{In-universe}} template and follow it back here know that the guideline is not set in stone. Of course, it is a guideline rather than a policy, and thus more a recommendation than a rule anyway, but I think it's fair to acknowledge that discussion is ongoing. However, if the general feeling is that the {{disputedpolicy}} template should refer to more fundamental guideline problems than these, I won't argue. DCB4W 03:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

So what does this actually have to do with the change I made? -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a stretch to consider the existing content disputed based on the relatively small number of editors who have been trying to amend it recently, especially considering that different people have been trying to pull it in different directions. Some (a significant portion of those who voiced an opinion when this was first adopted in the not-too-distant past) want to see stronger proscription against in-universe perspective. I would strongly recommend doing some more work on pinning down what the points of contention are and what the alternative guideline should say (in a policy sense as well as a prose sense) before muddying the waters further by bringing in more people. (Editors who watch the policy pump typically take a harder line on what they perceive as fancruft than, say, editors who find this guideline through the in universe clean-up tags.) In the meantime, we should work on how to merge in WP:FICT (which can probably achieve a consensus easily if done well) before moving on to trying to change the spirit of the guideline.--ragesoss 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have only two quibbles with what you said:

The relatively small number of editors currently in this discussion isn't really the point. Consensus requires more than a majority or even a supermajority; it requires actual agreement. The fact that different editors are trying to pull the policy in different directions I think reinforces my point that a dispute exists.
As you say, this was adopted in the not too distant past. This is not a venerable and well-established guideline, nor was it well-publicized. I'd never even heard of it until I wondered what all those funky little templates were talking about, and I don't remember seeing any of those before late November. (I note that there was a discussion of that issue back in June at the time of the straw poll, as recorded in the archive.) I'd suggest that there's a reasonable probability that the consensus echoed in the straw poll didn't necessarily reflect the opinion of Wikipedia editors in general. Perhaps a notice at Village Pump doesn't bring in a representative sample either (I can imagine how that would be a fairly self-selecting group, so I see your point), but I still think a broader opinion base would be helpful.

DCB4W 04:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember that the straw poll had also been advertised in the Village Pump and on a couple of WikiProjects. I'll go look in the archives tomorrow. The problem here is that there are very few editors that even dare/care venture into the fixing/guiding of the fandom. Editors from outside the field have always had a lot of critique about it, but haven't been really helpful beyond that. The fact that only recently it seems we are reaching a critical mass in manpower regarding this problem (trivia, fancruft, in-universe, episode articles, category madness etc etc) should not be taken as an argument to doubt the previous history of this guideline in my eyes.

Second. i just looked at some of the articles tagged with the template, and I suspect someone has been a bit too enthiousiastic. There seem to be quite a few articles that have plenty of out-of-universe information (50% in a large article Hercule Poirot), yet are tagged with this template. Apparently, this needs to be verified by some editors. But now it's nite, nite for me. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 05:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply to DCB4W: Again, it sounds like none of this is about the changes I made.. rather there seems to be a fuss about the changes not made... does this mean we can't update this guideline at all if we don't also remove other parts that someone disagrees with? -- Ned Scott 05:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to add a vote to the "there is no consensus" side: as I wrote in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)/Archive4#Arbitrary section break, I find the out-of-universe style to be very unpleasant to read, almost to the point of unusability. My opinions haven't really changed since November, and others are repeating the arguments here, so at the moment I'm mostly just lurking. Anybody interested in my statement of those opinions can look at the archive. Jordan Brown 03:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

where's the fire?

I was hoping by not removing anything and only adding the "key points" that it would be non-controversial enough to be a shoe in. Even now I can't help but think people are objecting simply because "a change happened" which isn't a good reason in itself.

WP:BOLD applies to guidelines too. We do not have to wait for a grand discussion to improve something. A consensus does not always mean a fresh discussion on a specific matter. You can reflect a consensus without even talking about the issue. As long as the change isn't massive, doesn't change the meaning of the guideline, and in good faith is something people are likely to support, don't get all upset because someone didn't ask you specifically for your two cents. Don't object simply because you can object, object because you have an actual reason to. If it's a simple change then do it and be done with it.

Personally, I don't have a strong feelings about this right now. What's important is the spirit of the guideline, and most of us agree on that. So I'm not going to argue for the change I made, because it doesn't really matter that much. My whole rant here is just to let you guys know that you shouldn't get so worked up over the change itself without addressing what the change was about.

Pretend nothing happened in the edit history of this guideline, and with a fresh mind consider this version on it's own. Don't let the whole change thing throw you, just put that out of mind. I think you'll find that it really is a rather trivial change that helps to tie this guideline with others and makes for a more inviting intro. If not, lets improve upon it rather than dumping the idea all together. That's what happened last time and a lot of good ideas got overlooked. -- Ned Scott 04:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Ned. I'll take another look at your proposed changes later today and offer some more commentary here. I originally felt that the changes repeated too much information from other places, but perhaps a fresh look after some time has passed will give me more insight. I apologize for any ruffled feathers. -- BrianSmithson 05:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No problem, and maybe it was too much of a change without discussion. Like I said, I don't really feel strongly about the change, I just wasn't sure if people were objecting because a change happened or because of the change itself. -- Ned Scott 05:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, some more comments on the "Five key principles": If we're going to do this, let's go ahead and merge in everything from Wikipedia:Notability#Fiction rather than summarizing and adding a "See also" link. And I think the five principles need some formatting. Let's convert them to prose rather than super-long lists, for one. Take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution for a well-formatted policy proposal that also includes "Five principles" and aim to format our five like that. I fiddled with it a bit (check the draft's edit history), but it won't work unless we prosify the lists. Part of my hangup with the addition (and with the whole draft replacement guide) is the overuse of bold, italics, and subject headers. I know it sounds horrible, but if these issues of ugliness were addressed, I'd be able to give a more unbiased opinion on the "five key principles" and the whole shebang. — BrianSmithson 12:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we can do something like what's done with WP:FU and WP:FUC, where one is transcluded in the other. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. — BrianSmithson 08:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

One specific idea that we can borrow from Wikipedia:Attribution is to offload some of the heavier details and examples to a FAQ subpage. I think that the question-and-answer format would work well for this topic, especially since it seems somewhat counterintuitive to many people. — TKD::Talk 09:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Citation styles: in-universe and out-of-universe

No matter what we write about fictional characters, it needs to be sourced - for TV shows, that means episode level, at the very least. However, I've been thinking about the best way to reference different sections of articles - using two different styles within a single article could help make the difference clear. In-line citations make it easier to read a chronological narrative without interrupting the flow of the narrative (that's the point of in-universe writing, to make it easier to read). On the other hand, when describing character traits or plot themes, specific citations as part of the main body of text will make it clear exactly where claims about a character are being drawn from, and keep reminding the reader that this section is out-of-universe. It can also make it clear whether a fictional or real-world source is being used as a basis for a particular claim.

Imagine these excerpts from an article on Captain Rogers, lead character in a TV series.

Introduction: out-of-universe, present tense. (Makes it clear from the start that this is fiction.)
Chronological section: in-universe, fictional sources, past tense.
Character traits: out-of-universe, fictional or real-world sources, present tense.
(This is all imaginary, of course.)

Captain Andrew "Roy" Rogers, played by Al Pacino, is the leading character in the fictional TV series, "Jolly Roger". The series focuses on his transformation from starship captain, to renegade pirate, to interstellar despot.

...

Captain Rogers' first encounter with the Arcturans was in 2245, during the negotations over the Gorok 7 colony. Rogers falsified evidence that Arcturans liked eating Gorokians for breakfast, convincing the colony to join the Happy Fun Federation instead of the Arcturan Empire.^[1] However, this decision had severe consequences for him, as the Arcturans conspired with the Terran mafia, and arranged to have Captain Rogers transferred to the garbage scow Oscar.^[2] Rogers spent two months on the Oscar, and was unaware of the conspiracy, until his old friend, Commander Bolo, told him what had happened. When Rogers learned about the conspiracy, he hijacked an interstellar cruiser and began a campaign of piracy against the Arcturan Empire.^[3]

...

Throughout the series, there are several instances where Captain Rogers displays an aggressive attitude. One example of this occurs in the episode, "It's Go Time". When an Arcturan soldier, Greedo, accuses him of cheating at hopscotch, Rogers responds by shooting Greedo. Also, in the episode, "Revelations", when a crewman of the Oscar suggests that Rogers has an anger management problem, Rogers throws the crewman out an airlock.

...

Several commentators have speculated as to the cause of Captain Rogers' behaviour. In the episode, "Worm Bread", it is established that Rogers' great-great-grandmother was a space hamster, and that some rare space hamsters possess a Blood Gene which turns them into psychopaths. In the book, "Tyrant or Teddy Bear?", author Bob Green suggests that Rogers' great-great-grandmother was, in fact, a carrier of the Blood Gene, and it was passed down to Captain Rogers. However, this claim is never explicitly made in an on-screen episode.

...

(episode references used in the chronological section get listed here) Quack 688 06:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

What might work for some plot summaries based on primary sources with at least two levels of subdivisions (books and chapters, or seasons and episodes) is to establish the out-of-universe context through the outer subdivision, and use inline citations to reference when each plot point mentioned specifically occurs. It'd be optimal if our plot summaries were based on those of secondary sources, in which case, you should cite as you would for any other secondary source; in-text attribution is often useful anyway, in addition to the inline citations that provide specific page numbers, etc. However, the case where secondary sources exist for plot is the exception rather than the rule for modern popular culture, so many articles will need to draw from the primiary source(s) directly for the uncontroversial plot points.

As far as verb tense, one thing to keep in mind is that it's relative to a frame of reference. Events that occur within the episode you're referencing should be narrated in the present. However, there are cases where past tense is needed, whether in-universe or not. For example, "Episode 46 focuses on the sergeant, who reveals that, in his days as a private, he had a habit of...".

When describing character traits, again, I can think of cases that demand otherwise. Continuing the example from above, "When the episode first aired, critics thought the character had become too sentimental. Later commentators disputed this conclusion, calling it an important transition away from the traits of a one-dimensional military man."

Fiction itself is narrated in the present tense, but can establish a internal "past tense" through flashbacks and the like. Real-world chronology applies when are attributing opinions or events surrounding the fiction (is the analysis or dispute current or ongoing?). And, of course, it's possible to mix the two in one sentence. So, in a long example, "The first episode, which premiered in late 1985, depicts the struggle between the two neighboring civilizations, who, as the narrator explains, had previously been at peace for decades." — TKD::Talk 08:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I know there'll always be exceptions with tense, the main thing I was looking at was the actual methods used for citations - specifically, using footnote citations exclusively for in-universe content (like chronological summaries), and standard in-text citations for out-of-universe content (like general character descriptions). This makes the in-universe material easier to read, constantly reminds the reader when out-of-universe material is presented (whether the source is real-world or fictional), and helps establish a clear divide in the reader's mind between the two styles of writing. Quack 688 09:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion board

I find this talk page is almost like a discussion board with the essays that get posted here - that's why I wrote a draft revision - so I could put my views down in completion without having them swamped. I figured I'd say a few things before this pages gets archived again :)

I agree with TheDJ and DCB4W that there are several main points that seem to be coming up:

How much fictional detail can be put into an article before it goes from comprehensive to a copyright violation?
Is the ulility of succession boxes in organising information completely offset by their propensity to spurn useless articles?
While it can be extremely convenient to write in an in-universe style, does it encourage too much unreferenced garbage and fan-commentary to be written?

Personally, and I tried to encapsulate this in my draft revision, I find the current guidelines too prescriptive. While I can certainly see where it is coming from, I'd prefer to focus on saying what we want (i.e. my 5 key points) rather than what we don't want. I also think that while lots of fictional detail, succession boxes, and in-universe writing can create problems, it is more important to focus on having a guideline say why they are bad and what problems they create than generating a blanket ban.

I'm glad that people are talking about it though. Eventually, I hope some consensus will be reached. I didn't mind the current page being marked as disputed (hey, I dispute it!), but I don't care as long as contributors are working to make things better.

Dr Aaron 10:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we move your comments up under "disputed template" above so that we avoid fragmenting the discussion more? (It shouldn't be archived as long as the discussion is live.) — BrianSmithson 11:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible compromise?

I made what I think is a fairly non-controversial alteration to the language of the out of universe section. It addresses my concern-- which is that the language as it was deprecated our Hamlet article and really contradicted scholarly consensus (see e.g. [1]). See what you think. DCB4W 19:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, I believe that the edit, especially the latter section excepting plot summaries from the out-of-universe perspective is a bit too contentious and controversial as the preponderance of articles about fiction exist solely as plot summaries. The wholesale permission of this this sort of summary in this guideline would make it rather empty. I think the summaries should be taken case by case to see if they should be allowed to break this guidance. --Psyphics_ΨΦ 21:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

And respectfully, every plot summary in academia is written in-universe. The guideline is the aberration, not the other way around. Bear in mind that, while the discussion on this page and in the archives has focused on suppressing fancruft (a worthy endeavor), the guideline on its face applies to all articles about fiction, including the articles on Hamlet, Moby-Dick, and Richard III (1955 film), all of which violate the guideline in their plot summaries, notwithstanding the latter's Featured Article status and Main Page appearance this past week. I'm reinserting the first part, which I think is completely uncontroversial, and we can talk about the second. DCB4W 22:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The main difference is that a plot summary in a scholar environment is made for private purposes. A plot summary here may be used for commercial purposes, and thus become copyright violation.

By the way, I have never read an in-universe plot summary in any important newspaper down here. Have you? -- ReyBrujo 22:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree; a plot summary in a scholarly environment is made for public purposes-- publication in journals, teaching, the Encyclopedia Britannica and the like. Moreover, I deliberately chose examples that were in the public domain to minimize the copyright argument, with the exception of Richard III-- the movie is presumably still under copyright protection, but the play isn't and that article has an in-universe plot summary as well. I just included the movie to raise the point that the Featured Article review didn't seem to think that violation of this guideline was a big problem, which I find interesting. DCB4W 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured articles aren't perfect, and in the case of the Richard III article, I think the plot summary section is a style problem. It's well-written and this is, after all, just a guideline so violating it doesn't preclude it happening, even in FA's. But in-universe perspective is still bad, whether in a featured article or no.--ragesoss 22:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "They do it, so we can too!" is not an argument. That others break guidelines (on purpose or because they did not know about the guideline) does not justify us doing the same. We have featured lists with dozens of fair use images being used decoratively, even though Wikipedia:Fair use our fair use guideline and policy forbids that. Yet they continue to appear. -- ReyBrujo 22:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't an aberration. See the other main page articles on Halloween (film) and V for Vendetta (film)-- I'm growing ever more convinced that the language in this guideline does not represent a genuine consensus of Wikipedia editors. If enough people break the guideline, its status as a guideline is weakened. Bear in mind that guidelines are only persuasive authority-- they're supposed to reflect consensus, not compel it. If the guideline is bad, it should be ignored. [WP:IAR] DCB4W 23:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

That is a dangerous move. Just because most don't like our fair use usage restrictions (as proved at portals, lists and promotional discussions) does not mean we should just eliminate it. While it is not the same, it shows that you don't turn against a guideline by working against it, but instead bringing discussions to the correct place. Indeed, I am open to discussion: I adopted this guideline as easy as I would drop it if not necessary. However, saying "Nobody cares about it, let's dismiss it" is not the right way of handling things. Create an amendment, post announcements in relevant places, and let's see what they say. -- ReyBrujo 23:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The beauty of WP though, is that with a rule like Ignore All Rules, by ignoring the guideline you're obeying the policy. I like irony. But I am doing precisely what you suggest-- I'm on the discussion page of a rule that I think is broken and I'm advocating its repair. I think that this turn of events-- the FA violation of this guideline-- is fundamentally different from people disregarding fair use policy, for a number of reasons.

Fair use is a legal doctrine that governs a number of the things we're trying to do here. The Manual of Style is a restraint we impose on ourselves. Ignore all Rules applies to this scenario much more than it does to copyright law, as a Federal judge is unlikely to ignore all rules in order to make the article better.
One of two possible explanations for the FAs consistently violating the guideline is that the writers and the FA review people didn't know about the guideline, in which case it can hardly be said to reflect the consensus of Wikipedia at large, and it supports the theory that the guideline was insufficiently vetted.
The other possible explanation is that the editors knew about the guideline and ignored it, in which case it really supports the theory that this guideline doesn't command the consensus of WP editors at large.

DCB4W 23:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

"every plot summary in academia is written in-universe" is a stretch. Because most academic writing about fiction is focused on particular elements of a particular work, rather than an encyclopedic treatment of a single work, plot summary is not clearly separated from analysis. In my view, that should be how it is done when possible in Wikipedia as well. Picking up the nearest academic work on fiction and thumbing through (Adam Roberts' The History of Science Fiction), I see plenty of out-of-universe elements in plot summary. Although a single sentence or series of sentences often appears to be in-universe, reading longer passages makes it clear that the overall tone is out-of-universe. Paragraphs of plot summary start with phrases like "Walter Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz begins a few hundred years after...", "The first book begins...", etc., and an in-universe perspective hardly ever persists longer than a paragraph.--ragesoss 22:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I may have overstated my point with the word "every." However, I stand behind my assertion that it's the predominant format for synopses. I'd be glad to trade examples and counter-examples, but I strongly suspect I'm right about the majority view. As I mentioned above, the guideline doesn't only represent a minority view in scholarly writing, it seems to be the minority view on Wikipedia.

Incidentally, with regard to the last edit summary on the guideline page ("...consensus version"), I'm not going to get into a revert war, but I deny that there is or has ever been a genuine Wikipedia consensus for the current language. I find it instructive that the last few works of fiction to appear as Featured Articles on the Main Page clearly violate the guideline with regard to their plot summaries-- they're in-universe and they're a few paragraphs long (though not, I think, long enough to raise copyright/fair use concerns). The opinion pool was too shallow-- only 18 votes if I recall correctly before it was moved from essay to guideline. This never should have been made a guideline. It is one now, and I am working to make it as good a guideline as it can be. I would appreciate it if people would actually respond to my concerns instead of making blanket assertions that softening the language would lead to an explosion of Trekkie fancruft and copyright lawsuits or that my suggestions would grant a "free pass" to "99%" of "in-universe articles." This guideline applies to all fiction, and I fear that it throws out the baby with the bathwater in an attempt to squash fancruft.

Let's step back and cool off. Why is this a guideline? Why does it need to exist? Why is it phrased as a near-ban on in-universe discussions, rather than as a discouragement or a caution? Is this wording truly necessary to discourage fan pages? There should be convincing answers to those questions if this is to be an official guideline, and I'd like to be convinced. (I'm already convinced that discouraging pages is a worthy endeavor, so we can take that part as read.) DCB4W 23:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing to note is that WP:WAF#Exceptions does basically state that plot summaries can be in-universe if the're reasonably short and framed with out-of-universe context, but it's still preferable that summaries be as out-of-universe as possible. From my experience, more leniency here tends to be allowed for articles that describe works of fiction rather than characters or other fictional elements. The reason for this is that, in the former case, it is clear what the out-of-universe context for a single work of fiction is, once it has been established; and it is implicit that the plot summary covers the work linearly from beginning to end, and may do so at a level of detail that doesn't permit mention of all subdivisions. By contrast, in the case of fictional characters and the like, it is not implicit which plot points tie into which works, so out-of-universe style tends to be more important there.

That said, I still like the idea of treating in-universe writing as an exception to the rule. An article on anything fictional shouldn't really be spending too much time in-universe. And, of course, it's still preferable that plot summaries are sourced to secondary sources whenever possible (in which case they should be out-of-universe to provide attribution), but, for many recent works, it's still necessary to use the primary source to describe the plot. — TKD::Talk 00:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

If that was how I interpreted the guideline, I wouldn't be arguing this much. I think it's reasonable to treat articles about fictional characters differently than the articles about fiction itself. But that's not what the guideline says. I also fundamentally don't see what the problem is with in-universe ploy synopses at all, and I don't follow why you want to use a secondary source for them. ("Harold Bloom writes that Hamlet opens with two guardsmen on the walls of Elsinore...") Out of universe synopses are difficult to write and awkward to read. It's comparable to teaching my dog to speak Russian: lots of trouble with no practical benefit. DCB4W 00:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with TDK for the most part. The counter-examples offered by DCB4W are of single works of fiction, and as such, in-universe plot summaries are much more acceptable. Where this breaks down is in articles about specific characters who span multiple works, articles about comic books series or television shows (where it is more appropriate to discuss things writer-by-writer or season-by-season), articles on spaceships or aliens that appear in several works, etc.

I have no problem at all "weakening" the in-/out-of-universe argument so that for articles on specific, singular works of fiction, the plot summary may very well be in-universe. We need to be very, very careful to work things so as to forbid this approach in the articles on Batman and The Millennium Falcon, though. The real purpose behind my original drafting of this guideline was to prevent Batman from becoming Fictional biography of Batman framed as an encyclopedia article, and to give FAC voters something to point to when they rejected such submissions. Whatever we do, we need to make sure that blanket ban remains in effect. -- BrianSmithson 01:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I'll let this simmer for another day or so and then, if there's no serious objection, I'll take a pass at the revised language. DCB4W 02:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to respond to the question about why secondary sources are preferred: Wikipedia's policy against original research prohibits the use of primary sources except for uncontroversial, simple details. This means that a plot description that depends solely on the primary source must be careful not to stray into the realm of details — character feelings, for example — that aren't made explicit or that are otherwise left open to interpretation. If we have a reliable secondary source, then we can use it to provide those details. — TKD::Talk 06:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the latter part of your post, but interpretations have no business in the sections I'm discussing to begin with. I slightly disagree with your description of WP:OR, which reads in pertinent part: "Primary sources ... may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source... However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged." Policy encourages caution with use of primary sources; it doesn't discourage their use, which is how I interpreted the tone of your statement. (I may have misread you; I apologize if I did. WP:OR misstatements tend to be a pet peeve of mine, so I may be a little oversensitive.) DCB4W 00:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

From experience, many plot tend to unintentionally stray into minor interpretations and conclusions or otherwise read a bit too far into things. A reliable secondary source helps to ensure that a summary dies cover the most important points and doesn't stray into idiosyncratic interpretations. — TKD::Talk 11:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with Brian that a slight weakening would be acceptable; however, I would still rather the guideline suggest that out-of-universe writing is preferable even for plot summary. All other issues aside, I think plot summaries are more useful and encyclopedic that way; framing the plot as a plot (i.e., an element of literature rather than a sequence of events) is what makes plot summaries valid encyclopedic content. At the very least, the guideline should not suggest that in-universe is expected or preferred in plot summaries. DCB4W, you make a valid point that this guideline can and should be ignored to the extent that it doesn't convey its authority through strong argument. In that regard, it could be improved considerably. But I have seen little to persuade me that it makes the wrong argument; I can think of very, very few situations where in-universe perspective would make for a better article than out-of-universe perspective.--ragesoss 03:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've explicitly agreed that in-universe is bad for articles (such as the hypothetical biography of Batman Mr. Smithson suggested above)-- I think it's good for portions of articles. The reason I'm not satisfied with the existing Exceptions section is that it's muddled, and I think it encourages badly-written and pointless "out-of-universe" plot summaries. I think it makes no sense to admit an exception, but in the same paragraph state that we prefer an inherently awkward alternative to the exception. I feel it's better to clearly define the exception and accept that it is, in fact, OK. I feel we can trust editors to fairly adhere to the guideline if it's clarified. The current guidelines tend not to trust other editors: "articles written from an in-universe perspective are overly reliant on the fiction itself as a primary source. Lacking as they are in any critical analysis of the subject, these articles may invite original research. In other words, lacking critical analysis from secondary sources, Wikipedia editors and fans of the subject often feel compelled to provide such analysis themselves." This boils down to the claim that approach X often violates policy Y, therefore one should never use approach X. Why not? Why not write a guideline saying that "approach X often violates policy Y, therefore be mindful of Y when using X"? DCB4W 00:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I just have to say something in reply to DCB4W's comment above, since it summarizes a view that has been bothering me:

"Bear in mind that guidelines are only persuasive authority-- they're supposed to reflect consensus, not compel it. If the guideline is bad, it should be ignored."

I can't disagree more with such statements. The argument is that since we see this happen a lot, and people tend to write in-universe by default, that is the "consensus". That's not consensus, that's an issue that needs to be addressed. I think it would be fair to say that most of our articles contain at least one spelling or grammar error. Does that mean there is a consensus to use spelling or grammar errors?

In-universe is the easier way to write about fiction. Most cases of in-universe seem to happen, not because of preference, but because an editor doesn't know better or doesn't see the pros and cons of in-universe and out-of-universe. Far more often than not, when someone applies an out-of-universe approach to an article it's then seen as an improvement. Just because most editors don't know that the topics they write about could be better doesn't mean we shouldn't improve them.

The fact that we see this so much is the very reason why we go out of our ways to make a guideline about it. If it wasn't an issue then I wouldn't be surprised if there was no guideline like this (promoting either side). There's a difference between something happening often because it's preferred vs a problem. In-universe-heavy articles are a problem. If more editors knew the pros and cons, then the majority would be writing out-of-universe.

And of course, as others have pointed out, the guideline does mention exceptions. -- Ned Scott 05:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I hugely disagree with two things you said:

"Most cases of in-universe seem to happen, not because of preference, but because an editor doesn't know better or doesn't see the pros and cons of in-universe and out-of-universe...In-universe-heavy articles are a problem. If more editors knew the pros and cons, then the majority would be writing out-of-universe." (Emphasis added.) You really shouldn't assume that people who disagree with you either don't know better or don't think about the problem. I assure you I've read the guideline, thought about this issue for weeks, argued about it for weeks, and know what I think and why I think it. I assume the other writers, who consistently violate the guideline, know what they're doing too. I suspect you didn't mean that as a veiled insult, but that's how it reads.
"The argument is that since we see this happen a lot, and people tend to write in-universe by default, that is the "consensus". That's not consensus, that's an issue that needs to be addressed." The commonly agreed-upon method of doing things is the definition of consensus and is actually the preface to all guidelines: "This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines." A convention that is not commonly adhered to is not a convention. For a guideline to be part of the Manual of Style, it should reflect consensus. This one doesn't, and the more variance there is between the guideline and actual practice, the less it looks like a description of WP's convention. So yes, I think this one is on the verge of being a non-guideline. The fact is that the consensus of maybe two dozen editors formed the conventions described in this guideline. That's a paltry sample of WP's editors to try to derive policy statements with.

In-universe heavy articles are a problem, I agree. My proposed edits to the guideline would say that explicitly. It would also say that the exceptions are, in fact, exceptions to the rule, rather than grudging concessions to convenience. DCB4W 00:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with this. There's plenty of stuff written in-universe, and too many plot summaries that are way too long and detailed, but the solution is to fix them. Also, I interpret the guideline as talking about articles as a whole - as long as there is enough context given out of universe, I don't see a problem with a paragraph or two being in-universe (as with Hamlet). This guideline should discourage writing in-universe, not spell out possible exceptions. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

as per ned and milo. the article already mentions (multiple times) that plot summaries are okay if they are brief and dont dominate the article. so i dont see any need for expansion in that area at all. i think user dcbw would prefer the "halloween" fa on the front page to be changed into one long plot description, deleting everything about its creation, its reception, its influence, and all the other out-of-universe aspects. ie make all fiction articles just a superficial description of the fiction itself. oh and had a look at hamlet - what a horrible article. compare that with the fa's listed in this guideline. out-of-universe wins. (Unsigned comment added at 8:39, 16 January 2007 by user:82.14.76.85)

Wow, you absolutely haven't understood a word I wrote. DCB4W 00:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

No, DCB4W, you are the one who clearly doesn't understand. I'm not sure if there's even a point in trying to convince you otherwise, given what you've said about the issue. -- Ned Scott 06:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The only thing I don't understand is why you think I'm not understanding the issue. I reiterate: My failure to agree with you does not imply that I fail to comprehend your argument; it means only that my evaluation of the problem this guideline ostensibly addresses is different from yours. It doesn't really seem like you have been trying to 1) convince me or anyone else that the thing you categorize as a problem is really a problem, or 2) convince the people who take a different perspective on writing-- yes, me included-- that we're wrong and you're right. That said, I think we should probably take a few days' break from responding to each other's posts; letting things get personal, as it seems we're on the verge of doing, doesn't help anything. It may indeed be better that we agree to disagree. (Although, for what it's worth, I thought your Key Principles edit was constructive, and I don't think it should have been reverted.) DCB4W 23:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I have agreed with everything DCB4W has said and little else that anyone else has said. And from an aesthetic vantage: who wants to read a stodgy article delineating a left-brained analasys of who wrote what and when and how much money it made and what volume was what and you may not have known it, but this is fiction! and so forth? I think such facts have their utility; they place it in a wider cultural, historical, and logical framework. But why did I arrive at this page - why does anyone arrive at this page? Because we are fans of the works of fiction under discussion, and we're interested in what other people note about them, and among the most interesting responses other people have are emotional responses, which are inherent in the approach to fiction which describes what just happened and what is about to. As soon as you jump out of that and delineate who wrote what and it's a plot point and this is fiction, you lose emotional connection with the work and turn completely analytical. Analasys is the job of studio executives and publishers who make their decisions based on dry facts and comparisons of one work to another, which never completely work for all their claims that they do. It's a place they go because they are too afraid of risk and flair to really engage it - while the vast preponderance of laypeople enjoy work that breaks the mold ("be bold") and the predictable. And studio executives never really predict what will succeed for all their analysis anyway. They fired the creator of LOST before it aired. They were clueless, but the audience was onto it, because the audience looks at the work from an in-universe perspective (executives never do). If you might wonder how in the world that argument is relevant, consider that it applies to readers. Most readers are laypeople. Some are film people and executives. The latter should be following the pulse of the former if they want to succeed - that's where the real connection is, not logic and facts. And laypeople have a far easier time reading and connecting to an in-universe description than out-of-universe. Which is an easier read? "Jack failed to stop Micheal from stealing the gun." or "The plot involves a minor fictional character who fails to be prevented by a major fictional character from becoming violent." The former is concrete and clear, the latter is abstract and could mean any number of things. But the latter is what this policy is recommending. Pursuing violence how? Who is the main character? Who is the minor character? - while those three questions are so inherent (among many other possible abstractions) in the former that they would not even be asked. Too many silly questions is also the province of literature schools, which sap every ounce of life out of writers through such endless prattling abstractions. It would leave the plain essence of things mysterious and unknown, it would leave an article practiclally useless. Out-of-universe is good, I think, insofar as it does not become so abstrusely arcane and analytical that we flipping forget the whole reason anybody might love a work of art. Although, if the work of art sucks, out-of-universe description is a good failsafe :) Another angle on this: discouraging writers from pulling their own summary of something straight from thier read of the literary source has the inherent assumption behind it that for them to do so would produce unreliable work. As if only other web sites are reliable. Where did other sites get their info? Did they make it up? What makes something reliable? Isn't the point of Wikipedia for anyone to create useful information for others? What if no outside reference is available for a summary (I'm probably braoching a broader topic here now; references: I don't know)? Well then it might be that a user is writing a unique, original, useful informational piece. I say, if someone wants an "official" source, two other wikipedians who have read the literature and generally concur with a summary of it are enough to validate it. Otherwise, wikipedia is limited to only citing information elsewhere on the 'net - making other site's interpretations of a text the only valid interpretation (and _everything_ is interpreted and has bias; to claim absolute neutrality is a rediculous idea: bias chooses what even to write about!); limiting articles to only build off what others have written. I don't know. Maybe I'm just to trusting of the average article writer :) --Alex Hall 08:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A really long read this. But Wikipedia is not television, a novel or myspace, it's an encyclopedia. A dictionary (from which the encyclopedia is derived), isn't a comfortable reading novel either. It's a book with facts. Note also that there is no claim, there is a striving towards neutrality. My support is mostly with Ned and Milo on this issue, but there is only so much i can say about it. I still support the text of the MoS guideline, and i don't think an outright ban or outright condoning of in-universe will be very helpful. It's a guideline and not a policy, it contains hits for writing better encyclopedic articles, but we don't have to finish the task by tomorrow. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 12:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with DCB4W. There seems to be a consensus among thousands of editors that in universe is to be preferred, judging by wikipedia's pages about fiction. This page reflects the conesensus of probably 10s of people. Now, we can do two things. Leave this page as it is, and let people ignore it, or adjust this page so that it's actually useful. - 18:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

you seem to be under a misunderstanding as to what constitutes "consensus". (as also evidenced by your edits to WP:LOW). the vast majority of articles on wikipedia are unverified and have no references. is the "consensus" of lots users, therefore, that all articles should be unverified and unreferenced? please note that MoS's express best practice in order to achieve high-quality articles in a standardized format. rgs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.2.93.97 (talk) 09:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Your comment begs two questions, which are the crux of this entire dispute: 1) Does this guideline, as written, actually reflect the best practice? 2) Who can identify the best practice, and was that done in this case? With regard to 1) I maintain that the guideline is often wrong, and poorly written even when it's right, and with regard to 2) that it was promoted to guideline status with too little discussion and too little consensus. I do think that the actual behavior of other editors is some evidence of community consensus, particularly where it's a deliberate decision, like writing style, instead of widespread laziness, like omitting references or forgetting to sign talk pages. (Arguably a cheap shot, but too obvious to pass up.) I agree with TheDJ that our primary goal is writing a professional-looking reference work, not in pandering to fans. I just think that the text of this guideline is of almost no utility in doing so. DCB4W 04:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

This page reflects the conesensus of probably 10s of people. - well said!

I've come to the conclusion that the people who care about content just make sure the pages are the way they want them to be; the people who like complaining that people are too interested in fiction and write too much detail contribute here.

I tried to work within the system to affect a superior guide that reflects the fact that there are many very good 'in universe' articles in print. However, not enough people ever contribute to a page like this to ever establish a large enough consensus to change from the status quo.

I officially give up and will now spend my efforts actually improving pages rather with arguing how the 8-10 people who frequent this page think it should be done. Dr Aaron 05:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

'in universe' is easier, and so is more plentiful. I think that this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lord_Voldemort&diff=105052343&oldid=104496257 is an example of a dramatic improvement motivated by the Manual of Style (writing about fiction). SmokeyJoe 10:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at the lead paragraph, it looks like a bunch of OR. "Consistently depicted as," and "harbours a genocidal hate" should be cited. - Peregrine Fisher 19:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wether or not it's OR has nothing to do with the fact that it shows the difference out vs. in-universe style can make in this particular article. There is OR in almost all WP articles. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 21:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Peregrine Fisher demonstrates a useful feature of this-universe - it makes obvious instances of OR. The cleaned up this-universe version contains no more OR than the previous in-universe version. In fact, the cleaned up version lends itself more readily to the insertion of secondary source citations, as the clean-up editor did, and as continues to occur in subsequent edits. As an aside, it is not clear to me that much of the reasearch is original. "Consistently depicted as," and "harbours a genocidal hate" are strongly implicit throughout secondary sources on the character. SmokeyJoe 23:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Stock introduction

Where did the stock introduction "[name] is a fictional character in [book]" originate? To me, this wording comes across as excessively pedantic, or even redundant, except perhaps in cases of historical fiction, where it may help prevent confusion. What are peoples' thoughts on this? Is there a history behind this wording? Feezo (Talk) 04:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure of a "history" behind the formulation, but each separate article needs to stand on its own, so to speak, so, for a fictional character, the important context to establish is that the subject is, indeed, fictional; which work(s) of fiction the character appears in; and who created the character. You can't assume that the reader is already oriented to the context of the overall work, since the article can be linked to from anywhere inside or outside Wikipedia. — TKD::Talk 05:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I would think that it would also be okay to do something like, "Curious George is an orange monkey in children's storybooks written by Whatsisname Creator" or similar. In other words, if the fact that it's fictional is strongly implied, I don't see why it's necessary to always flat-out state as much. But to answer the original question, I think it comes from WP:FICT. -- BrianSmithson 01:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, personally, I'd be okay with that, but, in general, experience has shown me that it's much harder to actually err on the side of giving too much context for comprehension than it is to give too little. :) — TKD::Talk 06:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Out-of-universe example

The Out-of-universe prose is better than the in-universe prose, but it doesn't work as an example. Every sentence would require a reference. While I agree that would be best, it doesn't help people who read this page. Let's see an example of how a non-famous Full Metal Alchemist episode (or whatever) should be written. It's one thing to suggest writing a great article, it's another to ignore what's going on with almost all fiction pages. - Peregrine Fisher 04:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess "#REDIRECT [[List of Full Metal Alchemist episodes (season foo)]]" is a good exemplar for writing an article of FMA about which no independent reliable sources have seen fit to comment. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It's easy to say delete 50-75% (95%?) of all filmn and television pages, but it's not realistic. Now, our policy is that all plot oriented pages stay (Ex. film pages) if they can get the votes in an AfD, else they're deleted. We're basically voting over and over on whether or not a page is good. We need a policy/guidline that will make this process easier. - Peregrine Fisher 04:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is this and WP:FICT. WP:FICT boils down to "If there are no sources but the primary sources, merge it somewhere." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) How do we reconcile this with wikiprojects like WP:FILM that are trying to include an infobox with all film pages? I'm trying to point out the differences between guidlines and reality. Are you saying current wikipedia pages to the contrary; just follow the guidlines, and all will fall into place? How? - Peregrine Fisher 04:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

We delete articles about movies about which nobody blah blah fail WP:V. We do that all the time. I don't think holding episodes to the same standard is impractical (a number of projects do this), especially with less-draconian consequences.

There's precedent to merge and not merge. Things will need to change to be consistent. Given that, let's set this consistent standard to the long-accepted guideline derived from one of the core ideals of this project. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're saying "change nothing" about this MoS page. Is that really the best we can do? - Peregrine Fisher 05:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Peregrine - I guess you summed up my major problem with this MoS page - according to the strict rules given here, I reckon 90%+ of all articles about fiction could be put up as AfD. Then you end up with overzealous admins going around and doing just that, or putting up flags everwhere. And the crazy thing is, there seems to be a core of people out there who think that the current page is the best we can do. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dr Aaron (talk • contribs) 05:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Maybe the solution is an example that shows one should start with "In this film John (played by Sam) tries to prove his father innocent." vs. "John tries to prove the innocence of his father." Maybe it's something simple as that? - Peregrine Fisher 06:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what that example would prove. There are two issues here: writing style and sourcing. Basically, this guideline stresses a particular writing style (out-of-universe), while also mentioning a need for proper sourcing and breadth of sourced coverage. The two are somewhat intertwined, in that in-text attribution of material to a source is necessarily out-of-universe; however, an article about fiction can be out-of-universe, but fail to have enough sources for comprehensive encyclopedic coverage. This was the case with Lakitu, which was eventually de-featured. No writing style can make up for a lack of sourced non-plot-summary coverage. — TKD::Talk 11:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I really have to say, I hope like hell we can delete most of our fiction articles. Think about all the Gundam, Digimon, Pokemon, etc and individual articles about minor characters, and individual episode articles we have. Does this guideline make it harder to write crappy little episode articles? Good, because we shouldn't have crappy little episode articles. -- Ned Scott 06:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think someone better hurry up and mark up today's feature article - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The synopsis is written primarily in an in-universe style. Quick, quick! Dr Aaron 06:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:WAF#Exceptions. -- Ned Scott 06:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it doesn't comply with the statement that out of universe synopses "should be preferred"-- largely, I assume, because out of universe synopses really shouldn't be preferred. DCB4W 23:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I think that's going a little bit overboard. The synospis style is fine. — Deckill er 00:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Excessively long plot

What people around here think about Plot of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo? Shouldn't we state somewhere that, when a topic requires an article for the plot alone, it should be summarized? Reminds me of Chrono Cross plot's leading sentence: Chrono Cross has a large and complex storyline, and cannot be briefly summarized on the game's main page. Here is a more extended version of the plot. -- ReyBrujo 21:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem too long at all in general, I'd consider splitting it though to separate articles. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Holy cow. It's too long, too detailed, too likely to run afoul of copyright law, written with poor prose, and probably doesn't need to exist. DCB4W 00:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm neither an expert in copyright law, nor in manga, it seems to me that a comic series with over 200 volumes has a lot of plot to be summarized. Seeing as this plot summary doesn't prevent Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo from selling issues, it doesn't show large numbers of actual images, does not directly plagarise the work, nor does it depict Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo in a negative light, I think the legal grounds for copyright violation are very light on the ground. But I'd love to have a person with actual experience in copyright law make an addition to this discussion.

That said, I care nothing for Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, hadn't heard of it before now, and wouldn't worry that much about keeping it or slinging it. But seeing as how someone has had the conviction to follow and summarise 200+ volumes, I suspect there are a bunch more out there with more than a passing interest. That alone should show some notability. Dr Aaron 06:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think Bobobo only has 200 chapters and 76 episodes (not 200 volumes) which isn't all that long compared to some mangas and animes. For instance One Piece has over 400 chapters and it's summary is considerably better organized as story arcs. That said, doesn't WP:NOT say that articles shouldn't consist of only plot summary? Stardust8212 13:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I may have missed something, but wasn't it agreed, at the beginning of the talk page, that extremely long summaries written with an in-universe perspective may be copyright infringement? -- ReyBrujo 14:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that we don't need excessively long summaries of a manga with a plot that exists only to parody whatever's wandering through Japan's pop culture at the moment. It's like a plot summary of...I don't know, Saturday Night Live. Summarizing the plot is sort of missing the point. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

While I totally agree that such an article is.. bad.. at least it's all in one place. I'm tempted to suggest we keep it only to prevent something more massive, like individual articles for each of those 200 volumes or however many episodes. Then, when the buzz dies down, we can take a single article to AfD. Its like damage control. Although, I don't think there's much buzz around Bobobo these days, so it might be good to take it to AfD now. -- Ned Scott 11:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Leaving aside whether it's a copyright violation, I think it should be clear that the Bobobo plot summary is not the ideal writing style. If people need to do plot summaries for episodic works, I would much rather see something like Ultimate Spider-Man (story arcs), which includes much less plot and much more non-plot information about the individual issues or arcs. I'm not sure how to write that into the guideline and an improvement template, though. TheronJ 14:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I am the actual editor for the Bo-bobo plot synopsis...in fact, I think I'm the only one. The only reason I started writing this was mostly in response to a couple people within the Bo-bobo section, who believed that we deserved a plot synopsis just as much as, say, many of the more popular series such as One Piece or Naruto. The problem was that while there is a plot to Bo-bobo, its very minimal: Bo-bobo and gang go off someplace, face bad guys with weird attributes and abilities and defeat them with something even more bizarre or powerful. (in other words, a parody of practically every other Shonen..while remaining in Shonen laws) There is quite a bit of description needed for some of the battles, but I knew from a previous experience of not mentioning every single joke or gag or else it would just be too tedious and that would be pretty much reading the series without literally reading it. I also had previously tried to do that with the manga chapters in the manga section, but that got too tedious and problematic as well. If anyone has any advice on how to balance it out, I can take it easily...but the only options I see so far is either breaking this up or getting rid of it altogether. Many other manga and anime sites don't even have plot synopsis, so it may not be needed if you think this is just a gag manga. -StrangerAtaru 15:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Kanpyo7 23:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)*I see no reason for this article to be deleted, if this were something like one piece, then a plot summary could very well cause money loss for its producers. But lets face it, this is an anime/manga with thousands of gags, and the amount of those that this article lists is almost nonexistant compared to how much it could list. And furthermore, with so many gags, and so little described, ANY fan of the show would rather buy the DVD's or manga to get all the jokes than read few of them for free. EDIT: And furthermore, manga chapters 179-230 have not been licensed, announced, or released in any country outside of Japan, so even if the synopsis was very detailed on those chapters material, it would not be in any way, shape or form illegal. (Though if it were to be released or announced in english, then I would delete this.) Kanpyo7 23:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this one is a bit too long Cannibal Holocaust; it makes up the bulk of the article. --Peta 23:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Excessive plot detail in Doctor Who articles

I'm also finding a lot of excessively long summaries in Doctor Who articles. Take for instance The Empty Child, which has a beat-by-beat rundown of every single scene in the episode. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 05:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Excessive plot detail in Stargate articles

[2] Holy cow, this is longer than the summary in The Lord of the Rings, for a single TV episode.
[3] Also long.

Borderline: (in my view) , [4] (two episodes after all), [5] (on retrospect, perhaps below the limit)

It is hard to establish a hard-and-fast length rule in bytes since the nature of the summary affects how much it infringes on copyright (see Wikipedia:Fair use). But how about we establish some guidelines with a max function thus: Acceptable length, paraphrased plot summary max(% of article, # bytes, level of detail, legal limit) for example? After all, copyvio is not the only concern. Writing well and balanced, and WP:NOT is also important. Is this House episode something to go on? --GunnarRene 23:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Process?

Related: Shouldn't there be a process, like for image deletion, for this? As it stands now, owning editors can just delete the {{plot}} tag and carry on.... --GunnarRene 23:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to work on anything that will help to reduce plot summaries. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Long plot summary as copyvio

Long plot summary as active copyright violation discussion. Discussion here: Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 February 19/Articles ----GunnarRene 17:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What should an article for a TV episode look like?

I recently wrote an essay about how I think these plot-summary-only articles should be handled, in a world of ideal Wikipedia policy. Participants here may find it interesting, even if few are likely to agree. --ragesoss 18:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

There is actually a very large population of users who agree with you, we are just all spread out. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Trapped in the Closet (South Park). -- Ned Scott 09:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a great example of what a good episode article can be, but it's a very rare episode that has anywhere near that many sources available.--ragesoss 17:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Fictional battles

Wow, there a lot of nerdy battle articles on here. See Category:Fictional battles. Every single one of these articles' subjects is already covered in the article about the work in which it is described. Few of these have elements other than plot summary. And many use {{Infobox Military Conflict}} inappropriately, per this very guideline. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems like those infoboxes really help pages like Battle of Yavin. It's a good way to concisely summarize the battle. - Peregrine Fisher 09:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

In a completely in-universe way. What's more important: the number of fictional people in a fictional battle, or the name of the fictional work? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point, I guess we should make a specific infobox tailored to fictional battles. Definitely should have Star Wars mentioned prominenty. - Peregrine Fisher 05:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

And what would you put in that infobox? The name of the work, and...? I'm having trouble figuring out why we need articles on most of these battles, let alone infoboxes. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking it would be similar to the current infobox, but add some elements like fictional universe, whether it's from a film or TV, stuff like that. Maybe put the word "fictional" somewhere prominent. Any other things you can think of that I should add? - Peregrine Fisher 06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm with AMIB on this one. Even if you really do want to write about it in Wikipedia, why break it up as a "battle" instead of writing about "that part in the story". The only reason we would break it up like that is if it were... real.. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Breaking it up like that is how you do real battles, so it seems an obvious way to do fictional battles. It's like a lot of infoboxes for fictional subjects that contain in-universe info, like some of Star Trek infoboxes, for instance. If you have a wish list of what you'd like to see in the infobox, I'd like to hear it. - Peregrine Fisher 06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Breaking it up like that is how you do real battles..." I think that covers the problem. The vast bulk of fiction related material should not be treated as if it were real. At least not here. In the Star Trek Wiki, or the Star Wars one, or the Middle Earth one, or the comic book centric ones, or the like, sure. Those projects are geared to treat the in continuity material as real bios, places, and battles. The main Wiki isn't. Fold it into the article about the film/novel/episode/comic as a part of the non-overly-detailed plot discussion and let it go at that. — J Greb 06:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree fully and wholly with AMIB, Ned Scott and J Greb on this. Too many fictional information in infoboxes is a very bad idea. In my personal opinion the "character" infoboxes already contain WAY too much, but this one would be even worse. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree fully with Black, Ned and JGreb, perfectly valid infobox, does not violate WAF. Perhaps we do need a separate one, however, for fiction. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understand my point. One example brought up, Battle of Yavin, why think of it as the Battle of Yavin... I had to click on it to know what the hell it was about from that title. It's simply one of the battles from Star Wars, and of course I've heard of that before, but never thought to separate it like that. These "battles" are not notable for being battles, they're notable for being apart of a story. It doesn't make sense to break them up as real battles when we could break them up as parts of the story. -- Ned Scott 06:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In other words, my concern is about how we organize the information, not about if we should or should not write about it. -- Ned Scott 07:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As someone who has never seen Star Wars (because it doesn't really exist), I found the infobox exceedingly useful. The lead-in and image gave it away to me that it's fictional.. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 10:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

We need to burn like a wall fire through the cruft in the fictional events category tree. I'm not sure why I never thought to explored these categories before, but there's a lot of cuft in there. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Changes to policy - WP:ATT

I just slightly modified this guideline (which I still heartily detest) to reflect that the no original research and verifiability policies have been merged into one - Wikipedia:Attribution. I tried to do so without changing any of the content of the policy, but people should feel free to modify my changes. Cheers. Dr Aaron 11:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Overlong plot summaries and the current MOS

After stepping away in frustration a few weeks ago, I came back and look another look at the MOS. I note a lot of recent discussion focuses on overly long plot summaries. While they are often a symptom of an in-universe perspective, I still don't feel the current guidelines really focus on key issues like the scope and level of detail that should be in an article. Also, I think more point could be made about notability of subjects and attribution.

I suggested about 3 months ago a revised MOS, with lots of changes. I think they were all a bit much - trying to change everything at once. While I personally think that an in-universe style isn't inherently bad, I have decided to let that crusade take a back seat.

I have altered my draft revision - it now contains all of the same content as the current page, but just adds a bit at the beginning to highlight how the core policies of WP:NOTE and WP:ATT apply to fictional subjects. It also talks about detail and scope - something that seems to be a big topic in this talk page of late.

I encourage people to take a look at it and give me some feedback

Hopefully this time some sort of consensus may be reached. In my opinion, the draft changes do not represent any significant change in policy at this stage, but to my mind stresses a few points that could be brought out a bit better. Dr Aaron 12:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea. First quibble, though -- Notability isn't a core policy, it's a guideline. (Core policies are listed under either "Key policies" or Wikipedia:Five pillars, but Notability isn't technically policy at all). Thanks!, TheronJ 14:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Point taken - I like your changes (see the talk page) & the new version is even better. Dr Aaron 00:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the draft conflicts with the current version, in that the draft encourages the use of primary sources (eg where is says "In the case of serial fiction ... the specific fictional works should be cited as appropriate"). I don't think you can cite the fictional work - that would be original research. Wikipedia editors using the fictional work as a source is probably the reason for overlong plot summaries.--Commander Keane 01:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, there is no conflict (I didn't see "In addition to the source material..." in the current version). So both versions are incorrect (in my opinion) and need to be changed - you should not be using the film/book to write the article, you need to use third party sources.--Commander Keane 01:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

That's an unenforcable rule. There is so much fiction out there atm, you cannot require everyone to ONLY use 3rd party sources and non-original for writing articles about it. Plot summaries are a advised part of the content of articles on fiction. You cannot fully copy plot summaries from anything because it would be a COPYVIO (at least in the cases where it's not ripped from a vague fansite), so if you are gonna have to summarize in your own words, you might as well do it by referencing the original material. However that's only for plot summaries. Any external "real world" information should be sourced without using the fictional material. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 02:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Biogs of fictional characters

The info on here has been really helpful, but I think it would be helpful to have more definate guidelines on articles that deal with fiction (or have i missed them on here? where should i be looking?). Because people can form such strong attachments to works of fiction and fictional characters themselves, you get a lot of over-enthusiastic editors watching these articles. If nothing else, does anyone know if there's an agreement on referring to fictional characters by their first or family names? Amo 20:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think names, and many other more specific style issues, are best left to editors on a particular article, or a related WikiProject where appropriate. Naming will vary based on how names are used in the fiction.--ragesoss 20:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the guideline that "major" fictional characters can have their own page and "minor" characters should be merged into a single page is fairly clear on Wikipedia:Notability (fiction).

I do think that this should have more of a presence on the current Manual of Style (fiction), hence the short summary of this guideline in the current draft revision (blatant plug).

Dr Aaron 10:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the things we thought about tackling in Wikipedia:WikiProject Television in the near future. We are thinking about setting up "guidelines" for writing articles about "elements of fiction". characters, battles, history and other similar stuff. However we are first concentrating on condensing WP:LOE and WP:TVE wikiprojects into taskforces atm. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 23:30, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed through the village pump that are more and more "guidelines" popping up - even one on the notability of shopping centers (WP:NOTE-MALLS). Personally, I'd like to get this guideline a bit clearer first abd then, hopefully, many small guidelines won't be needed.

To add my 2c worth, I think tv episodes should generally be merged in a single page; an episode should only have its own page if it has had a significant real world impact - e.g. Trapped in the Closet (South Park). Dr Aaron 10:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That already falls under WP:EPISODE. There is a difference. An episode-article is an article about a non-fictional event with a fictional content. A character-article describes something fully fictional, and how it has importance in the world (Spiderman for instance). Also, these would be project guidelines. they have 0 authorative basis. Comparative to what I recently added to WP:TV for people working in the television industry, I would like to add similar hints for such articles. Pointing out common mistakes (heroes vs. villians categories for instance). Which guidelines you should read, couple of examples, stuff like that. The idea is that if you want to edit/write Television related articles, you would (by reading WP:TV) know enough of wikipedia to not make any mistakes. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Idea: "In-Universe" warning age-out

So, here's what I see:

Fan / someone knowledgeable writes something about a fictional thing in an in-universe style
Wikipedian Who Doesn't Know The Subject puts the In-Universe tag on the article, expecting someone with more knowledge on the subject to follow it
Fans, rightfully, ignore the tag, since they are writing it in-universe for a reason
Page is blighted by a tag for eternity.

So, here's my random idea that I'm not even sure its possible: when someone adds that in-universe tag, the system records the time. After, say, three weeks, the tag dissapears. It remains in the code, but can't be seen. This way, when another Wikipedian comes along and thinks to put the tag there, he/she will see that someone already did add it, but nobody with the knowledge to edit it bothered to. It's win-win. Wikipedians will eventually have to learn a modicum of information on the fictional topic in order to abide by the tag, and everyone else doesn't have to deal with a "This article might be written as if Klingons are real, so bear that in mind when you read this that, no, Worf is not real" tag blighting pages. Scumbag 17:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally I don't like that idea. I'm from the school of thought that in universe writing isn't inherently bad, although I agree it can encourage poor referencing, original research, and non-NPOV commentary. Still, it can be the most useful style for plot summaries and character bios. I know this is against the current MOS, but it's my opinion nonetheless.

Still, I also think it should be clear that:

(1) Pages shouldn't consist only of a plot summary or character bio, and

(2) It should be clear by an intro that the in-universe plot summary/bio refers to a fictional work.

If either of those criteria are met, I see a use for the "in universe" tag. I also don't think that it should disappear as this is a fundamental flaw to the page (like not having references) that should permanently mark it until someone chooses to fix it. That way visitors will know that someone has thought it is not appropriate and that people who monitor the page (or don't as the case may be) haven't bothered to address the concern.

Dr Aaron 22:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Dr Aaron is right. If the page meets his two criteria above, there should be no need for the in-universe tag. Some folks might argue that a plot summary in the page might be too long and add the tag, but such arguments should be made on the talk page of the article, not here. Another concern is people who "drive-by tag" an article and don't explain their reasoning on the talk page. This is a problem for many tags. I'd hope that anyone tagging things in-universe might specify their specific concerns rather than just letting the original authors stay puzzled. — Brian (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, when the tag is removed a note should be added to the talk page as to the resolution. Additionally, if there is already an explanation on the talk page and the tag was unwarranted, a note should be dropped on the tagger's talk page referencing this point of the MoS. — J Greb 01:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's funny to see how some people think that just because most TV article editors don't LIKE this guideline, that tv articles should be some sort of exception. It's really annoying me personally, that apparently comic and TV article editors cannot wrap their mind around a concept that music, books and theatre editors have little to no problems with and actively support and enforce. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 00:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The out of universe style isn't actually preferred in a lot of cases, except by just enough editors at this page to keep this guideline as it is. There isn't going to be a good solution until this page is brought into line with the actual broader consensus at wikipedia. It's mentioned above, but look at this part of theatre page, Hamlet#Plot_summary. - Peregrine Fisher 01:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe there are a few film and novel related article that have the same problem. It speaks more to the interested, and at fault, editors coming at it from a fan's POV rather than an encyclopedias. I know there are people involved with the Comics Project that want to keep those articles from becoming nothing more than fan crufft, even to the extent the the Project's exemplars and guidelines explicitly promote that articles have to have a real-world grounding.

There are time I would like to see admins have the option of banning editors who can't get that concept through their fannish enthusiasm. — J Greb 01:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

And Peregrine, reference the article in toto not just one portion. The base line problem being pointed to here is "writing entire articles about factitious things as though they were real things". Your reference is not the entire article, nor is it the bulk of the article. It fits the points raised so far: an in-universe voice has it place, but not as the sole or major voice of the article. — J Greb 01:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I frequently see Plot sections tagged, and this guideline recommends out of universe for plot sections at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Prose examples. Hamlet's plot section is obviously not following this example. I'm not saying there's a general consensus for in universe in sections like Publication history and whatnot, just for describing plots. - Peregrine Fisher 01:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been adding the in-universe to many articles, almost every single one was from a show that I was a big fan of. I love shows like Lost, added a bunch there.. I'm a huge anime nerd, added tons there.. So yeah, many of the editors adding these tags DO know about the subject content, and have much love for those topics.

Also, regarding the idea that there is a consensus for in-universe writing: Default behavior is not considered consensus to support in-universe writing. The average person does not add references, has a few misspelled words, doesn't always follow the formatting advice in the WP:MOS, etc. That does not mean there is a consensus to not add references, to leave words misspelled, to break page formatting. This is a guideline because the average reader is not aware of the problem. -- Ned Scott 02:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

You're using the Ignoratio elenchi logical fallacy. People don't leave out refs because they don't believe in refs, but because they don't understand them. People don't mispell or break formatting on purpose either. They do write plot summaries from an in universe perspective on purpose, though. Basically, there is no problem for them to be aware of, other than that this guideline was written by a small group who put their views above the views of the vast majority, with the result being a bunch of unnecessary tags. - Peregrine Fisher 03:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Plus, how does the average editor being unaware of the problem make this a guideline? Doesn't the average editor's ignorance of a problem lend itself to the belief that the average editor doesn't think there is a problem? And why should we support the position of anyone here, over those of average editors, particularly when so few of the positions here have been supported by any attempts at persuasive argument? The more examples (e.g. TV editors) of people who "don't like the guideline" that are proffered, the less believable it is that this guideline reflects anything like consensus. It seems it was an essay that someone moved to a guideline page with relatively little discussion-- literally, I feel it reflects the consensus of fewer than two dozen people in an encyclopedia with thousands of editors. Balanced against the behavior of many, many editors, honestly which one should we infer reflects the consensus of the Wikipedia community at large, the guideline or common practice?

A while back I threw down a gauntlet nobody picked up: Please explain to me why in-universe writing is inherently bad. (Yes, I know that the guideline says that it isn't inherently bad for the most reasonable uses, e.g. plot summaries. However since the next paragraph actively discourages doing so whenever possible, I read the guideline as a whole to say that in-universe writing is basically a bad idea.) Nobody's done it. The guideline's section -- What's wrong with an in-universe perspective? --is highly unpersuasive. Its argument seems to boil down to the assertion that, because it can be done poorly, in-universe writing should not be done at all. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. It certainly doesn't address the problem I see, which is that out-of-universe writing in some areas is far less elegant and readable than in-universe. If we were to run down a litany of bad in-universe writing mistakes, I'd probably agree with most complaints. But I still think that this guideline, as written, is not tailored to address the real problems, and is likely to cause as much poor writing as it prevents. DCB4W 04:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I am aware that the original comment was "average reader" rather than "average editor." However, the beauty of the wiki is that the reader is inherently a potential editor. So if readers tend to leave things intact, I think it makes as much sense to infer consent as it does to assume simple laziness, particularly on heavily-read pages. DCB4W 04:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't you, I, and others hammer out a potential compromise a couple of months ago on these points? Whatever happened to that? (Honest question.) — Brian (talk) 04:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried to rewrite the section to include the compromise, but it was reverted twice. DCB4W 04:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It got rejected by small but vocal group who love the current system. It is difficult to affect change about in-universe writing when the current MOS is entirely about out-of-universe writing (see the nutshell statement). My old draft revision also tried to tackle this issue, but got shot down. That's why my current draft revision is trying to not tackle the larger issue of in-universe writing but rather trying slightly broaden the focus of the MOS without changing the underlying doctrine. Little steps, I believe are the way forward. Dr Aaron 04:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I didn't notice DCB4W's changes and the subsequent reversions. That said, I like Dr Aaron's current draft for the most part. I might have a minor quibble here or there, but it's a good idea to broaden this guide, I think. I'm off to search the history for when DCB4W made those changes. Any idea roughly when that was? — Brian (talk) 04:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Here [6] and here [7]. DCB4W 05:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indentation) I just went back and read the original proposal. Amusingly, I think the "What's wrong with in universe" section of the original essay is better than the current draft. DCB4W 05:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow - I had never read the original essay, which does contain the wonderful paragraph:

"Certainly, there are times when limited, in-universe perspective is permissible. For example, articles on works of fiction often benefit from a plot summary. Such synopses should be kept as brief as possible and should be written in the present tense, as they describe a piece of fiction that does not change when it is read, watched, or played from one instance to the next. Also note that using the fictional work itself to write these descriptions is perfectly fine provided the work of fiction is cited as a source."

I'm surprised the current MOS is so stringent about in-universe writing, but it has seemed impossible to make any sort of change by reaching a consensus.

The two ongoing arguments on this page seem to be:

(1) Controlling fancruft

(2) Railing against the complete ban on in-universe writing.

I'm hoping that the small additions in the draft revision will try to better tackle notability within the MOS. If we can get this adopted, I think that there is hope that a consensus can next be reached to soften the language about in-universe writing. But afterwards... all things in good time.

At this point, I haven't seen any overt opposition to the draft, so I may look at trying to implement it soon if there are no serious objections. Dr Aaron 08:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I hadn't even noticed that that paragraph was cut! Yes, that was an integral part of the original essay as I originally drafted it. Yikes. That should be put back in posthaste. — Brian (talk) 09:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Looking at the original version of this page, it was basically saying that overall, articles should contain out of universe writing and information. It's morphed into saying that individual sections shouldn't contain in universe writing. That removed section should be put back in. - Peregrine Fisher 18:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That paragraph morphed into this one:

Of course, out-of-universe information needs context; details of creation, development, etc. are more helpful if the reader understands a fictional element's role in its own milieu. This often involves using the fiction to give plot summaries, character descriptions or biographies, or direct quotations. This is not inherently bad, if the fictional passages are short, are given the proper context, and do not constitute the main portion of the article. If such passages stray into the realm of interpretation, secondary sources must be provided to avoid original research. Note that when using the fictional work itself to write these descriptions the work of fiction must be cited as a source. For instance, a video game article should cite the game text, but it should also cite a reliable secondary source when necessary.

I think. Can somoene point to the most recent version of the page that includes the language as reported by Dr Aaron above? I'm having trouble finding it. — Brian (talk) 22:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite or merge with Wikipedia:Attribution

This page isn't really about how to write about fiction, it's just a weird clone of WP:ATT. Looking at the prose examples, the "before" example is how I would write an article about a subject that I can't find lots of secondary sources about:

In Star Year 8891 the Slibvorks of Blastio were infected with the
Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a 
clandestine mission. The unit, acting under the leadership of Commander 
Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the 
Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue.

The "after" example is how I'd write an article about a subject that I can find lots of secondary sources about:

In the later series, a larger budget allowed for more extensive special
effects makeup.^{[citation needed]} The Slibvorks were now depicted as having blue 
skin, a stark contrast with their appearance in the earlier 
series.^{[citation needed]} The writers explained this by adding a genetic 
misfortune into the backstory of the Slibvorks.^{[citation needed]} etc.

It's like comparing Judgment (Enterprise episode) and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Now, both of these use an in-universe style for their synopsis. I think we could actually agree that in-universe is best for these sections, if saying so wasn't seen as an attack on Wikipedia:Attribution. I think we should remove everything in this project page that restates WP:ATT; if anything is left, keep that, otherwise redirect to WP:ATT. - Peregrine Fisher 13:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've kinda had it with the discussion about this guideline. If really so many people can totally not come to an agreement, I propose we disband it and let everyone just do whatever the F* they want. Pretty much the status quo regardless of this guideline existing. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of universe disuputed by those who think this section applies fully to plotsummaries as opposed to those who think this should apply to articles about fiction in general, but not to plotsummaries vs. those who think it should not apply at all.
Attribution some think this page parrots too much from WP:ATT trough the five point list repeatedly added by some authors, or even parrots too much WP:ATT trough the whole out-of-universe concept.

Basically only what's under "Infoboxes and succession boxes" and below is without dispute (minus the forbid of successionboxes). That's not even enough to warrent having this guideline. What's worse is is that most of the disagreement problems stem from within it's supporters. Perhaps it's a good idea to just demote this guideline, and create however many essays people want to write. Perhaps something good will come from those, or perhaps not, but this discussion is simply going nowhere anymore. I was the one that said this guideline is not "disputed", just experiencing heavy discussion, but I feel tempted to slap that header back on the guideline. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Before it comes to that, we should throw up notices on the community portal and village pump to get a wider level of input. I think the support for this guideline is stronger than it seems just based on this page (but then again, maybe not; I'm surprised, if pleased, with the number of people ready to ditch WP:N). Plot summaries are the main area of contention; I don't think the parroting WP:ATT is an insoluble problem, since out-of-universe has a somewhat different purpose and it is possible to write in-universe while still using secondary sources.--ragesoss 16:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should make this a subpage of WP:ATT similar to how WP:RS became Wikipedia:Attribution/FAQ. I think some changes would be good before or during: give plot summary sections an explicit exception, and replace the prose examples with text taken from an article that actually exists and was fixed according to these rules. It's odd to have an example that would require a reference for every sentence, but has no references. - Peregrine Fisher 19:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. this has/should have nothing to do with WP:ATT. It's about the flow of an article, they way the prose is written. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

That part is fine. The part that needs fixing is how this article basically says plot summaries should be written out-of-universe, which contradicts virtually all fiction articles on wikipedia. I guess it's not a big deal because editors have decided to ingore this page when it comes to summaries, but it would be nice if this article actually spoke to what is going on. - Peregrine Fisher 23:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that this should be merged/FAQed to WP:ATT. However, I do support some tempering of the language regarding plot summaries. The current guideline does include an "Exceptions" section that addresses this, but the suggestion that plot summaries should be OoU should be softened, I think. (I still believe that an OoU plot summary is a good idea in cases where several works are being used as the source. For example, if someone wants to summarize the entire storyline of all seasons of 24, it makes sense to say, "Season One follows Jack Bauer as he blah blah blah" and then move on to Season Two, etc. But for a single work, in-universe should be fine.) — Brian (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't have articles that are nothing but summary. -- Ned Scott 05:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. — Brian (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If we ever need to show the support for this guideline, just say so. I don't think a lot of people keep this page on their watch lists, or at least don't notice it much, but the guideline has a very strong support. -- Ned Scott 05:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree Ned - I think that the page has very little support based on its hardline stance on out-of-universe writing. Which is pretty much all this page is currently about! Although I do agree that most people don't notice it much.

I also agree that "We shouldn't have articles that are nothing but summary", but I'm not sure that this page every makes this simple point in such a simple way - a good nutshell statement if ever I saw one.

I support a rewrite or a merge as I think the current policy is more frustrating and divisive than helpful. Dr Aaron 07:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the page is problematic. But I find this talk page useful, and so I wouldn't want to see a merge with the Attribution page. In any case, there are aesthetic and NPOV issues that the attribution page doesn't address much. And there are so many different types of fiction that the subject is necessarily messy. I doubt that agreed techniques can ever be bottled and stored neatly on a policy shelf. qp10qp 09:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's talk about how we should rewrite this page. It should state that:

If an article is about a single book, film, etc. the plot summary should be written from an in-universe perspective.

If the article is about a character who appears in only one book, film, etc. the fictional biography should be written from an in-universe perspective.

If the article is about a series of books, films, etc. the plot summary should be written in an out-of-universe perspective, or in-universe with citations describing where the info comes from.

If the article is about a character who appears in a series of books, films, etc. the fictional biography should be written from an out-of-universe perspective, or in-universe with citations describing where the info comes from.

If you don't like in-universe with citations, I'm not really wedded to the idea. Now, the OOU example for the first contrived example:

In Star Year 8891 the Slibvorks of Blastio were infected with the
Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare special operations unit on a 
clandestine mission. The unit, acting under the leadership of Commander
Sam Kinkaid and without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the 
Slibvorks' DNA and caused their skin to turn blue.

Should have it stated that it's a plot summary from a series of works, and be changed to something like

In the fifth book in the series, (Star Year 8891), the Slibvorks of 
Blastio were infected with the Kroxyldyph virus by a bio-warfare 
special operations unit on a clandestine mission. In the next novel,
the unit, acting under the leadership of Commander Sam Kinkaid and 
without the approval of Star Command, rewrote the Slibvorks' DNA and 
caused their skin to turn blue.

The paragraph that starts "In the later series, a larger budget allowed for more extensive special effects makeup.^{[citation needed]} The Slibvorks were now depicted as having blue skin, a stark contrast with their appearance in the earlier series.^{[citation needed]}" is appropriate for a lead paragraph or production history section, not a plot summary. - Peregrine Fisher 19:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Out-of-universe works just as well for a single book or movie as it does for a series. This is a guideline for the over-all article. WP:WAF#Exceptions takes care of the rest. No change is needed. -- Ned Scott 19:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, would you agree to rewording the exceptions section so it no longer actively discourages the exceptions? If so, then I'd likely agree with you. DCB4W 00:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You are talking about this line, I assume: "This is not inherently bad, if the fictional passages are short, are given the proper context, and do not constitute the main portion of the article."

I think that passage is completely true and very good advice, but what do you have in mind for it? -- Ned Scott 04:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No, the line I have a problem with is, Even these short summaries can often be written from an out-of-universe perspective, and when this is possible, this approach should be preferred. I would rewrite it more along the lines of, "This information can sometimes be given from an external perspective; editors should feel free to use whichever style best fits the article in question." That's not particularly good prose, but it's the policy concept that I think is appropriate. DCB4W 23:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Often it is still better to write them OOU, and people should write things OOU when it makes sense. -- Ned Scott 05:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

A) I've yet to see an OOU plot summary that actually reads better than an IU one would (feel free to post a link to one here), and B) my version actually does allow for doing that if it does make sense. Again I can't think of an occasion where I would use OOU myself, but I don't want to shove my stylistic preferences down anyone's throat. My problem with the guideline as written is that it allows exceptions, but then proceeds to say that you really shouldn't use the exception. I've taken a stab at rewording the exception to better reflect (a) consensus on this page, which appears to be closer to what I had in mind than I thought, and (b) real practice of WP editors. DCB4W 15:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The exception says "using the fiction to give plot summaries, character descriptions or biographies" is "not inherently bad." It then gives another example that doesn't address that plot summaries of single works should be written in-universe. Every time this page starts to address the issue, an example sidesteps it. It brings in information from external sources that should be in a different section, or it pretends it's summarizing a series of works. - Peregrine Fisher 04:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't have examples for a lot of things, but that doesn't change the guideline itself.. It's still allowing the exceptions, it specifically says you can write in-universe in a plot summary. I honestly am trying here, but I can't for the life of me see why you guys object to WAF. If what you are saying for your situations is true, then you are following WAF. What gives? -- Ned Scott 05:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't say it well. I would like to make it clear, and devote an example to it. I scanned this page a number of times without noticing it. Wish list: I'd like a section named "Plot summaries for single works" or something, with an explanation that they should be written in-universe, with an example as large as the others. It would be the section that actually applies to most fiction articles, so it should be large and thorough. - Peregrine Fisher 09:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with allowing in-universe plot summaries for single works, but they shouldn't be written in-universe, at least not by default. I mean, I can picture a pretty good plot summary of Hamlet that tells the story from Shakespeare's point of view ("Shakespeare increases the dramatic irony by blah blah blah . . ." ) or frames it with real-world language such as, "In Act II, Hamlet does this this and this. His father appears as a ghost, blah blah blah." I can be done, and it can be done well. — Brian (talk) 09:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I don't get everything on my wish list; in particular the word "should." But, is your example really OOU? What you're doing is turning a single work into a series of works. Hamlet becomes a series of acts. For films I guess it would be a series of scenes, for books it would be a series of chapters and scenes, etc. This contradicts the current MOS sentence which says "Notice how the prose is careful to label the subject as fictional, only to proceed to describe the character as if he were real for the remainder of the paragraph." Now, I know that the vast, vast majority of single work articles use an in-universe style for plot summaries. I also know that saying that isn't going to convince the people whose minds I want to change. What may be more convincing is to look at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Media. The first three single work media FAs are Blade Runner, The Boondock Saints and Cannibal Holocaust. They all use an in-universe perspective for their plot summaries, if you don't count opening sentences like "An opening crawl following the main titles informs the viewer..." I haven't looked through all of them, but one OOU sentence followed by several paragraphs of IU sentences seems to be the standard for a single work fiction FA plot summary. I'll change that part of my wish list to: a single work plot summary should start with at least one OOU sentence, followed by an in-universe summary. - Peregrine Fisher 11:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never been happy with the examples on this page. They've improved a little since the first draft (some of my criticisms at the time were taken on board), but they still aren't great. A good example should contain the same information in both versions. I should be able to rewrite an in-universe article as out-of-universe without researching new facts (it may not be a good article, but it would still be out-of-universe). Personally, I try and write plot summaries in the style "Book 5 depicts blah blah blah. Character Y is shown to blah blah blah." It makes sure the article is about the story as a book rather than just a series of events. It's very easy to rewrite in-universe plot summaries in this way, as it's basically just adding a few words to the beginning of every other sentence. (Doing it in a way that flows nicely is a little harder, but not too hard.) Outside plot summaries, people generally do write in an out-of-universe style - the trick is in making sure the article isn't purely plot summary (the plot section should be plot summary, the rest of the article shouldn't be, yet often ends up being). --Tango 20:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

"A good example should contain the same information in both versions" describes the problem, and how to fix it, nicely. Again, we need to distinguish between single works and series or works. An example that has "In chapter 8, blah" will engourage overly large plot summaries of single works, becuase people will think they should summarize every chapter. I've been looking through some FAs of single works, and I'm coming to the conclusion that there doesn't exist a good way to write a plot summary sections in OOU style. Basically, this page is more concerned with being a (weak) weapon to delete articles than with helping editors write good articles. We should change that. I'm not saying take out lines like plot summaries should "not constitute the main portion of the article." But, this article should help people with writing all fiction articles. - Peregrine Fisher 21:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Finally found a single work FA that uses OOU for its synopsis (after looking through about 30 FAs), if you count a few sentences of OOU followed by sentences of IU: The Brothers Karamazov#Synopsis. Maybe we could use an old version of one chapters from the page's history as the "before" example, and use the FA version of the chapter as the after. Again, it does it by looking at the book as a series of chapters. Triumph of the Will is a film that uses OOU for its plot summary, I guess, although the film doesn't have anything close to a normal plot. Triumph of the Will is the only single film FA that uses anything like an OOU style for its plot summaries. Ran (film) looks like it's going to be OOU, then veers safely into IU. The rest of the single film FAs open their summaries with "The opening scene blah" and then switch to standard IU. If FAs are ignoring this page, I think I can safely say that this page is broken. - Peregrine Fisher 06:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

OOU rarely applies to synopsis sections, except to clearly define it as fiction in a few spots. OOU information is usually plentiful for the setting and characters sections that (should) proceed the synopsis. — Deckill er 06:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way

I think part of the problem is that the same WAF page is being seen applied in different levels. Some are more extreme than the others, and it's really those extreme positions that people are having a problem with, rather than the guideline itself. I would not have a problem with trying to clarify that, as long as out-of-universe is still shown to be preferred. Out-of-univiser is more about the big picture rather than impulsively adding "Is fiction blah blah" to every sentence.

Here's an idea to help us understand each other, lets take an in-universe paragraph and post it here or on some RfC page, then ask everyone to do their version of that paragraph. I think that what we all consider acceptable might be more common with us than we think. -- Ned Scott 20:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I want to change the first prose example, and the text that goes with it. Using Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as the exammple, here would be the before:

The galaxy is in a state of civil war. The Rebel Alliance has stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a space station capable of annihilating a planet. The plans were transmitted to the rebel blockade runner Tantive IV, a ship in the service of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. Imperial stormtroopers take control of the ship, and Darth Vader arrives to assess the damage.

And here would be the after:

The opening crawl reveals that the galaxy is in a state of civil war. The Rebel Alliance has stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a space station capable of annihilating a planet. The plans were transmitted to the rebel blockade runner Tantive IV, a ship in the service of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. Imperial stormtroopers take control of the ship, and Darth Vader arrives to assess the damage.

I tried to find a better example from a FA of a famous film, but this is about as much OOU as they get. Basically it's hard to fix this part, because it's so out of step with reality, adding production info into the plot section. The in between sentence should be changed to something like:

In contrast, the passage below treats the same subject in a way that is suitable for Wikipedia, because it discusses the fictional universe with respect to this universe. Notice how this perspective allows the inclusion of information that an in-universe perspective would not:

If you can rewrite the after part better, please do. - Peregrine Fisher 19:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

That kind of stuff I don't mind much. I'm more thinking of the other types of summary, such as character bios. I've got some ideas on some better wording for the guideline. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Just saw DCB4W's changes and I like them a lot. -- Ned Scott 06:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. I agree about the character bios, at least when the character is in multiple works. I think we should add something describing the difference between single and multiple works. If we do that, I think a few sentences saying IU is appropriate for single works would be good, and then examples of what you can do when a character is in multiple episodes or whatever. I would also like to use examples of real characters, instead of making them up. Maybe Batman#Golden_Age. A short example plus a link would give people all the example they need. Whoever we choose, they should be super famous. As mentioned before, the "after" shouldn't introduce a bunch of citations. I think this page would work best if someone sees the IU tag, comes here to see how to fix it, and can implement the fix without adding anything beyond what can be learned from the work itself. We can show people that they should add refs in the example for the lead section of an article. - Peregrine Fisher 06:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Another example added

I added another example to the OOU articles: Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, which turned a character list into an article discussing their creation, a brief overview of major characters (only the two main protagonists are given seperate articles), and character merchandise information. It is 40 KB of prose, and 25-26 KB of references. Feel free to revert if you disagree. — Deckill er 02:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Policy on {plot} tags and spontaneous plot summary deletion

I was just meandering through Wikipedia (as I do) and noticed that the Ah! My Goddess: The Movie had the entire plot summary deleted and replaced with a several sentence version (by 202.41.213.141).

While I agree the original was probably a bit heavy on the detail, I strongly disagree with this approach. I think a person should edit the offending material themselves (with a note on the talk page saying why the existing summary has been condensed) or tag it and leave the expanded summary for someone else to cut down. Removing the text makes it a real challenge to summarise.

For instance, I noticed that someone expanded Howl's Moving Castle (film) plot to about 3 times its original length a couple of months back. Rather than deleting the whole thing, I spent a couple of hours making it more succinct and focussing on key points.

I think something to this effect should be added to the "in universe" template section. Also, considering the {plot} tag (see Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup) links to this manual of style, some mention of the {plot} tag should be in the page. Dr Aaron 13:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed the prose examples quite a bit

I changed the prose examples quite a bit, check out the diff. What do people think? - Peregrine Fisher 18:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

the newest version looks good to me. Better than what I wrote. - Peregrine Fisher 22:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems alright. This did get me thinking, that section starts off with talking about plot summaries, as does the exceptions section.. maybe a bit of merging/retiling/something is in order? -- Ned Scott 03:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably. The guideline is evolving, so that would make sense. — Brian (talk) 22:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A few proposals

Okay, I just printed out the guideline and took my red pen to it. I'll do the copy edits soon (which should hopefully not be controversial). I then plan to remove the "Exceptions" section, moving its verbiage to other sections of the article (like Ned, I think it's now become redundant, although the information in it is still useful and can be moved around). I'll do this in a separate edit so it's easily reverted if folks don't like the result. In addition, I had a few thoughts for some other changes, some more radical than others, for which I wanted to ask for opinions first:

First, we all seem to broadly agree that articles should not take an overall or primarily in-universe perspective. However, there appears to be less agreement on why this is so. But is it really necessary to have a section detailing the problems of in-universe at all? Why not remove the section titled "What's wrong with in-universe perspective?" completely?

There are now quite a few Featured Articles and Good Articles on fiction and elements from it. Should we ditch the "Example articles" section and instead make a subpage listing all of these FA and GA fiction articles that follow this guideline? The list in the guideline now is only the tip of the iceberg.

Likewise, should we do away with the "Alternative outlets for fictional universe articles" section and just be satisfied with a "See also" link to List of wikis with an explanatory note that these might be a good place for fans to work if they prefer in-universe? Again, the list could get really out of hand, and I'm sure there are quite a few fiction wikis that are not listed here.

This guideline is an outgrowth of User:Uncle G/Describe this universe, but it has evolved quite a bit beyond that page. It might be worth removing the see also to Uncle G's version now.

So, what say y'all? — Brian (talk) 02:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It's looking good. One minor change: strategy guides should be official strategy guides, since some might think they can go onto GameFAQs and get a user submitted guide. The official was meant to specify BradyGAMEs and things like that. — Deckill er 04:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure "official" should be required. If there is a third-party strategy guide, shouldn't it be permitted provided it is not self-published? I'd reject GameFAQs due to the self-published factor, not due to it being unofficial. In other words, if a strategy guide passes as a reliable source (regardless of its official or unofficial status), why not permit it? — Brian (talk) 04:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point, and fair enough. — Deckill er 04:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction)#What.27s_wrong_with_an_in-universe_perspective.3F: I don't know if it needs to be removed, or drastically changed. The stuff about describing flight by watching a bird is not helpful, it's just a silly way of bringing NOR into this article. Other parts of it should probably be saved, basically the stuff about "Finn-class starfighters have purple shielding and can fly faster than Mach 3." The whole thing could be big-time simplified with an explanation that "episode X says they have purple shielding." The "skewed emphasis" stuff is good too, we don't want Han Solo's page to be all about the novels, with just a bit about the movies. It seems like the "Many resources might not seem to be primary source material themselves, but in reality are" part is covered by our other policies. If someone wants to cite these sources for "Finn-class starfighters have purple shielding," that's a good thing. Brining in more in-universe references isn't a bad thing, they should just be written about OOU. Probably keep the copy vio stuff, although I've never seen a straight answer about this, if I had, we could just direct people there.

I like the idea of an examples sub-page. It could list all the FAs, and have notes on the ones that do things in interesting ways, like The Brothers Karamazov#Synopsis, which is the only normal single work fiction FA that actually uses an OOU perspective for its plot summary that I was able to find. This part is important, because our guideline should be based on what makes a good article, not some abstract paragraphs that use this page to enforce verifiability and no original research.

I think getting rid of the long list of fictional wikis is a good idea. We shouldn't be promoting the idea that the way to fix pages is to send editors elsewhere; they should stay and work on our pages. I guess a link to List of wikis is OK, but trying too send editors elsewhere is something that bugs me in AfDs, and I wouldn't mind if the whole thing went away.

We don't need a link to User:Uncle G/Describe this universe. The page is half finished. If it has something important that we don't have, copy it over, but I think all the good stuff has been brought over already.

I think we're getting close to being able to actually help people write OOU, along with cutting down on unecessary in-universe tags. I really like the addition of telling people to add their recomendations about how to change an article to OOU on the talk page while their tagging it. Also, I agree with the what has just been said about gameFAQs, that's a job for WP:RS. - 05:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

My own quick thoughts about this. Keep the Uncle G link, it's relevant, and it's common to have such links.

I have no problem with having links to other Wikis for editors to go for more in-depth fan stuff. There is nothing wrong with sending editors to another website if that website is more appropriate than Wikipedia. I've also seen some very healthy relationships between Wikipedia and off-site wikis that have actually helped directed people here.

I also think we should keep examples on this page. Even if something is FA quality, that doesn't necessarily make it a good example for common situations. We also don't have to include every example, so the number of FAs and such shouldn't matter. If you want to link to even more examples, that's a good idea, but we shouldn't remove examples from here. Having examples is one of the best ways to help people understand something, and is often more impactive than the explanation text.

Too much in-universe, or too much over-all-in-universe, is a big problem on Wikipedia. We should still give focus to that issue. -- Ned Scott 06:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The Wikis list is more than likely incomplete, though. How many wikis on fictional universes are there that we just don't know about here? I have no opinion on whether we should be trying to send people to other Wikis to keep this one free of IU writing. I suppose it's not biggie to leave the list, but I would prefer to delete it as redundant with list of wikis and to keep this page cleaner.

Ditto the list of example articles. It seems we should either include a few examples of a type of fiction article (complete works, individual characters, individual vehicles, etc.), or we should include a more exhaustive list on a subpage. Would you object to the subpage option, organized by what type of article it is (character, single work, series, etc.)?

As for the Uncle G link, yeah, it's no biggie to leave it in; I was just proposing a little housecleaning. The page is of historical imporantance since it gave birth to this guide, I guess. — Brian (talk) 06:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ned is the only person willing to give us another perspective on these issues, so we should heed his advice. Why don't we come up with a number of wikis to explicitly keep, say 10, then add a link to the list. If people add wikis, it doesn't really change much. We could put it into two columns if we want. Let's do the same with the examples. Keep, say 10 (all FA examples), organized into 2-3 of each type, and then link to a subpage. Also let's just keep the link to uncle G's essay, that doesn't hurt anything, and the parts that are completed are well written. The potentially controversial part we're talking about are the changes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style_(writing about fiction)#What.27s wrong with an in-universe_perspective.3F. How do you feel about that part Ned? - Peregrine Fisher 06:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, directing them to List of Wikis would work too (didn't really think about that). About that the "what's wrong" section.. I do like the focus on the issue, but I'm open to other ways of addressing/wording it. -- Ned Scott 07:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As for the examples, I think it would definitely be a good idea to have a separate page with lots of examples and such, but some should still be on the main page. -- Ned Scott 07:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

*smacks forehead* I just went to the UncleG page again, I was thinking it was something else.. I have no problems with cutting the link to that. -- Ned Scott 07:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Plot of Naruto: Shippūden

Ugh. I just found this thing. I think it's best just to wipe it and start over. Thoughts? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Noted and voted. But this article led me to an even more troubling area: Category:Plot summaries. There are tons of this kind of thing on Wikipedia. Now, I'm not suggesting that we go on a crusade to delete all of these, but the lot of them are currently violating WP:FICT, WP:WAF, and WP:NOT from what I can tell. — Brian (talk) 09:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No crusade? But I bought this pretty saddle and sword and everything... --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 10:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, couldn't a lot of these be AFDed in groups? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 10:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The Naruto plot articles are periodically nominated for AFD, and always survive. I would love to see them improved, but unless you get a closing admin willing to ignore the keep opinions, then survive deletion review, deletion probably isn't going to work. TheronJ 13:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I added my thoughts into the AfD, albeit pessimistically. Although plot summaries encourage new users to contribute, I can't bear to read a wall of text, even if the topic is interesting. After reading the discussions here and at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not, it's clear there's no consensus. Not sure what direction this guideline should take though. UnfriendlyFire 00:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)