Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Character alternate version guidelines

Previous discussions

The following are copies of past discussions on these issues.

Please do not modify them. New discussions begin further down the page.

Super-soldier

This article has bothered me for a while - should it actually exist or be redirected to list of amalgam characters? if it should exist, anyone want to take a stab at cleaning it up? --Fredrick day 20:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There are a tonne of Amalgam characters (Category:Amalgam Comics characters) so it'd be wise to kick the whole issue around before merging to the list of characters. I'd suggest a provisional rule of thumb is to merge in those whose series were actually Amalgam Comics#Metafictional storiesmeta-fictional. The rest were published but only as one-shots (usually) and some are overkill like Dare The Terminator and Catsai. My suggestion would be to merge them to the four volumes as listed on Amalgam Comics. That would result in solid entries that it would be easy to find reviews and the like for. (Emperor 20:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Amalgam Comics entries must die.

List of Amalgam Comics characters got deleted because it was full of hundreds of unsourced character listings, very few of which provided any source to indicate that each character was anything other than an error, hoax, or fan fiction pulled from the Internet. At least two users have gone through adding Amalgam characters to DC and Marvel character articles without providing any sources. Cleaning this up will take a massive amount of work. I have deleted a few such entries (e.g., to Whizzer) to be consistent with messages I've left those users to say they need to provide sources for every one of those entries. One user provides a geocities page as a source [1], and the other one won't reply to me. Worse than that, the person just keeps adding Amalgam sections to superhero and supervillains articles, compounding the problem. Citations need to be provided for every character's first appearance. Descriptions of those that never actually had a first appearance need to be deleted from their articles. With so many articles, the amount of work just to delete all those entries will not be the best use of time because people would have to turn around and restore them all. Here's what I think is needed:

People other than me need to ask those who keep adding Amalgam characters to stop doing so without references. Many hearing from more than one person would help.

Someone is going to have to go through those users' edit histories to see all the articles they've edited this way, double-check each character, provide references for those that really appeared in the comics, and delete those that did not. This will take multiple people to split up the work into manageable groups of articles to research (or one who'd like to direct his/her OCD into this endeavor).

Providing those references will take some research. I read the DC vs. Marvel issues, but I don't personally own any Amalgam Comics publications. We need some reliable sources that can tell us when each Amalgam character first appeared.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Any volunteers to share the work will be loved.Doczilla 18:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I have all the Amalgam issues, though I must say, my desire to read them is negligible. That said, we're dealing here with versions of characters that appeared in one or two issues at most - surely the most expedient decision is to pull all the Amalgam stuff as non-notable in the larger scheme of the subject. Phil Sandifer 18:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with Doc here. I don't really see the point why Amalgam character need their own entries since they haven't been used in years and I doubt they will be used again. StarSpangledKiwi 19:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree as well. It is certainly possible that articles on the issues themselves could be the best place to place such content. I wouldn't mind seeing some images in more of those articles, though. John Carter 19:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand everything that's going on here but here's my thoughts on Amalgam. 1) The issues that were -Produced- should have feature articles, like 'Bullets and Bracelets' and 'Dark Claw' and 'Super Soldier'. The -characters-, if verifiable, should be put into the 'Alternate Versions' section of each character's webpage. The mix of Catwoman and Electra (Catsai) doesn't deserve a seperate article but should be mentioned in the Catwoman article and Electra article. If the character by itself is important enough to have an article, it's Amalgam version deserves a mention. P.S. Pardon if this duplicates, my computer is being odd. Lots42 19:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Would you agree to have references with links in the articles of the more frequently appearing "source" characters, with content in the articles on the individual issues regarding the "Amalgamated" versions of those characters? John Carter 19:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
For those where we can cite when they first appeared, we can add those citations to the information about them under "Alternate versions" to satisfy Wikipedians who want to mention the Amalgam characters somewhere. Otherwise, every Amalgam mention should be removed from those many, many entries in characters' AV sections. Doczilla 19:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Few ¢...

I can see the reason for an article on "Amalgam Comics", it was a joint project by DC and Marvel and had a serious sales push behind it. Such an article should also cover what was published, both the actual book and the primary characters.

I can almost see a rationale for characters headlining solo books of the event. Almost. At best the articles are going to be 90-100% plot summary and/or speculation, the stuff that minor character articles are made of. Teams, team members, and minor characters from the event don't even really have that.

IIRC, there was just a handful of characters where we were shown or told "Marvel 'him' and DC's 'him' were blended to get Amalgam's 'him'." And all of those were the "major" characters. The rest are "reader's best guess". It doesn't matter if it's the editor adding the AV or the 3rd party fan0site they're sourcing, it's OR of "I think this because of these visual elements." On those grounds alone the material should be stripped. And as pointed out elsewhere, most of the lists out there include bunk characters. Without a pair of cites, one for the character's published use and one for an official "M+D=A", none of the AV adds are defensible.

Lastly: the fictitious comics... I've seen these added to things like Detective Comics where the editor is adding the comics from the "editor's notes" in the Amalgam books. This is something else that doesn't belong in the articles, much less passed off as "alternate versions". - J Greb 23:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I mostly agree - I think having an article on the various one-shots that made up the Amalgam run is ridiculous. These issues are not notable in and of themselves - the Amalgam crossover is a logical place for all of this information to go.

I am skeptical of the value of even including these in "alternate versions" sections, but this is mostly because I am skeptical of alternate versions sections. Phil Sandifer 00:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah J Greb is right - we basically face two problems with Amalgam characters:
Some of them are metafictional so haven't, strictly speaking, appeared in comics (the ones that have are all listed on the list of Amalgam comics).

Only some of them are explicitly described as being a merging of two characters.

If they fronted their own comic and you can provide an official source (from the comics or creators or an official company statement of some sort) then I feel you can include it in the alternative versions sections. If there is even a whiff that these can't be met then take the section off to the talk page with a note - that should help give other editors the idea they should keep an eye out for this to avoid them ones we've removed from sneaking back in. (Emperor 01:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC))
For the most part, I agree with Lots42 and J Greb. Major things should have their own article; minor things should not. Amalgam itself should definitely have its own article. As for characters that we're not specifically told what Marvel and DC characters made up an Amalgam character, I can't comment on it too much due to not owning the comics, and I believe I read them once from the library. However, if something is pretty obvious, does that really constitute OR? I can kinda see how it is, but I can also see how it isn't. Anakinjmt 01:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Basically, the rule of OR is, if they didn't say it explicitly, it's OR. So, yeah, even if it's obvious, but they never said it explicitly, to say that the character was an amalgamation of X and Y would be OR. John Carter 02:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that's right. I remember hearing that concerning a whole debate about what titles constitute the WWE Triple Crown championship. Like then, it's matters like this one that make me wish that wasn't the case with WP:OR, but then I think about what would happen if that wasn't the case. However, and I'm just asking, if it is pretty obvious, could that be grounds for WP:IGNORE? I don't ask it lightly, but is going by the letter of WP:OR hindering us from making better articles? I'm just looking for opinions here, as I don't know myself, but I feel like I should at the very least bring it up, so please don't hate me for it. Anakinjmt 02:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
A better article is one that informs readers by summarising external sources. Is adding our speculation likely to better inform readers and create a better encyclopedia, or is it possible we could misinform people and reduce the value of our encyclopedia? If there is even the hint of the latter, then WP:IGNORE states we avoid it at all costs. WP:IGNORE wants the best encyclopedia possible, above all else. Hope that clears the OR position up. As to the issue with the characters, I agree with the emerging consensus. There's no need for every character to be written up here, we need sources and we need to integrate them into accepted article format. Where the information doesn't meet policy, it needs to be removed, and editors need to be coached on the relevant policies. Hiding Talk 10:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm relatively split here. On the one hand, I tend to think that obvious synthesis is not OR, and that this is an important policy to maintain. On the other hand, I don't see how a thorough list of Amalgam characters is terribly useful here - one can get the general thrust of the concept in relatively few characters, and that seems sufficient for our purposes. Phil Sandifer 12:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I just don't have the ego to announce my textual readings as being obvious. Not only that, I think it's intellectually honest to couch anything which is "my best guess" as being "my best guess", and for me policies dictate "my best guess" has no place in Wikipedia. ;) If we're at the point where we're debating whether trying to work out which two characters were merged to form x character who made one appearance in one panel is violating OR or some part of WP:NOT, I'd rather sidestep the debate and broadly agree. :) Hiding Talk 13:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's my thinking about it. Amalgam was a unique historical event in comics. The two largest comic companies in the world, for a period of, what, a few months? They produced joint comics that were a combination of their titles and characters. Their big characters they told use what they were merged into -- Capt. America and Superman into Super Soldier, etc. But, it wasn't just their major characters. It's their smaller characters too. Characters that aren't hugely big but are bigger than a lot of others, such as Green Arrow. And, the characters that are considered minor, like Shining Knight and Atom. Now, I don't know if those characters ever appeared in an Amalgam form, but I feel as though we should try to really let the reader of the article know that this was a major event that affected both universes. I get that it states it in the article, but naming Amalgam characters that are, at the very least, quite obvious what they are an Amalgam of that we weren't explicitly told would, I think, help the reader truly understand the scope of it. Does that make sense? That would be the only rationale I could think of for WP:IGNORE. Anakinjmt 14:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Heading left... I think you overstate the importance of Amalgam by a great deal. It had no impact on the individual universes, and is most interesting, honestly, as an example of the 90s in comics (Note that we had the much demanded Gambit/Nightman crossover in 1996 as well, as well as a bunch of other mind-wrenchingly stupid comics). The in-universe coverage here is worse than ridiculous, and could readily be handled with one or two sentences - "The merged characters ranged from the two company's top stars (Batman and Wolverine becoming Dark Claw) to deeply obscure characters (fill in example here)." That's all that's really needed.
Honestly, looking at the Amalgam articles, I see about one paragraph of one article worth keeping. This is some of the worst writing in WikiProject Comics - sprawled over an inappropriately large number of articles, virtually all in-universe, lacking context - this is shameful. Someone want to mass AfD the individual character articles? Phil Sandifer 14:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Phil 100%. I'm just struggling to merge the morass of Bloodlines (comics) articles into one badly written article. I tend to favour redirects over deletion, to the point I've knocked up a category and templates to aid. Category:Comics article redirects and Category:WikiProject Comics redirect templates. Hiding Talk 14:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it permanently changed the universes, like COIE or IC did for DC, or Civil War did for Marvel. But, the fact that they combined is not something, IMO, that is minor, no matter how long or short they were that way. The combination of two universes is vastly different than a Gambit/Nightman crossover, and easily much more important. You don't hear about Amalgam like you do about COIE or IC, but I think that's mainly because it didn't permanently change things. If you asked me to give you a list of major events in the DC universe, I'd list COIE, Death of Superman, Amalgam, IC. For Marvel, I'd do Secret Wars, Spider-Man Clone Saga, Amalgam, and Civil War. Amalgam wasn't some minor thing, but was a universe-changing--literally--event. The sentence you gave, Phil, is a good one, and is a great way to explain it. I'm just trying to cover all the bases here to make sure the reader truly understands the scope of it. I'm not going to be a jerk about this, and hopefully I'm not coming across that way, as that's not my intent. And, I'll be honest with you. The only way I really know anything about Amalgam is from the articles here. I'd never heard of it before reading the article, and the listing of all the examples did help me understand the scope of it. I think it's after that that I borrowed an Amalgam book from my local library and read it, once. Reading it helped, sure, but I only read it once, and I continue to remember the broad and huge scale of it because of the list of examples. That's my reasoning. Anakinjmt 14:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's my concern - I feel like you're asking the wrong question here. As an encyclopedia, I think we're less interested in "major events in the DC universe" than in "major events in comics." Amalgam is unquestionably important as an event in comics - it captures the essential bankruptcy of the latter half of the 90s in superhero comics in a way that few other things can. The cover of Legends of the Dark Claw is, in some ways, the only image of the 90s you ever really need. (This is exactly how Donald Ault uses it in his comics classes, in fact) But the article that covers its importance to comics is a very different article from one that covers its importance to the individual company lines. We want the former article, in which case the character articles are relatively superfluous. Phil Sandifer 14:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
It is really hard to say that anything is particular important until and unless some outsider has discussed it. Right now, there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that anyone has written up the Amalgam books substantially, so it could be argued that they weren't particularly important. Also, unfortunately, if a precedent were to be set here for individual listing of all of these merged characters, then presumably the same thing could later be requested for every variation on an individual character in the What If series and other stories of that kind, producing a glut of such minor entries. I can't see that setting that precedent is a particularly good idea. John Carter 15:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, when I added the Amalgam characters, I went by the geocities site, which seemed like a good source to me.
The thing is: isn't Wikipedia supposed to be about EVERYTHING? The way I see it, Wikipedia contains the entire knowledge of humanity in webpage form. Every piece of knowledge from past, present and future is included here.
So, going with that, Wikipedia includes every single piece of existing information about comic books.
Logically, that would include the Amalgam Comics.
If you want to delete information on Amalgam characters, you should also delete information on Ultimate Marvel characters, rebooted 52 DC characters, Age of Apocalypse characters, etc.
Also, I use the geocities page to see which DC and Marvel characters were used to form which Amalgam character. However, some of the times I go with common sense (ie. if a character is called "Sinistron"; then he would logically be a combination of Sinestro and Ultron, Death from Amalgam would logically be a combination of Death of the Endless and Mistress Death, and so on).
I don't know why they deleted the Whizzer's Amalgam version entry. The Whiz is a documented Amalgam character; He even has his own page here! Bluecatcinema 12:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, no, Wikipedia isn't "supposed to be about EVERYTHING". The Wikimedia Foundation, the legal owners of the Wikipedia brand, have stated that their purpose is "bringing a free and accurate encyclopedia to every single person on the planet" and have stated that their goal "is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge". So from that we learn that we have to be a freely licensed, accurate encyclopedia. It is those ideals which have informed content policy, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. The latter policy states that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; merely being true or informative does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia." So from that we can see that Wikipedia is not designed to be about everything. There are limits, and current consensus has it that some of those limits are dictated by assessing notability, with fictional works and characters assessed using this this guidance. So we have to determine whether it is Wikipedia's place to detail every almagam charcater. We also have to detail whether the geocities page you are using constitutes a reliable source, so as to demonstrate verifiability and thus meet the stated goal of accuracy. Now, Wikipedia works by consensus, a process reached either by discussing an issue or through editing, where a rough acceptance of a decision will emerge. If you read through the above debate, the rough consensus is that Wikipedia shouldn't have articles on every amalgam character, which is why people are removing them. I hope that helps clarify the situation. Hiding Talk 13:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I am responding to Phil's response to me from above, as much as been posted since then and I was unable to add more yesterday due to other commitments. While I do agree with you Phil that Amalgam is in important in that it does show the bankruptcy comic companies faced in the 90s, it's also important because, for the first time (at least that I know of), two major comic companies produced months worth of comics that both companies own. Access is the first character that is trademarked or copyrighted (someone btw want to explain to me the difference between those? Because I don't get it) and owned by DC and Marvel. Both companies can use him however they want. And the Amalgam comics were co-published for months by DC and Marvel. Amalgam was different from previous DC vs. Marvel comics. DC vs. Marvel comics were co-published by the two companies, but DC still owned their characters and Marvel still owned their characters. But, both companies owned (and still do, I believe) Super Soldier, and Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I feel as though the dual-importance of Amalgam should be prominent. Yes, concentrate on it being a fine example of the near-bankruptcy comic companies faced prior to the release of the X-Men film. But also concentrate on the significance of two major comic book companies, who you could even say are rivals, working together in such a manner. It is in that sense that I feel we should cover it as it relates to the individual companies as well as the general trend of comics in the 90s. Does that make sense? Anakinjmt 17:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me also add, in going off of Hiding right above, that it is Wikipedia's job to cover everything that is notable. If it's notable, we cover it. If it's not, we don't. Bottom line. Anakinjmt 17:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

But the fine details about the Amalgam characters are not themselves notable. The story details have no long-term impact on anything fictional or real. We can mention them in a single Amalgam characters article without cluttering every DC and Marvel character article with this stuff, especially when editors are usually just guessing as to which DC and Marvel characters' articles they relate to. Doczilla 17:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
But, isn't their Amalgam counterpart considered an alternate version? That would seem to suggest, for example, alternate versions of Batman should have Dark Claw and Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. mentioned as being alternate versions of Batman. And, again, I would say only if it is readily obvious who a character is an amalgamation of could we put it down, if we weren't told by DC or Marvel. If it's readily obvious, I don't know if that would be considered OR, and if it would be, that could be a case to invoke WP:IGNORE. If WP:OR is interfering with us making the best article possible, then we should ignore it, and this would be the only case I could really see it. I'm not pushing to ignore WP:OR, as it's one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia, but if we ultimately determine WP:OR is preventing us from adding something that is highly obvious and anybody with a basic knowledge of comics could see, then IGNORE should be invoked. Best way to determine this: is there an Amalgam character that DC or Marvel did not tell us what two characters made up the Amalgam character but is readily obvious what it is? It would have to be highly obvious, with practically ZERO doubt about it. If we can find one character which fits that profile, then I will call for a survey of opinions to establish consensus to invoke WP:IGNORE concerning that character, and ONLY that character. It may be a tall order, but I don't consider invoking WP:IGNORE to be anything but. Invoking it requires a tall order. Anakinjmt 17:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't get what the problem is. Marvel has a character called Izzy Cohen. DC has one called Ice Cream Soldier. They were merged into 'Ice Cream Cohen'. We don't need Dan Didio sending out a mass email telling us what the two original characters are. It's obvious. And any article for 'Dark Claw' will state 'Batman' and 'Wolverine' in the intro paragraph. Lots42 18:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, according to WP:OR, because DC and Marvel didn't explicitly state which two characters composed Ice Cream Cohen, saying that they were an amalgamation of Izzy Cohen and Ice Cream Soldier is considered original research. It is things like that that have led me to pondering the idea of invoking WP:IGNORE. If we find more characters like the one you mentioned, then I will establish a survey of the idea of invoking WP:IGNORE on the grounds of being hindered from stating which Marvel and DC characters created an Amalgam character due to WP:OR. Thanks to you, we may have one character already, but I would prefer an entire list. This way, we reach a consensus once and then apply it to all the other similar cases. Anakinjmt 18:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
WP:OR means you shouldn't insert Ice Cream Cohen into the articles on Izzy Cohen or Ice Cream Soldier. In an Amalgam characters article, you might make a flat observation about the obvious relationship without telling readers what to think about it -- e.g., "The DC Comics character Ice Cream Soldier and the Marvel Comics character Izzy Cohen are both World War II characters with . . ." whatever else was similar about them. You're not telling readers that it explicitly means Ice Cream Cohen = Ice Cream Soldier + Izzy Cohen. If other editors let the flat statement of fact stand, it's probably okay. If anybody argues and says, "No, it must have been the Ice Cream Ghost," then the statement has to be altered or removed. But you still can't insert that into the articles on Izzy or either Ice Creamer without flat confirmation. Comparable example: We keep reverting people's assertions that the multi-armed clone in Ultimate Spider-Man was Ultimate Tarantula because the source material never confirmed it. However, we eventually compromised by keeping someone's flat observation that the character's costume has the Tarantula's symbol. Doczilla 01:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I've never heard of Izzy Cohen or Ice Cream Soldier. However, to people that do know them, if it's obvious that the two combined to create Ice Cream Cohen, that would be a reason to conduct the survey I mentioned. If anybody else can think of any other characters, post them here. I don't want to do a blanket survey, to avoid it being abused, so I need specific examples. Anakinjmt 03:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts

Whew - this was a lengthy read : )

In response, I think:
The amalgam stuff shouldn't exist in "alternate versions" sections of articles, since they were "amalgams" of two separate characters, owned by separate companies. (This is unique, and shouldn't be compared to "alternate" composite characters, such as Superman (Bruce Wayne).)

There should be at least information on the publishing event and its history.

There should at least be information on the "amalgam universe" and its history.

There should be information on the character "Access" and his history, as well as the character's uniqueness in ownership/copyright/whatever.

There should be a list of "amalgamised" characters and settings (and objects?), and their (albeit abridged) history. It should be clearly referenced, to prevent the very concerns that led to this thread.

What gets its own article? See Wikipedia:Summary style. - jc37 18:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm very much in agreement with jc37, not least of all for the practical and pragmatic nature of it. Amalgam Comics is a publishing entity that by Wikipedia notability standards deserves its own article. But that's all.

And that would simplify matters by — rather than having us pore over each of a hundred or more entries — allowing us to simply delete the "Alternate Version - Amalgam" section in each, quick and surgical, and concentrate our citation energy on a single article where all the relevant information will be in one place. --Tenebrae 20:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

That really is the easiest route. An article on the Amalgam "event" would cover its publishing history: the real world context, and main reason for the article - DC and Marvel working on it, writers and their comments, reviews (if any), set up series, etc; its plot: the secondary reason - Cliff's notes version of the in-universe history and plot points; and ideas that played out or were unique to the series - Access, an abridged list of the Amalgam characters, explicitly cited examples of the types of mergings, etc.

That's it. Beyond that article the characters and comics are not notable. And any standing articles that are currently up for Amalgam characters or books should redirect to that article. Everything else really belongs in a Wkia tailored to the fictional universe. - J Greb 23:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. I think that if a character is noteable enough to have their own article, then he, she or it's Amalgam version deserves a mention. I do not understand the opposition here. I can understand the need for citations ("Joe Blow appears in X-Dudes #35-89") and links (which would help the problem of 'Who is so-and-so?'), and to make sure they are real (I got fooled by 'John Jones Vampire Hunter') but the sheer, rampant opposition to any -mention- baffles me. Feel free to explain your opinion on my talk page if we are cluttering up this page, I may not agree but I'll be civil. Lots42 03:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but you seem to miss the last sentence of my post : )

Basically, let's work on what's described above, and per Wikipedia:Summary style, we can decide later if any section merits it's own article. I hope this helps clarify. - jc37 11:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Just one of those minor things that drives me nuts -- and come to think of it, should probably drive all of us editors nuts since it's one of those recurring editorial things. "It's" means "It is". That's all. Nothing else. The possessive form is "Its" -- no apostrophe. "The lion's fur" = "Its fur". Not "It's fur", which means "It is fur".

Sorry. Just one of those things that make editors and journalists weep for the fall of civilization. (Like "literally", which get misused all the time and is being destroyed as the only word that means what it means, which is "actual, physical reality" and not "really, really". I saw a book review recently that said, "The words literally sing off the page". No, they didn't! Not unless the pages had recorded music and speakers and the text was put to song!)

But, as PAD says, I digress. "Amalgam Comics" is a notable article. Minor, one-off combinations of particular characters, given the proven penchant for fake entries, makes policing each and every one of a hundred or more articles unwieldy and impractical. With respect to Lots42, do we otherwise have consensus on removing each Amalgam section in other articles, and keeping all the Amalgam information in one place? Given the length of this discussion, can we take this action today? --Tenebrae 16:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Survey

This is a survey to get an idea of consensus concerning Amalgam characters for whom it is officially unknown what DC and Marvel characters create them, but is considered extremely obvious. The consensus is for whether to invoke WP:IGNORE and add in the characters combined to create an Amalgam character, due to WP:OR currently prohibiting adding in material. This is a blanket survey, so all characters that are believed to fit this criteria will appear in the list below. They must fit the criteria; Amalgam characters which have more than one possibility do not fit this criteria, and therefore would not be cause for WP:IGNORE. Characters MUST follow this format so that it is made clear to all. If you feel there is a character to add here that fits the criteria, add it into the list below:
Amalgam character = Character 1 + Character 2

Ice Cream Cohen = Izzy Cohen + Ice Cream Soldier

Note that my vote (for lack of better word) concerning this survey is Agree. Please put Agree or Disagree and state why. Please remember WP:CIVIL, and also, please do not be put off by the fact that I am conducting a survey of whether or not it would be a good idea to invoke WP:IGNORE. It is there for a reason, and only to be used in very special circumstances, which I believe this issue at hand may very well fit into. The survey will be up for at least a week, barring an overwhelming majority in either direction. Whatever the consensus, I will agree to it and will defend the consensus.

Agree - If it is indeed obvious, I do not believe that constitutes OR, but due to the OR policy, it would be grounds to invoke WP:IGNORE, because it is against the nature of the Amalgam universe to not state which two characters make up an Amalgam character. Anakinjmt 05:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

*Disagree with invoking WP:IGNORE on such a wide reaching scale. NOR isn't just any random guideline or a mere suggestion. It's in the five pillars of Wikipedia. In fact, it's in the very first. We need to be able to come up with some better than IGNORE as grounds for our decision making. Otherwise, we have no consistent, objective criterion to apply when cleaning these articles up. Doczilla 06:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC) Withdrawing my reply only because, per Hiding below, this "blanket survey" is not a good idea. An awkwardly worded agree/disagree survey can prompt people to pick sides instead of contemplating issues. Doczilla 10:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC) P. S. About the awkward wording: A survey question should be posed succinctly. I read every word several times to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything that would cause me to agree or disagree to something other than what I'd intended. Doczilla 10:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

polls are evil. We don't decide much on Wikipedia by having polls, we do it by creating a consensus. This isn't an issue we can poll on, especially not with such a broad question. I'd also add that WP:IGNORE should never apply to WP:OR; the two are completely contradictory. Wikipedia's first rule was to ignore all rules, Wikipedia's goal is to produce an encyclopedia. That's not a rule, that's a goal, and the definition of an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, one that summarise other sources. Therefore the goal takes precedence over the rule, since the goal is the embodiment of the rule. What you're asking for is that you be allowed to add speculation to an article. Now that's a completely different question, and needs to be answered on a case by case basis. The best place to do this is on article talk pages where relevant. Hiding Talk 10:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that I did not say this was a poll. This is a survey to see what the general consensus is. And, this is a blanket survey for characters that FIT the criteria. Not all Amalgam characters will fit in here. It MUST be a character where it is generally agreed upon which two characters created said Amalgam character. I'm not saying it should be for all. And, I realize NOR is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. Here's what I'm coming at: from my perspective, if it is blatantly obvious (and I mean BLATENTLY obvious) which DC character and which Marvel character created an Amalgam character, that should not qualify as original research. Speculation would be "well, it is implied this," and I'm saying that for the one character listed so far, it's not speculation, it's a matter of fact. It should be completely obvious who and who make who for the one character this survey concerns. However, people say that it does because it's not explicitly said. Fine. Hence the survey. Now, does it appear to be a poll? Sure, I suppose. But really, what's the difference between a poll and a survey? They would both show consensus. Consensus, according to Dictionary.com, means "1. majority of opinion 2. general agreement or concord; harmony." You tell me how to get consensus without doing a survey. It is the easiest way to get consensus. All I'm asking is for people to say what their opinion is. If the majority of people think it should be done, fine, we do it. If the majority of people think we shouldn't do it, fine we won't. The only reason I thought of doing a blanket survey encompassing all the characters that fit the criteria, as I feel you guys keep skipping over that important fact, is so that we would not have to do it on a case-by-case basis. If several characters fit the criteria, why do it case by case? Seems more logical to me to do it all at once. It's also logical to do it here, at the project talkpage, because this is where the issue first came up, and this is the place that is guaranteed to get the most people to voice their opinion. All I'm asking is for people to state their opinion via Agree or Disagree so as to establish consensus. This kind of thing, doing a survey to establish consensus, is done all the time, and surveys are what is done in the consensus decision-making process. So, please don't talk about how Wikipedia does not like polls, when this is anything but. Anakinjmt 15:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

First off, there is blatantly obvious and then unequivocal. As an example: in the Countdown teaser images it was "blatantly obvious" that the Kingdom Come Red Robin and the "Return of Superman" characters were depicted. That is up until Didio sated that the Red Robin was Jason Todd and preview images surfaced with Superman-Prime wearing the black and silver costume. Right then, the OR guess as to who the characters were was shown to be wrong, blatantly wrong.

This applies to the Amalgams as well. If there is an unequivocal source, "The writer stated...", "The editor stated...", "The publisher stated...", "The art team stated...", or "Panels A through C on page D show Amal splitting into/being formed from DC and Marv.", then you have a citable statement on how the characters were used. Otherwise it's still a guess, it's still OR.

As for suggestions, they've already been made, and the general consensus seems to fall along:
Remove the blurbs from the character articles as they are a blend of OR and non-notable trivia.

Focus on a solid, real-world grounded article on the publishing event.

Remove the fully in-universe articles related to that event.

Remove the articles for one shot books related to the event that lack notability or are majoratively plot summary.

And with polls... Sorry, but straight "either or" polls are bunk since they can be worded to force a particular answer. The closest thing I've seen that works is when multiple options have been presented in a rambling thread and it needs to be drawn to a close. In those cases a re-statement of the options with a "Here's what we've come up with, which do we use?" suffices. Not an "I think we should do this one thing, who agrees or disagrees." - J Greb 16:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
We have a whole page which explains what consensus means on Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Consensus. We detail why polls, sorry, surveys can be a bad idea there too. Hope that helps. Hiding Talk 16:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

@J Greb: If you can think of a better way to word it, by all means, feel free to change it. @Hiding: I read that section beforehand, and I didn't see anything there against the use of a survey. I have seen surveys conducted elsewhere that was able to establish consensus, so it, to me, seemed like the best idea. If people can think of a better means to establish consensus (which I don't think has been reached), by all means, suggest it. My single goal is to get a definitive consensus, whether it be by survey or other means. I'm also trying to become a better editor by getting involved more. For so long, I just watched for vandalism on certain pages, and I'm now trying to use all the tools given to me as an editor; hence why I've started archiving talk pages and nominating images for deletion. I guess you could chalk this up to just another good faith intent, although until another means of consensus is presented, I still think this is the best idea. Anakinjmt 17:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

So what are we doing?

I'm ready to take AWB and go through every character article with an Amalgam Comics section and removed all such sections that aren't supported by citations. We might want to remove a lot more than that, but that's a starting point. Pretty much nobody has defended the retention of such sections in the cases when they cite nothing whatsoever, not even Amalgam issues each character supposedly appeared in. Doczilla (talk) 01:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC) Going once . . . Doczilla (talk) 04:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I say go(ing) for it. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Going twice . . . Doczilla (talk) 04:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
And sold - to the large lizard with the certificate on his wall : ) - jc37 (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Gone. But not all. Man, I can't believe how many hundreds of articles (more than a thousand, I think) these guys added these Amalgam mentions to, especially in the last two months. I really am going to take a wiki-break soon to finish something I need to get written for the real world. If anybody wants to start removing Amalgam entries Agustinaldo made September 25 and earlier, please feel free. (I hate picking on anyone by "name", but this is proving to be one of the most tedious tasks I'm ever embarked on in Wikipedia.) Doczilla (talk) 07:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Hey, question: I recently restored the mention of the "Anti-Beyonder" to the Anti-Monitor page with a source but then it was deleted anyway. Thanos6 (talk) 04:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
*coughs softly* Hello? Thanos6 (talk) 04:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Gotta give it patience, man. You waited 36 minutes. Wait like a day or two. Anakinjmt (talk) 16:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll look into it, I'll look into it. Give me a day or two. Or maybe someone else in the project will look into it first. Damn real world, taking me away from this! :-) --Tenebrae (talk) 04:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

A trading card is not a comic book. There was no source stating when the character appeared in the comics -- and if you know what the Infinity/Crisis thing was about, you know why. Doczilla (talk) 09:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I know that. I also know that the trading cards are an official Amalgam product, and I sourced them. Cards or comics, the difference shouldn't matter. Thanos6 (talk) 15:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll give a help, Doc, in the next couple of days after I make sure to read all the background on it. Rest easy. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I think JGreb's comments say it all:
That really is the easiest route. An article on the Amalgam "event" would cover its publishing history: the real world context, and main reason for the article - DC and Marvel working on it, writers and their comments, reviews (if any), set up series, etc; its plot: the secondary reason - Cliff's notes version of the in-universe history and plot points; and ideas that played out or were unique to the series - Access, an abridged list of the Amalgam characters, explicitly cited examples of the types of mergings, etc. That's it. Beyond that article the characters and comics are not notable. And any standing articles that are currently up for Amalgam characters or books should redirect to that article. Everything else really belongs in a Wkia tailored to the fictional universe.
Couldn't have put it better myself. I've been chipping away at these phantom mentions for months so it is nice to see some action. Thanks to Doczilla for his conscientious pitch.
Asgardian 09:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Amalgam comics characters needs a bit of cleanup

Category:Amalgam Comics characters (along with it's subcats) seems a bit big. For the most part: each character in Amalgam had 1 or 2 appearances (with a few exceptions). We need to do some merging, redirecting and putting things in AFD as well. Amalgam as a whole is notable, but I don't see a need for all these articles on various brief teams and characters. RobJ1981 (talk) 19:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. It's already been suggested that most of the articles be merged into a single article. My only reservations about that would be the length of the resultant article. Maybe you or someone else could start merging the essential info together into a few articles and we could see what happens. John Carter (talk) 22:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Amalgam deletions

What gives with Doczilla removing every mention of the Amalgam Comics versions of characters from several dozen comics articles? I don't see any discussion of this and he coyly has each edit described as "clean up". Did I miss the discussion? I bring this to your attention in hopes some dedicated WP Comics member can fix this apparent mass vandalism. - Dravecky 07:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Update: All apologies. I missed the discussion entirely and just happened upon one edit which led me to your edit list and questions for which I did not have answers. Also, my word choice at 2am is apparently not optimal. - Dravecky 08:32, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I already answered this on your talk page and I was going to leave it at that, but it occurs to me that once you threw this out for a lot of other people to read, others will need to know the answer too.

1. Yes, you apparently missed the discussion. There was plenty of discussion.[2].

2. Once we had consensus on part of it (removing those without sourcing as to the publishers' intentions regarding which characters were merged, when the characters appeared, and/or if they really appeared in print at all), I said I'd work on deletions. I waited before taking that action, though, to give others time to object, but not one person said not to. Not. One.

3. There's nothing coy about it. AWB doesn't give me much room for a detailed edit summary. As I previously mentioned on this talk page, I went through editing one after another after another without the aid of AWB and I repeatedly gave explanatory edit summaries, but doing that for so many, many articles without AWB proved to be a monstrously arduous task. Even with AWB, it's a nuisance.

4. Accusing me of sneakiness in a public forum without first asking me about this on my own talk page seems ironic.

5. Along the same lines, vandalism is a very strong word to use without even once asking the editor in question about it. Doczilla 08:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
A reason for deletion which I left out of point #2 because it wasn't one of my own points but I have come to agree with it: The Amalgam mergings are not notable pieces of the respective "real" characters' histories. They belong in Amalgam-specific articles, not littered throughout hundreds of DC and Marvel character articles. Doczilla 08:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Doc on this one. I've read the discussion and agree with many of the points. My biggest point of contention was someone slipping in an unsourced mention of what is usually a B-grade nobody who is apparently seen in merged form for all of one panel. That does not a mention make. It is on par with a character being drawn into the background of a cover with dozens of guest stars and trying to call it significant.

Asgardian 08:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

(See D's apology above.) Apology accepted -- and extended because I really hate leaving all of that on this talk page. However, it should probably remain here because I'm sure you won't be the last person to see the deletions and wonder, "What the hell's NutZilla doing?" Doczilla 08:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternate versions - notability standards are needed

Going through these articles has really made me conscious of how many trivial alternate versions get mentioned in the characters' articles. We need to discuss notability standards for their inclusion, or else the articles will expand ridiculously. Should every potential future version of a character be mentioned? Does an appearance among hundreds of characters in the background of an Elseworlds story get mentioned? Really? Seriously consider how wildly the articles will swell once people start mentioning every What If? appearance. Doczilla 08:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Doc, you must be psychic. See my comments above. I was thinking exactly the same thing (at the same time apparently...spooky).

Asgardian 08:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

How about limiting that part of alternates to those who feature as the focus of an EW, and for those featured less prominently, but in multiple EWs, (The Atom would be a good example) simply state that 'the character has had cameo appearances in some Elseworlds stories, including Title A, and Title B.' and let that be the end. for those with a single cameo, nothing at all needed? (Addendum: Characters referenced but not shown are inherently non-notable. In any few instances of mention mattering to the plot, it's either background (character X did this before we got here), or Dues Ex Machina (Chaeracter X saved us while we weren't looking), neither of which really matters outside of being bad writing.)ThuranX 12:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I like this idea. I would also say that alternate versions that appear in the main universe (like Superman's counterpart Ultraman on Earth-Three before COIE) should appear. Elseworlds and What Ifs are simply one-shots, and the only guarantee they should have of appearing in AV sections is if an EW or WI version of a character appears elsewhere, preferably in the main Earth-1 or 616 universe. This does not, of course, count for the Ultimate Marvel universe, as the Ultimate Marvel universe is an important Marvel universe with titles taking place in the Ultimate universe being published monthly. Anakinjmt 19:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I think a lot of that would still be fixed by my suggestion of making these sections not lists - the Ultimate versions would, in general, make for great paragraphs outlining the major differences between the Ultimate and regular versions of characters, and this would be far more informative than what we, for instance, currently have in the Thor (Marvel Comics) article (which comes complete with an unncessary sub-article). Phil Sandifer 19:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
That is pretty bad. 1602, 2099, and Mangaverse should definitely be there. How big exactly was Marvel Zombies? Was that a one-shot, or were there more issues? What we could do is maybe instead of like that, just have a paragraph listing all the minor AVs? I do think we should state the AVs, but not in a list form, and paragraph form is the only way I can think of. Anakinjmt 20:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a lot of this could be solved if we required that AV sections not be lists or functional lists. These sections should not be a checklist of other versions - they should cover the ways in which the characters have been adapted and expanded. That is best done narratively and with details, rather than in an exhaustive list. Phil Sandifer 18:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts...

"Alternate versions" does cover a lot of ground. For me, the simplest way to handle it is that is covers how the owner of the character plays around with the concept. Sort of "variations on our theme." Yes, that would mean any variant of Superman that DC has published, or Spider-Man for Marvel, would be fodder for an "AV" section. The results will vary from character to character, but there will be some that will have large sections.

At the same time though, "AV"s shouldn't cover parodies, swipes, homages, or "mash-ups". Those are similar, yes, but the fundamental is different. They are a publisher either creating a character with a wink and a nudge to someone else's character, or to lampoon said character and/or publisher.

Then there is the question of "reliable, citeable sources". "AV"s can skirt the line based on reviews and solicitation material. The same goes for parodies, since the parody has to be very close to the original for the humor or shot to work. The homages and "mash-ups" though need something concrete aside from our educated guess as to where the characters are drawn from.

I like Phil's comment, a lot. The goal should be for the section, or sections, to be a critical look at how the publisher has tried variations of the character, and how other publishers have used it as a shortcut or spring board. But that's the goal, it may not be what first shows up. It's more likely that editors will plop in a list since it is easier to write. And list are friendlier to additions than prose.

One last thing... Whether the sections are in a list or prose format, some of the impact on size can be mitigated by lightly touching on larger topics. Using Marvel for an example, Marvel has published many "event" series where they put a twist on their characters. Most of those events should be able to generate a non-in-universe article where the major players and the variation(s) are addressed. With those in place, a short version can be in the main character articles with a link to the event. This is not a suggestion that ever character from every "event" or alternate universe should have it's own article, far from it. It is a suggestion to prevent serious repetition of content and over inflating articles. - J Greb 01:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the time to read this entire discussion, but the idea of notibility standards in theory is a good idea. However, be careful that we're not deleting useful content. There are already multiple articles that have split away from the main article (to help shorten the main article) that are only about alternate versions, and there is no reason to shorten or delete these articles. But there is also no reason to create such articles for all characters, because that would create a lot of short/pointless articles. In short, just be careful. --Freak104 04:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. So why don't we add a note to the effect of "Alternate versions sections should not be formatted as a list, and should not include elements that cannot be expanded on and commented upon with out-of-universe information" to our MoS. Everybody seems to like that OK. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the sentiment, I still have a worry based on what I pointed out above: This type of section is going to invariable start out as a list. It's the easiest thing to do. I'd rather have something like:
"The goal of the [Alternate versions] section that it be formatted in prose and with real world context, not as a list. Efforts should be made to convert instances where the section is in a list format into prose, retaining and fleshing out the information already included. Elements that either cannot be fleshed out, or are solely in-universe items may be removed in this conversion. This does not bar such elements from being added back, but such reintroductions should fall with in the preferred style for the section."

- J Greb (talk) 19:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Beautiful. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As said above, as long as the character does more than sitting in the background, then aren't the mentions valid? Antiyonder (talk) 11:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposed

Funny how I came here to mention something about alternate versions and found a discussion about it already going. I have proposed a merge of Bloodstorm (comics) into Alternate versions of Storm, and the discussion is here. Someone has to give their input besides me. --Freak104 04:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand; I though the general consensus was -already- to merge Mutant X main characters into the Alternate Versions sections (for the record; something I don't agree with it) Lots42 11:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it depends on how different they were to the their 616 counter parts.Phoenix₇₄₁ (Talk Page) 16:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this approaches the question from a bad starting point - what is interesting is not the in-universe differences, but the publication differences. Did Bloodstorm have a cultural impact that is notably distinct from Storm's? If not, she doesn't deserve an article. Phil Sandifer 16:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I really don't think any pf them had an impact, so yea remove it.Phoenix₇₄₁ (Talk Page) 16:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah - I mean, I'm skeptical of the whole Alternate versions of Storm article to begin with, it should be noted. :) Phil Sandifer 16:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The original Storm article is too long (as stated above on this discussion page), and the Wikipedia page about shortening articles says that creating articles like that is the preferred method. --Freak104 (talk) 19:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Meh, I think that should Stay.Phoenix₇₄₁ (Talk Page) 16:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
So does this mean they can be merged??? --Freak104 (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Amalgam redux...

Since the material is getting put back in, and in some cases reffing other articles, was anyone setting up the compacting on these? - J Greb (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's formalized. Why don't we finish fixing our "other versions" guidelines before pushing this further, though? That way we have something to point to. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Who says the material is "getting put back in"? I hope you mean that some are getting put back in. I'd hate to be doing this stuff after missing a new discussion. I look over the history and I find very few that have been restored (but there are some, yes). Per our past discussions, I've removed them from hundreds of those articles and still have 250 to go. The notability issue which figures into all those other "alternate versions" is not all that's wrong with the Amalgam listings. Most of the Amalgam listings have no sources whatsoever, so they could be metafiction, fan fiction, or outright hoaxes. Even those with sources (even when linked to Wikipedia articles about the characters) are incomplete with regard to their sources. They leave out one of two kinds of sources: (1) the citation which shows that the character appeared in any comic whatsoever and the bigger if less frequent problem, (2) they lack sources to confirm which characters merged. For us to judge which character merged invokes both OR and POV. Doczilla (talk) 01:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to preface my comments by noting that I did read the archived discussion of the Amalgam stuff (seriously, Amalgam entries must die? Can we be less neutral here?), and I must say that I rather think the point was missed. If a character was made into an Amalgam character, and that initial characters currently have an article, it should be noted as such. I came late to this conversation, after seeing Doczilla's helpful edit summary here. With respect, I think this subject bears re-discussion. While Phil considers the series relative execrable, it exists, and for those characters notable enough to have articles, it is also notable enough to note that they were rendered into Amalgam characters. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 02:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
You realize how many, many different things they've all been "rendered into" over the years? Even so, that's an issue of notability. This is not just about notability. In nearly all cases, it's a matter of OR and POV to say which characters were rendered into what, no matter how obvious certain merges might seem to be. Doczilla (talk) 03:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
P. S. You are right, of course, that how "execrable" a comic may or may not have been is irrelevant to these issues. Doczilla (talk) 05:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The broad strokes:

The event is of debatable, or dubious, writing, art, and editorial merit, but it is also a signature publishing event the big tow were able to pull off in the `90s. The event is notable and did generate critical review at the time, and in retrospect. The event carries enough with it for there to be an article.

The individual comics are lesser things, mostly one-shot issues with little inter-related story. They have a place with in an article on the event, or on the publishing waves it went through. But it's very hard to argue that any of them is notable enough to warrant it's own article. And those articles hang up on two problems: 1) almost all that is said, and can be said is plot summary and 2) they are effectively indexes of obscure, oddity comic books, especially if the plot is reduced or removed. Both of these run counter to WP:NOT.

The characters are an even worse situation. Again, they are important to the event article, as examples and supporting elements. But as the sole focus of articles, all we have is in-universe plot summary and uncited material that comes off as fan spec or OR. The same problem crops up with inserting the Amalgams into articles on the DC and Marvel characters. What is normally cited, if there's a cite at all, is a fan site, places where "wish lists" pad out what actually showed up in the books. (Devil's Advocate-ish: The drawn conclusions may be 100% correct, and the writers, artists, and editors meant for them to be "Easter eggs" for fans. But, without the solid comments, putting that into the article is Wiki deciding that it is correct.)

- J Greb (talk) 03:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
See, it's because of this possibility of them being "Easter eggs" that I originally brought up the survey to invoke WP:IGNORE in the case of saying which characters made up which Amalgam characters when it was clearly obvious, something I still believe in. WP:OR I believe hinders us from making the best, most comprehensive articles we can, all because it was not officially said in some cases which Amalgam characters were made out of which DC and Marvel characters. Where it is clearly obvious - and I even gave strict criteria - I believed that it should be put in, because it is not OR IMO to say which characters appeared to create which Amalgam character when there are no possibilities. I believe that that falls under WP:OBVIOUS, not WP:OR. Anakinjmt (talk) 04:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
You said it. We didn't agree. When the strong consensus is to stick with other Wikipedia policy, WP:IGNORE loses. Doczilla (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
One problem with WP:OBVIOUS is that it's not obvious in every single case. Doczilla (talk) 04:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

{ec) - The main issues are still there: it's a melding of two characters; it's unique to its own universe; A universe populated by these melded characters which are owned jointly by two separate publishers. This is best dealt with in it's own article (or series of articles). - jc37 04:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it will have to be a series of articles (per team in some cases). This is too much information for a single article. Doczilla (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Two people said no. One person appeared to believe in a disagree, but did not state so. That's not a consensus. And I was not trying to bring the survey back, only to point out that I agree with the person above. And the real question is, are the other policies preventing the best articles? It's not a matter of policies vs IGNORE, when IGNORE is the ultimate policy. And WP:OBVIOUS states that we should state something that is obvious to us, but may not be to everyone else. Anakinjmt (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

There's definitely a limit to getting to state what is obvious to yourself but not to other people. Very few of these entries even explained the combination of characters in a way that would make a shred of sense to people who don't already know about the Amalgam merge. Articles must make sense. Doczilla (talk) 04:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't that what the link to Amalgam is for? Anakinjmt (talk) 04:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just to be clear here, are Doc and Phil arguing against any mention of the melded characters in the articles for the parent characters, and in fact are arguing arguing against any mention of them outside the main article for Amalgam?

As I see it, the single solid point raised here is the OR of speculation as to the identity of the primary characters melded. Were that actually true, I would oppose any mention of it at all. That isn't the case here, though. Since not all the articles (including the Nightcrawler article I mentioned) have these sorts of citations, one of the big questions we need to ask ourselves is whether the source characters are common enough that their combination isn't a subject of debate. In the same way that various articles for superheroes paraphrase the history, different abilities and looks of the characters over the course of the comic's run without excessive citation (and you can ask anyone - I am a cn-taggin' mofo), I think that Amalgam characters are based in common character knowledge to not need the crazy amounts of citation that, say, Anne Coulter or Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban does. thoughts? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 05:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
That is precisely what I've been trying to say. I had hoped somebody else agreed with me and could word it better, because I knew I wasn't wording it right. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
There are too many Amalgam characters to cram them all into the Amalgam article. Right now, the most prominent ones have their own respective articles, and I haven't said a darn thing about the value of those articles. Amalgam characters can also fit into disambiguation pages, lists of characters by power, and other places. We just don't need 900 of them littering the regular DC and Marvel characters' articles. Doczilla (talk) 05:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't the issue whether or not to state them in the DC/Marvel characters page? That's what I thought the debate was over. Of course they'd get mentioned in the Amalgam article, or list of Amalgam characters article, if such an article existed. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, some people are discussing merging their articles too. I've stirred up enough of a hornet's nest by raising the DC/Marvel page issue that I'm not leaping into that one too heavily. I think that might come across like I have some kind of anti-Amalgam vendetta, when I certainly do not. Doczilla (talk) 05:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Help us figure out the notability standards for alternate versions. If we can ever get that hashed out, we might at least have some standards for which Amalgam characters are even notable enough to get into the other issues regarding their inclusion. You're articulate, thoughtful editors who can really help work that out. Doczilla (talk) 05:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the hornet's nest you ran into. I think a lot of that comes from the relatively fast-and-loose guidelines and MOS that seems to cover comic books. In the absence of structure, people tend to get about as smart as a bag of hammers in a room full of ten-penny nails. What would you think that the first think we need to fix should be? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 05:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh, it actually hasn't been that much of a hornet's nest. Yet. Time will tell, though, how other editors feel about it as they discover the changes. As for what else needs to be done, check the discussion that has started higher on this page at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Comics#Alternate_versions_-_notability_standards_are_needed. Having just checked 900 character articles for their Amalgam references, I can tell you right now that making one basic change at a time isn't going to be the most efficient way to do it. For example, it would have been easier to remove more of the What If? background appearances while I was at it. We need to figure out general guidelines. Doczilla (talk) 05:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Alright, now we're getting somewhere. There's a conversation up above concerning alternate versions of characters, which I think can continue there. I assume we're all agreed on mentioning Amalgam characters and who was combined with who to make an Amalgam character that have been officially confirmed by DC and Marvel? (such as Superman and Captain America into Super Soldier). Let me propose that the next issue tackled be, should we note characters that anyone with a good amount of comic book knowledge immediately recognize as being an Amalgamation of this DC character and this Marvel character for which it was not officially stated. I think if we can come to a consensus on that, we can then figure out, if the general consensus is yes, it should be noted, who fits the criteria. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Sobs. No, we're not all agreed that we should be mentioning Amalgam characters and who was combined with who to make an Amalgam character that have been officially confirmed by DC and Marvel, And we're not mentioning one panel appearances some person thinks is an amalgam of Blue Beetle and the Crimson Crusader because he's got blue socks and red shoes. My vote is that we stick to the purpose of Wikipedia and build an encyclopedia, writing articles employing an encyclopedic method and making sure our entries are not original research by verifying our assertions through citations to reliable sources and not granting undue weight to things we like. Hiding T 09:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Mentioning that Superman was joined with Captain America to form Super Soldier fits all that criteria. How can you have anything against that? It's cited from a reliable source, notable, and is not being given undue weight, and as for WP:ILIKEIT...that's not even a valid point, so I wouldn't respond to it. And you say "we're not mentioning one panel appearances" blah blah blah, but I will remind you that this is a consensus. You are welcome to express your opinion, but it is not solely up to you to determine what decision will be made, and you do not own the articles or the Wikiproject, so please do not give the appearance that you think you do. Mentioning officially confirmed Amalgamations is well within the criteria of an encyclopedia and creating articles, and we are past the point of saying "No, no Amalgam characters period," so please, let us avoid a case of WP:SNOWBALL and move on. (see, I can do a Wikilink too). Anakinjmt (talk) 23:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
All agreed on mentioning them? What conversation have you been reading? No, people have not agreed to mention them -- not in the main characters' articles. The discussion has gone into how tightly to merge the Amalgam characters' own articles. The earlier discussion led to their removal. When the time came to do something, I said I was going to start removing most of them. I waited for anyone to object. And waited. And waited. Not one person said, "Hey, don't do that." Several said to go for it. Even the officially confirmed amalgamations ("officially confirmed"? how?) still do not address the notability issue. Doczilla (talk) 00:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

(retab) Wait...what? I'm talking about listing, for example in Superman's AV area Super Soldier, and that he was combined with Captain America. Anakinjmt (talk) 00:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I objected the HECK out removing the Amalgam entries. I think it's odd to say that, for example 'Super Soldier' is not Captain America and Superman because we only have the comic for proof makes us look almost as silly as the people constantly putting in cites for 'the human hand as four fingers'. We don't need press releases to say 'The Fantastic Four defeated Galactus in #Whatever', it's usually acceptable to cite the issue where Galactus was defeated. I can understand finding alternate sources (where?) for the more obscure characters but not for people who have been in multiple movies apiece (Wolverine, Batman) Lots42 (talk) 02:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
You objected during earlier discussions. You did not object when I finally said okay, now I'm going to implement this. Nobody did. Check the portion in Archive 29 when that came up. For two weeks after that, the only remarks in that section were in support of the change. In fact, I originally was only going to remove those that were flatly unsourced, until I saw that other WikiProject Comics members were saying in various edit summaries and on talk pages that we were going to remove them all. Believe me, going through 900 articles one at a time, even with the help of AWB, makes it hard to want to clean only some of them just to turn around later and go through most of those same articles and implement the broader change. Doczilla (talk) 10:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternate versions - list

It might help for us to list how many different kinds of alternate versions we're talking about. Feel free to add to these lists. Doczilla (talk) 05:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
List of alternate version types:

other characters who officially took the same name within the same fictional reality

other companies' versions

alternate universe versions

alternate timeline versions

future versions

unrelated alternate continuities (e.g., Spider-Ham?)

other parodies

appearances in other media

imaginary story

dream

Prominence of alternate version within its source:

title character (e.g., Superman: Red Son)

a lead character

prominent supporting character

prominent cameo

background character

Importance of the source:

ongoing series about alternate version (e.g., Marvel's Ultimate titles)

within the main character's source (e.g., Superman-Prime's adventures throughout DC stories)

limited series or single story that had notable impact on industry (e.g., Dark Knight)

other stuff

Alternate versions discussion

Personally I think an "other media" appearance generally doesn't belong under "alternate versions", but there are plenty of instances in which editors have put them there. Doczilla (talk) 05:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

When I hear "Alternate versions", I think of "other dimension" version. So, like, Earth-2 Superman is an alternate version of Superman. Ultimate Spider-Man is an alternate version of Spider-Man. Most likely, that's what other people think of too (of course, we want to be careful about assuming that, because you know the saying). Appearances in other media is generally covered in a section of that same name. Parodies aren't really alternate versions, and so that would probably go better under an "In Culture" area or "Cultural References" area. Can someone explain to me the difference between "Alternate Universe", "Alternate Timeline" and "Future Timeline?" Because "Alternate Timeline" to me implies both AU and FT. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Parallel universe (fiction) might provide some help. Back in the original DC Multiverse, Earth-1 had multiple futures which were not considered to be different universes. Marvel, which introduced the timeline concept to most comics, can't figure out the difference any more, so they use the same numbering system for alternate universes as if alternate timelines were the same thing.Doczilla (talk) 05:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think I sorta get it. Lemme try giving an example to see if I've got it. If you've seen Heroes, then you know that Peter travels to the future and finds out that 93% of the world's population has been wiped out by a plague, and back in season 1, Hiro travels to the future where the bomb went off in NYC. Is that an example of a future timeline? As for the other two, so Earth-2 is an AU of Earth-1, but an alternate timeline would be one where the Axis won WWII? Am I sort of getting it right? Anakinjmt (talk) 06:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep. it isn't actually alternate timelines, they are divergent realities. Using the Heroes example, once Peter exploded inthe atmosphere, or stopped the plague, those realities continued, but were divergent. I think Marvel's Watcher is a pretty good example with the What If? stuff - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 06:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Great. I've taped the last episode of Heroes series one to watch tonight and now I don't need to bother. Not everyone lives in the US and has seen what you have seen. Hiding T 09:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, it would appear that Template:Spoiler wouldn't have helped you... Anyway, it's not as spoiled as you may think, so happy watching : ) - jc37 12:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't want template spoiler, I know to avoid articles if I don't want info spoilt. I shouldn't have to read it in talk page discussion though. C'mon guys, discuss the points under debate, not create examples that can spoil things for people. If you even have to write "if you've seen Heroes" then you shouldn't be using it as an example. Hiding T 12:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
The only reason I brought it up was to try to understand the difference between AU, AT, and FT. And I will add it was not really spoiled, because everyone subconsciously knew that it'd be stopped. If I need to bring in other things as examples, I will. I did add "If you've seen Heroes" which I'd think would be a good enough warning about spoilers. Anakinjmt (talk) 14:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I would have to side with Anakinjmt on this one, Hiding. It's not a surprise that the plague is stopped (just like we all knew New York wasn't going to be blown up), but the way they get there is a surprise. So you will still be able to enjoy the episode. --Freak104 (talk) 20:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

So long as no one revealed the presence of the space aliens with the pop-tarts right before the ending, he should be good. :) - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

(←dedent)
Just some loose change...
I agree with the premise that "In other media" is a different critter than any comics appearances. Adaptations of the characters to film, television, radio, stage, prose, or games may retain a great deal of the original characterizations, but such a section is more about how the character has been notably reused within pop culture. Yes, this will likely include how the adaptations differed from the original, but that isn't the be-all and end-all of the section. As a side note, this also needs to address licensed and non-licensed material. There's been a dust-up on Talk: Power Girl regarding fan films and their inclusion in IOM sections.
Legacy/Namesake characters: For the most part the articles have been used to create an umbrella with each separate character potentially getting a separate article. Such umbrella pages have had the list of "Namesakes" before the "Alternate version" section. This has made a fair amount of sense, even with articles for the various Squadron Supreme characters or Huntress (comics). In these cases the characters are relatively well used even though some of them exist in different continuities. The implied premise being that the AV section is for the one off type characters.
Alternate timeline and "From the future" appearances: This is a really mixed bag. There are a few cases, such as Vance Astro and Vance Astrovik, where the characters are more than a one story quirk. But the majority treat the character as a one off story element. They are "Alternate versions", but few really are notable on their own. Then there are cases like what's obliquely pointed to with Bart Allen where him meeting different future versions of himself became a repeating story motif.
The bulk of the list, "What if...?" scenarios, parallel worlds, and dream sequences, are to my mind, along with the alternate timeline, the "Alternate versions". The publisher takes the concept and tweaks it slightly. Generally though it's billed in some way to refer to the base concept, along the lines of "What if someone other than Peter Parker had become Spider-Man" or Superman: Speeding Bullets with a Batman logo. There are some, like the Ultimate universe characters, where we've been banging heads for a long time about AV, separate sections, or separate article.
That leaves parodies, homages/pastiches, and "mash-ups"... Parodies I can see in the AV, Spider-Ham was Marvel doing it's own send up of Spider-Man but has also treated it as an alternate reality. But I can also see it with the other two in a "In comics by other publishers" section. I honestly feel these are different than what should be in the AV. Midnighter and Nighthawk are not Batman. Both characters were created using Batman, as published at the time, as a reference point, but they are their own characters. And Super-Soldier is a composite of some elements of Superman and Captain America relying on the work of both publishers. The character isn't and AV of either and it isn't quite an homage to them either. It's its own thing.
Prominence/notability of the character and importance of the original publication are helpful in determining what goes in, but they can be a bit mutable. The Ultimate Spider-Man and Miller's Dark Knight are both important AVs, but Wayne or Parker cameoing in a panel really isn't. Some of this will also comes from secondary sources. The Amalgams that started this are a good example of this. A lot of the characters we have to guess at, or use less than reliable sources to say which elements came from which characters. For things like that, or for saying a character was created as an homage or spoof of another character, we need a cite that that is indeed the case.
Structure and splitting: Old and new here... The new is in conjunction with what Phil re-posted below. I agree with his contention that the "Alternate versions", and by extension the "In other media" and "In other publisher's comics", section should be moving towards prose with real world context. The old, we really shouldn't be cleaving articles really do become massive. IIRC, the "danger point" is around 50k but I think a lot of article have had bold splits done well below that, resulting in some skimpy articles. What does that have to do with the AV articles? A fair bit. There are a lot of article that should, IIUC about the fiction MoS, be folded into character lists, series articles, event articles, or back into main articles.
- J Greb (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines on editing alternate version sections

Okay, but we need a separate discussion of what to do when editing those things. Doczilla (talk) 06:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
List of alternate version types:

1. other characters who officially took the same name within the same fictional reality
I believe we already refer to them in chronological order of appearance, such as Aquaman I (Arthur Curry), Aquaman II (whoever the hell he is). The Spider-Man Clone Saga and the different people filling in for Batman rather blows that idea all to hell, though.

2. other companies' versions
Note the company doing the writing (ie, Marvel, top Cow, Amalgam, etc).

3. alternate universe versions

4. alternate timeline versions
I believe these are easily covered under the same heading of 'alternate versions', etc.

5. future versions

6. unrelated alternate continuities (e.g., Spider-Ham?)

7. other parodies
I believe these are easily covered under the same heading of 'alternate versions', etc.

8. appearances in other media
It would depend greatly on the media, whether it be newspaper strips or cartoons, etc. I imagine it could all be contained within other Media (which is how it is now, I think)

9. imaginary story

10. dream
this might be within the plotline, right? Though, i am not sure what you mean by imaginary story (all stories are imaginary), but imaginary stories like What If? from Marvel constitute alternate realities/timelines

- Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 08:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
J. Greb suggested the following guideline language above: The goal of the alternate versions section is that it be formatted in prose and with real world context, not as a list. Efforts should be made to convert instances where the section is in a list format into prose, retaining and fleshing out the information already included. Elements that either cannot be fleshed out, or are solely in-universe items may be removed in this conversion. This does not bar such elements from being added back, but such reintroductions should fall with in the preferred style for the section.
I like this very much, and I think it gives a lot of guidance on what to include and how to describe it - the requirement that you be able to do more than create a list is a good and informative one. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Explain the third sentence to me, as it seems to be telling me on the one hand that elements that cannot be "fleshed out" should be removed, but on the other hand, the elements can be added back, so long as they "fall <within> the preferred style for the section". - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 08:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternate versions of Superman should be a good example. It has a strong lead section which describes the nature of alternate universes, unrelated Supermen and unofficial Elseworlds stories. The layout considers both "mainstream" Supermen, and temporary phases for him, such as Kal-L, Kal-El and Superman Blue. It then goes on to discuss the more important official alternate universes such as the 52 (for example, Superman of Earth-D gets a mention as an example of alternately-themed Supermen, does they are not individually discussed in great detail. It mentions Cyborg Superman, Steel and Suberboy (all formerly "Superman") in a section for Supermen in name only, and also the Bizarros who are Supermen but not quite. Other unofficial Elseworlds and alternate continuities are mentioned, but in the context of them being Imaginary Stories, as opposed to alternate universes within the mainstream DCU. Finally, other media's "versions" of Superman are discussed briefly, but not to the extent to which they would be in Superman in popular culture. Alternate versions of Batman is in a position to be improved upon, but roughly follows a similar format. Alternate versions of Robin has a poor format which breaks individual Robins down under headings - this needs work on. However, a lot of the articles such as Alternate versions of Professor X are just piss poor copy and paste jobs with no explanation of real world notability and therefore satisfy criteria to be nominated for deletion. 10:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zythe (talk • contribs)

Arcayne,

The intent is to allow for different editors, with different source material to edit completely and, if necessary, back fill.

If editors are going to move the section towards the goal, but don't have the sources that give a real world context for particular examples, they either have to work with what's there or do partial job. Working with what's there means that either the list items can be reformatted into prose and given a general RW context, or can't and need to be removed.

The last line is a kind of "without prejudice" clause. If one editor cannot make the item fit, it can be removed, but if a later editor can make it work, the earlier removal should not be used as a reason to prevent the item from being inserted. - J Greb (talk) 11:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought. I am not in agreement that this info can be purged off, which leaves the onus of rediscovery to subsequent editors, who not only have to re-source the removed reference, but have to then conform it to prose. It seems counterproductive. I would feel a lot more comfortable if the clause didn't revert out the good faith efforts of editors, leaving it buried in the edit history. Perhaps if it were removed to the discussion page for citation or 'prose-ifying' work, I wouldn't have as much trouble with it. that way, the editors wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to include the info. As it stands, the clause seems to work against the Amalgam notations, which I think is unacceptable. Thoughts? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 15:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

For one, I think working against the Amalgam notations is a good thing, as they're mostly unsuitable to our articles on characters. Simply put, I have trouble figuring out why Dark Claw is important to an understanding of Wolverine as a cultural icon. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you Phil that Dark Claw isn't important to understanding Wolverine as a cultural icon. The popularity of Hugh Jackson's Wolverine portrayal, as well as the Wolverine spin-off seems to fit that. I do however think that Amalgam should be noted on the pages (like the example I've used countless times, Superman's article and Captain America's article would state how they were combined with the other to form Super Soldier), because Amalgam was a pretty big deal in the comics. Anakinjmt (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I just don't see the significance of the Amalgam stuff to the larger cultural context of the characters. It's neat, and as a comics scholar I'm fascinated by it, but I can't say that it's relevant to the characters as concepts. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't aware the issue was whether Amalgam was significant or not to its place within culture. I thought it was more of its importance within comics, which I would say it sort of is. Amalgam itself was pretty notable, and I think just mentioning the Amalgam characters within each superheros respective articles makes sense. Anakinjmt (talk) 21:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Sure - Amalgam is significant enough within comics to deserve an article. But is it significant enough in the context of a given character? There I'm more skeptical. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Do any scholars comment on the significance of Amalgam Comics in published (that is to say, made of paper) sources? If you can cite it to a book by someone who knows anything, then it's perfectly acceptable to justify inclusion on the basis of is being significant in someway.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 22:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm unaware of any, actually - they're more of interest to my research than most comics scholars. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Could you care to explain to me why you don't believe Amalgam should be mentioned in an article of a given character? If I can understand that, I can better respond. Anakinjmt (talk) 01:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Even if people agree that Amalgam was important, that makes it important in its own right. That does not make it an important part of the source material's history, though. I know a schizophrenic man who hallucinates clowns all the time. That makes clowns significant to his story, but that does not make him a significant part of clown history. Superman is important to Super-Soldier, but Super-Soldier is trivial to Superman's history. Doczilla (talk) 02:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but isn't Super Soldier sorta like an AV of Superman and Captain America? That's my main argument for putting it in. Amalgam characters have always seemed to me to be alternate version, or alternate universe version, of the DC/Marvel characters. Amalgam is part of the Marvel Multiverse, along with the 616 universe, the Ultimate universe, and the House of M universe. Anakinjmt (talk) 06:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Two things...
First, I'm not sure how this is targeting specifically the Amalgam stuff.
Second, I can see the use of "staging" the removal. I'd almost go to commenting out and note on the talk, hold off for a reasonable time, then move it to the talk under the note. - J Greb (talk) 01:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I think a fairly important par t of the argument has been missed here. Why was Wolverine chosen to be er, amalgam-zied? Because he was popular enough with folk that seeing him merged with another character was notable and of interest. Why weren't Atom, or Zan and Jayna the Wonder Twins? Because they weren't. The fact tat they were seen fit to be Amalgam'd (and folks, that whirring sound you hear is my grammar teacher Mrs. Uphoff spinning in her grave like a redlining turbine) makes them noteworthy and interesting. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 06:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

That reflects Wolverine's importance to Dark Claw, not Dark Claw's importance to Wolverine. Doczilla (talk) 06:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
While most likely accurate, it hardly diminishes the need for inclusion. that two comic book corporations agreed that Wolverine was popular enough to blend is the focus here. The blended character is a by-product of that pop-cultural importance. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 07:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Just a friendly reminder: We're losing track of conversations here. This section is about alternate version guidelines. While Amalgam is totally relevant, we already have a couple of Amalgam sections on this page, and if we discuss Amalgam very much here, that will detract from other guideline issues. Amalgam brings in a whole set of additional problems (sources regarding whether characters were fictional or metafictional and sources regarding which characters merged) which generally aren't relevant to all the other kinds of alternate versions. Doczilla (talk) 09:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC) Actually, now that I look over this section, I see that it veered away from discussing alternate version guidelines into yet another Amalgam discussion all over again.Doczilla (talk) 09:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

*Blows a loud whistle!*

Okay, I really don't want to do for the next week or so because I have final exams to give and grades to figure, but we're bouncing all over this talk page with Amalgam/alternate versions discussions. There are too many points that need to be discussed for us to do this quite so haphazardly. While we want to make sure everyone can find the discussion and new people can easiliy keep getting involved, we've got to set up a page where we can discuss possible guidelines for dealing with alternate versions. We can set up something here to direct people to it, but this has taken over the WikiProject Comics talk page. I have started a list at User:Doczilla/Sandbox/Alternate_version_guideline_issues. Feel free to edit it. We could start discussing issues on a talk page for that list, or if you don't want to play in my sandbox, I'll play in yours, but this is a mess. Doczilla (talk) 10:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Character alternate version guidelines. Gives a neutral place for editing and discussion. I'll copy the variant discussions above to that page's talk as well. Hope this helps : ) - jc37 11:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Since you've copied so much of this page onto that new talk page, I think we ought to go ahead and archive most of the Amalgam stuff from this page (pretty much everything higher up on this page) to preserve the integrity of the conversations posted above. Otherwise, the original version on this page and the copy on that page will split like divergent timelines and go in different directions. Doczilla (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Please advise: A tiny handful of Amalgam mentions left outside the many Amalgam articles

Over the past weeks, I've removed Amalgam mentions from over 900 articles, mostly for lack of sources regarding (1) whether the characters ever appeared at all and (2) which characters were actually merged. Only a tiny number of those mentions are left in the regular DC/Marvel characters' articles. The Amalgam characters still have a LOT of articles. For consistency with what's been getting implemented for the last month, I think I need to remove those last few mentions. As we've said, we can backfill and put appropriate information in later if that's deemed fitting. Leaving a handful of the old mentions just lowers the odds of ever getting a better worded version and simply isn't consistent with what's been implemented over the last month. Someone reverted them, feeling I shouldn't do that while this new discussion is ongoing. We exchanged a couple of thoughts on it. We're both just trying to do what's right for this situation. We just need outside opinions regarding whether or not I should make those last few deletions. I will not revert war with anyone. Please advise. Doczilla (talk) 08:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

As the other participant in this, and after hearing Doc's fuller version here, I think it would be better if the remaining Amalgam references were not removed for the time being, as we are not sure what's eventually going to be decided about these Amalgam bits, and I think preserving that info until we know what' what would be splendid. I would not be opposed to having them moved to Discussion under a section header of Disputed content, and a link to the discussion occurring here. It would ensure a wider base of participation. I'd do it, but I don't have the same benefit of a bot (different OS and browser) that Doc apparently has (gah, 900 entries?! I only undid a dozen or two, and I'm plumb worn down to a nub~ lol). Thoughts? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 08:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts? Yes. Discuss, and please stop reverting. Doczilla removed those in good faith, based on a previous discussion, and even waited three days for anyone to oppose. I would be happy to see consensus change, but for that to happen, I think discussion would be the way to go.

As for the rest, I agree with Doczilla. Let's start clean, with them removed from all articles. I guarantee you that if consensus turns out that they should be re-added, Doczilla will be one (likely of several) who will be suggesting that after that they be restored. (I stayed one step short of volunteering you Doc : ) - jc37 12:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Organization of this talk page

Discuss the organization of this talk page here.

Please discuss talk page organization here and not in the white area below. New discussions begin further down the page.

Everything Almost everything above this line is a copy.

We need to note which of this material has been copied from another page. We might box everything appearing above to note that it's archived, so we can start fresh with better organized sections for new discussions below. Doczilla (talk) 18:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First, I don't think jc37's last comment was a copy. Looks to me like jc37 added that when copying everything else. Second, regarding your suggestion elsewhere about moving everything that's already been said into an archive: If that's done, I don't you should just "box everything" higher up on this page. Don't put any of that here at all. You'd be better off putting a box that's kind of a directory with links to where each past discussion has been archived. Wryspy (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've boxed the material for you because that does need to be distinguished from new material. I still prefer my own suggestion but I'm not implementing it on my own because removing what jc37 posted here, even if I add a box with links, could be mistaken for vandalism. Also, most of that has not really been archived yet. Wryspy (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it was a subsequent comment (wasn't in the prior space it was moved from). for the record, i had stopped reverting before posting the comment, and was awaiting feedback. Now that that's cleared up, let's move on. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 01:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if you'll check the edit history, my comment was intentionally in a separate edit.

I agree that the "originals" of the discussions pasted to this page should be archived (I would have, but there are intriccacies to Shadowbot that I don't know/haven't learned yet : ) - jc37 10:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, maybe it would be best if we summarize what the noggin-clunking :) came up with before from the imported text. that way, we aren't reinventing the wheel with the same arguments. Sound like a good idea? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 09:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Scroll to the top of this page, and click on the tab that says "project page".

That was pretty much the point of this: To have a workspace and a discussion page all-in-one : ) - jc37 12:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, are you saying that you created the project page outsine from all of the noted discussion? That seems quite a task. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 12:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, actually, DOczilla did : )

Think that you and he (and others) can turn it into some guidelines? - jc37 12:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That lad keeps surprising me, he does. :)

Well, I am sure we are all going to take a turn at knocking hammers against it, making it all shapely and such. :) - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 13:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

stuff I moved...

I have to somewhat disagree(with having information about Amalgam only in articles specifically about it). It's not good to, essentially, sequester the Amalgam stuff into a box. It was probably the biggest comic book crossover of all time. The reason the "tidbits" were scattered is that the various characters WERE part of Amalgam, not quite as themselves, but they were there regardless.

Anyways... I find the procedures for notifying Wikipedians of discussions like this to be very lacking. I didn't know about this until stuff started disappearing. "waiting to see if people will comment" only works if people know you're waiting.

I really don't like the requirement for "out of universe information". It basically states that the character version has to be seen somewhere other than a comic book.--Marhawkman (talk) 12:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Restructuring of the past discussions

I changed the formatting of the previous discussions painstakingly ported over by Doczilla, because it was a bit confusing, and at least one editor accidentally posted within there. I think that'll be avoided now. :) - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 13:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I undid that. While I previously supported closing the above as an "archive", I think if this is a "discussion" we should probably open up everything for discussion. - jc37 13:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's better for the conversations to start a-fresh here, using the prior conversations as guideposts. Note how it says not to alter them. I think its a pretty good idea. That was one of the reasons the conversations were collated to one location, so there wouldn't be a dozen different conversations all occurring at once. This allows us to focus our attentions on the heart of the issues, using the prior conversations - again - as signposts. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as I did the copying/collating, I can tell you that I didn't do it to create "signposts" : )

But rather than just revert the re-archiving again, I'll just ask if you would undo it. Open-ness and transparency would seem to be good ideas. - jc37 14:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General explanation (re: this page's organization)

Actually, i took away the sectioning, as the conversations were ported over from at least two different locations, and responses to discussions origination in another article discussion aren't all that likely to do anything. As well, they ported to that one location because a dozen different conversations were all occurring at once, each one essentially reinventing the wheel and covering little new ground.
Starting those conversations anew, taking into consideration the ground already covered by the ported conversations allows us to actually use those prior conversations to make some solid headway. Responding to conversations that aren't likely to garner replies is pointless. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. But let's see what others think. - jc37 14:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. :) - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was an edit delay, and so I didn't see that you had removed my post of explanation. Not sure why you removed it, but I figured it was best to discuss what was going on before a full-on cluster-fuck ensued. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 14:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I merely moved it to here to unify discussion : ) - jc37 23:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedic method

I guess I'll iterate my opinion over. Wikipedia is an enyclopedia. I hope we all agree that means we summarise. I also hope we all agree that means we use some sort of judgement over what we include. Personally, I think we write to inform readers, and we write to convey information already asserted beyond reasonable doubt. I think where there is doubt we should not convey information. I also think there has to be a limit as to what we summarise, as to what we can hope to convey. A character like Superman, who has appeared in stories for nearly seventy years cannot be covered in a manner that details each and every adventure the character has had. Therefore we have to make decisions, and we have to make decisions from a position which views that character as seventy years old. Each choice has to balance each and every adventure against each and every other one. Is an adventure that happened last week more important than one that happened 65 years ago. I think we have to evaluate within that context. I think if we can get that sort of structure up and running, if we take that view, then once we have established a framework, sketched out our canvas in broad strokes, we can look at offering more detail, work out how to present the next level of detail. But first and foremost, we have to get the scaffolding up, we have to build the framework. We have to agree if we are here to write an encyclopedia, to write using the encyclopedic method, to summarise, evaluate, contextualise and inform. For me that's the underlying issue of the debate. Hiding T 21:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions about listing alternate versions

As anyone who's read my user page knows, I advocate including everything that can be verified as being factually accurate. :) Although I suppose exceptions can be made for things that are extremely insignificant.--Marhawkman (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amalgam

So, where are we on the Amalgam edits? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 10:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which aspect? They've been removed from the original characters' articles. Do you mean the Amalgam characters' own articles? I pretty much left those alone and was waiting to see what consensus emerged. Unfortunately, once we got all this discussion moved over here, the dialogue petered out. Your question was the first addition to this talk page in nearly two weeks.

Here's one idea: For characters that were members of teams like the Judgment League Avengers, merging all of those characters into their respective teams' articles would simplify things and make it easier for interested readers to find all the relevant information. Doczilla (talk) 10:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems the full articles are a side issue regarding what was being talked about here. I agree with Doc though, merging them down to fewer articles would be a good step.

As for the AV sections... we still need to hammer something out, some free form variations are getting problematic. - J Greb (talk) 16:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I rather thought that's what we were trying to do. I became part of the effort because I am rather in favor of including the more notable of the Amalgam entries (ie, those who were notable enough to have their own articles or were deemed popular enought Amalgam-ize). - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 17:58, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I have two thoughts. 1: we can't make a proper article without the character stuff. 2: most of the character stuff doesn't need it's own article. Thus we're left with lumping them into groups. I think the AV things can be left, if factual. They don't detract from the article they're in, and they crosslink things. :) But yeah it looks like the Amalgam stuff need to be sorted into categories to make lists from.--Marhawkman (talk) 12:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just some observations...

While articles on characters can't without information about the character, including a limited synopsis of the character's in-universe history. An article also can't be made from only, or majoratively, from that type of plot summary. If that's what we've got, then the articles need to be merged into something else.

Marhawkman is right, the AV sections, as a concept, don't detract from the articles they're in. In practice though there are examples of where the sections have gotten out of hand. - J Greb (talk) 19:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What If?

What if we remove the What If? listings from the characters' articles? The stories matter for the What If? article and a few others, but are rarely notable in the long run, and only in a few cases (e.g., Spider-Girl) do they have any lasting impact. I'm not planning to go through cutting them all out one at a time, but I think as a rule of thumb, they need to be removed whenever the AV sections get revised. Doczilla (talk) 19:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno. In many cases it'd make sense to trim them for size reasons. Some of them might be worth keeping if that particular what-if was centered on that character.--Marhawkman (talk) 12:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a list of What If issues/content somewhere? I think that that would be a better solution. I don't think a "single" appearance in a series such as What If (or even a single imaginary story (I'm stunned that there is no article for this) in World's Finest or Action Comics) should justify listing (unless it's further referenced somewhere). There comes a point where all these alternate versions are trivia. If one doubts it, let's start talking about aaaaall the different versions of Superman or Batman : ) - jc37 04:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By extension, most of the "Elseworlds" also shouldn't get a mention. It almost gets to the point of a few lines cover all three of those story sets: "Over the years Marvel/DC has presented stories playing on variations Batman/Spider-Man/Superman/Punisher/whomever. Some examples of these are <insert a handful of stories here>." - J Greb (talk) 04:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well... "some examples" tends to balloon to a giant list. I'd just do some of the more "significant" ones. Needless to say that needs definition. I'd stick with the most often seen ones and the most different ones.--Marhawkman (talk) 11:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What If? - minimal detail

When a What If? story is mentioned in the character's AV section, the mention should rarely have more than minimal story detail because that story is fairly irrelevant to understanding the character or knowing that character's history. Doczilla (talk) 22:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about What if's that laid the foundation for later character concepts or storylines? Examples being adopted storylines or themes may be: Cap America in 50's (later adopted into cannon); 50's Avengers (later adopted into Agents of Atlas); Josh Gutherie found a sentinel; and basic concepts: Hulk w/ Banner's Brain, Spidey and FF (Paradise X); Spidey's living clone; Prof X becoming the Juggernaught; and arguably the Hulk Barbarian. -66.109.248.114 (talk) 00:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I said "rarely", not "never". Doczilla (talk) 04:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To a large degree that falls under the publication history for the story arcs or series that recycled the plot. And that if there's a cite that can be made linking the two, at least in most cases. - J Greb (talk) 03:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exemplar needed

We need to develop an exemplar of how an AV section ought to look. Doczilla (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spiderman? :p okay maybe not. his is actually a seperate page.--Marhawkman (talk) 13:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]