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Archive 1Archive 2

Representative Article

{{SampleWikiProject}}

I suggest The Foundation Series article as the representation of this project - it's even listed on the Wikipedia:Featured articles page. Anyone disagrees? Ausir 03:23, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think The Foundation Series is too small a universe. We should be considering something like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Star Wars. The same rules aren't going to apply to series with dozens of potential related articles and ones with hundreds :). Gaurav 17:01, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I disagree. It's rather better to find out that you've made a horrendous mistake on only a small number of pages than on a huge number: the reverting would take much less time and give much less chance of making further mistakes. I'm actually liking the idea of using (visual) tables now the self-linking thing is working nicely. Thus we could construct a Mediawiki:Books in the FUBAR series table and {msg:include}} it into each book in the series. Thus whenever a new book is added to the series it automagically appears in all the other articles. --Phil 17:29, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
20 books is not that small of a series (of course it's nothing compared to the number of SW books, but more than LotR, not to mention Harry Potter - of course the number of LotR articles will be bigger (or rather, Middle-earth, as LotR is not a series - it's a single book most often, but not always, divided into 3 volumes). Still, Foundation is a very well known series, the only science fiction series ever awarded the special "Best All-Time Series" Hugo Award. It's also certainly one of the biggest science-fiction series not counting the ones based on movie/tv licenses. And the "Foundation Series" article is pretty much complete currently, compared to other series articles. Ausir 19:15, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Regarding Phil's comment. The other side of that coin is that a framwork that is only tested on a subject that involves a smaller set of articles, and therefor is likley to be less complex, may not work for a larger subject. To make sure that its robust enough, and that the examples cover enough cases as to be useful to others trying to learn the framwork, then the test case should be ... well at least in the upper 25% of complexity. 207.46.121.17 22:36, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about Middle-earth as the representation? It has been featured recently. Ausir 10:20, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest a series thjat is more complex (has more books and more sub-series) than either Foundation or LOTR, and one on which perhaps there is not quite so much pre-existing work. Perhaps the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien, which starts with Master and Commander? Although there is a lot of pre-existing work on that series, also. DES 30 June 2005 17:36 (UTC)

Film series: Not as few as you think.

"The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Novels, as it is not clear whether movie series (which rarely exceed three movies) need further organisation. We may move to Arts and Humanities if the need arises."

It is not that rare. There are 99 trilogies listed and 121 series of films that are above 3 in length. Lady Aleena 06:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Lists of film serires:

Keep that list in mind for this project. - LA @ 14:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Belated Notice of 'Resurection'

Belated Notice

   On the following section, a 'seeming Non-sequitar'
  • ...it's really not. Lady Aleena is responding to a notice on WPP:Books and WPP:Novels that I was going to try and revitalize this WikiProject ca mid-last-week. I just hadn't gotten here to plant my first spade into this page yet. I'm 'overbooked' momentarily, preoccupied and involved on a Meta interwiki category linking system of all language wikipedias to the commons (Project proposal that spun-off from/as part of a Commons project re-catting Maps categories into a uniform heirarchial top-down designed system.), at least on Meta defined categories at the moment.
  • But I'll be moving things incrementally as at increasing speed as that settles. So stay tuned to this 'Bat Channel', as it were. I'll be spamming more folks and notices on the VP, etc. when time permits. Anyone want to help with some of that advertising? Aleena, you did some spamming on your excellent proposal, do you have a list you can share? Drop it on User:fabartus/desk if so. Thanks!
Besides, it's summer! <g> Family and RL comes first! Go grok with your favorite summer hangout while you wait! ttfn // FrankB 18:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at the Xanth series and Midkemia and Kelewan

Take a look at the Xanth series to see how things are being handled there. You might also want to look at Midkemia and Kelewan for locations in a series and how they are handled. Just a few thoughts.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 14:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I intend to make a start on such a survey this week some time. I'm 'overbooked', but these are 'old favorites' I occasionally still re-read, and would have checked them out now that it seems I'm being sucked into matters fictional as a more primary wikiPfocus. Good suggestions. I'd looked into one other (Humanx Commonwealth ) that I was tempted to 'rename' as ending with 'series', but this all needs worked out. Honorverse isn't 'Honorverse series' either, so 'Waiting will fill' 'til I Grok with you all! // FrankB 18:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Project material in article-space categories

Please don't add project pages, and categories of project pages (such as Category:WikiProject Fictional series) to categories designed for use on articles. Doing so is to hopelessly jumble up metadata (for use by editors) with the actual encyclopaedic "data" (for the use of readers). Alai 07:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 14:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Holmes Project

It seems that right now Wikipedia:WikiProject Holmes is, at best, dormant. Would this project be interested in perhaps either making it a sub-project of itself, or, if that isn't workable, perhaps deleting it? The scope of your project seems to me at least to almost completely overlap. B2T2 17:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Narnia

Hello all, I added the WikiProject Narnia to the list of descendent projects. I also wanted to inform you all that I recently nominated Narnian timeline for Featured List status; however, it was not promoted due to no support votes (there was only one participant in the nomination, and it was a comment). I was going to renominate it but I feel that it could be better referenced. You will see in the timeline there is a section concerning the verifiability of the source. If anybody knows anything about the Walter Hooper/Kathryn Lindskoog feud, it would be greatly appreciated if you could head over to the article and see if you agree with the Verifiability section. If so, I think we need a reference that C. S. Lewis scholars accept the timeline as by him and not Hooper. Once this is cited in some way, I'm going to renominate the timeline and I urge you all to assess it accordingly, as I was advised on the talk page of WP:FLC. Thanks! --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 04:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, we managed to find a source for the sentences, so I've renominated the page at WP:FLC. Hope you'll get a chance to look at the article and assess it accordingly. Thanks! --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 21:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


New WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction

To give some coherency to the many little sf-oriented communities on Wikipedia.--ragesoss 20:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

discussions of categories of series, sequels, and other serial formats

Haha, well, I didn't realize there was a WikiProject for this. I just started a Category:Series to collate Television series, Book series, and so on. This came from a Wikipedia:Categories for discussion on another serial form, the various sequels category; a category I think very problematic. More discussion at Category talk:Sequels. --lquilter 23:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

AFD notice

New Wikipedia:WikiProject James Bond banner question

There is now a new project at the above page. There has been repeated concern expressed here and elsewhere about the proliferation of project banners on talk pages. On that basis, I was wondering if any of the members of this project might be willing to, possibly with Wikipedia:WikiProject Films, set up some sort of arrangement so that one banner might somehow function for whichever of the three mentioned projects apply to a given article? John Carter 15:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgotten Realms Series

I noticed that this project does not yet have a Forgotten Realms section. As there already is a dragonlance section, I think this would fit in nicely, or is there a reason it has not been included?--Mirage GSM 09:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Banner

I have created a banner for the project at {{WikiProject Fictional series}}. I am fairly sure someone can add little tabs for the various other projects that deal with fictional series. Please let me know if any of you want to see the banner placed anywhere, or if you want the assessment page created to go with it. Thank you. I do think having a banner which could include assessments, and possibly tabs for various subprojects, might be one of the best ways to perhaps reduce the number of different projects relating to fictional series in general. John Carter 01:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

no idea where to put this but...

the needs to be like a task force or something for the deltora book series. the articles are just a step above (in my opinion) from sucking. --munkee_madness talk 19:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if they've got enough content for a separate task force. I will add the project banner to them, so that we know we work with them, though. John Carter 20:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Invulnerable characters

Hi, you know how in certain types of literature, there are characters who can never be killed? For example, the main cast of Star Trek - several of them seemed to get killed, but they were always back to normal by the end of the episode. Does anyone know of a name for this phenomenon, or articles about it that could be used as references? I ask because there's an article about character shields, and another called Wedge-type character, and they're both fairly poor; the latter is under deletion discussion. It seems to me that the phenomenon deserves an article. Please contribute to the discussion if you can. Thanks, Tualha (Talk) 09:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Centralized TV Episode Discussion

Over the past months, TV episodes have been redirected by (to name a couple) TTN, Eusebeus and others. No centralized discussion has taken place, so I'm asking everyone who has been involved in this issue to voice their opinions here in this centralized spot, be they pro or anti. Discussion is here [1]. Even if you have not, other opinions are needed because this issue is affecting all TV episodes in Wikipedia. --Maniwar (talk) 19:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The revival and reboot

So what do you all think so far? - LA @ 01:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks good so far. My only real questions would be how to determine the scope of the project. There is a bot out there which can automatically tag new articles as they are created which fall in any categories listed with that bot as being directly relevant to those projects, and I have a very strong feeling we're going to be needing quite a rather large number of bots for the tagging for this project. But, before we do that, I think it would help to have some parameters in place first.
In general, where there are several overlapping projects, which there will be with many of the articles this project expects to deal with, I think the general guideline so far is that if there is a "descendant" project with a more focused scope which deals with a given article, that the "ancestor" (or whatever) project leaves the article untagged so long as the descendant project remains separate or active. However, there are a huge number of projects that deal with this subject, including some like WP:NOVELS which itself already has several "descendant" projects. Figuring out exactly what does and does not fall within the scope of the project, and how to define that scope, would probably be the first order of business. John Carter (talk) 22:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping that more people would come back and give this a chance. As for the scope, I am not sure as of yet. I think we need more input from other users. - LA @ 14:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
It'll take a bit more banner placement and other forms of "advertising" for people to know the group is active, and that would probably involve knowing what the scope of the project is in advance. My first opinion would be that, if a given subject is not so prominent that it occupies a central part in the scope of a given project, like Spider-Man does with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Marvel Comics work group, then we might do best to leave basically the entire subject to that group, provided they cover the entire subject, as they would have a lot of specific information we wouldn't necessarily have. If, however, the subject is one which has a significant presence, including new stories, in several media which does not in its entirety fall within the scope of any other single projects with associated work groups, and it isn't a clear and obvious central focus of an extant group, like Spider-Man is, then we could, reasonably, try to work on all the articles related to that subject. Now, there might be some problems with the various subprojects of Novels in this regard, and it might be best to contact them directly about how to deal with these subjects for their input. But, if this group were to be able to provide a bit clearer focus on all the content related to a given subject, I think that that project, and any others, might very easily welcome the reduced burden on themselves. John Carter (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger

For the purposes of centralized discussion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sherlock Holmes#Proposed merger. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Would merging the Shannara Wikiproject with this one be bad?--it makes it quite generalized....I dunno.....the_ed17 18:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The idea would be to have one place which could provide guidelines for all the projects which deal with subjects which are, as it were, relevant to several media. Holmes is clearly one such, Shannara as well, although to a lesser degree. It would also allow the projects to potentially keep functioning separately, with their own assessments, into the future. And maybe renaming the project something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Multimedia series might be or something similar might help clarify the scope of the project. John Carter (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Another possible merger

Wikipedia:WikiProject Lemony Snicket is apparently inactive as well. That makes at least four projects which could be counted as being "child" projects, including Narnia and those already proposed, which could be integrated into the banner. Seeing this project successful there would probably be one of the best ways to get other editors interested in maybe merging in other projects as well. I still haven't found an image for the project banner, not that it's necessarily required though. John Carter (talk) 20:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose, with a different way of looking at it
  • In general, oppose all these based on the principal that a large series (Potter, 1632, Holmes, Hornblower, etc.) needs to have a place and structure and tools tailored to said project. OTOH, to my way of thinking, all such should be categorically a subproject of this, which in turn is and should be a subproject of Wikiproject Novels and whatever video projects there are out there. Multimedia existance of a series is a whole 'nother complicating factor, though my impression is it's been fairly well handled so far by the interested parties. (e.g. James Bond, Potter, and Hornblower to name three iconic treatments. Wikiproject Middle Earth is presumably doing a fair job in handling the Movies as well as the books.)
    • How to get one sub-project member to monitor the notional parent project activities and guidelines is one of our institutional problems, as it were, and if it really be a problem. // FrankB 21:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The purpose of turning any or all of these projects, as well as potentially any others, is to preserve the independent integrity of the existing group while at the same time getting another group, which would be at least potentially more active, involved in the upkeep of the articles. I can't think that the issues faced by any of these groups are ones which are solely faced by those groups. Tarzan will doubtless face much the same situations as Sherlock Holmes will in wikipedia, for instance. By turning them into "subprojects" of the one parent project, and, at least often, integrating them into the existing project's banner, they can at least potentially remain operating entites into the forseeable future, while at the same time getting a bit more clear input from a broader number of editors familiar with the broader subject material. John Carter (talk) 16:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
So they will be independent subsidiaries? If they WILL be independent, why is there a debate? ...andd soes it even matter? the_ed17 18:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The basic questions are whether they will use the project banner for this project or not, and what the naming of the projects would be. In some cases, they are transferred to pages saying "WikiProject X/Y task force or work group" pages. Regardless of naming though, at least for the forseeable future, the project banner for this project should be able to allow for separate assessments for each group. I think I've seen MILHIST has about 60 such assessments integrated into its banner, and we should be able to do the same. Personally, I'd favor renaming most of these groups to a variation on "task force" or "work group", but that is still on the table as well. John Carter (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

New name proposal

I propose that the new name of this project be Wikipedia:WikiProject Media franchises. - LA @ 09:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Vote on Merger; the Shannara WikiProject, the Lemony Snicket WikiProject and the Sherlock Holmes WikiProject into this one.

  • Support--no point not to, I guess. the_ed17 18:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. - Either Novel or Children's Lit would be better projects for them to be attached to. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose with regards to Sherlock Holmes. It is far too big a topic to combine with other Wikiprojects, and the parallel merger proposal with WikiProject Novels indicates a lack of understanding of the breadth of the Holmes franchise which goes far beyond books. It is easily on par with Wikipedia:WikiProject James Bond with regards to its breadth. Of course the main Sherlock Holmes article can certainly be added to the project, as many articles fall under multiple projects. 23skidoo (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Updated project banner

The project banner has now been updated. I am now setting it up for the Sherlock Holmes group as well. Any other changes required, let me know and I'll make them. John Carter (talk) 15:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Proposal to merge Wikipedia:WikiProject Sherlock Holmes. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

First order of business

I would think that the first thing the project should do, now that the project banner exists, is go about and tag the main article for every subject which the members of the project feel falls within the project's scope. By so doing, we will announce to the editors of the pages in question both the interest of the project and make it easier for our own editors to find the various other articles relevant to the project. Just an idea, of course. John Carter (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

New proposed subproject

There is now a proposal for a group to work on content related to Dracula at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Dracula Project. Any parties interested should indicate their support there. John Carter (talk) 19:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 20:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion

An important discussion on " Should WikiProjects get prior approval of other WikiProjects (Descendant or Related or any ) to tag articles that overlaps their scope ? " is open here . We welcome you to participate and give your valuable opinions. -- TinuCherian (Wanna Talk?) - , member of WikiProject Council. 14:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

What's been going on with the project?

At WP Films, I've had to field several requests for franchise-specific task forces, and I usually refer them over here. However, looking at the complete lack of task forces and low amount of participation and assessment, I was wondering what is going on and why has this project seemed to stall? (IMHO.)

I believe that the current task force situation of chicken/egg dilemma probably can be most easily solved at present by starting to integrate the inactive WikiProjects and working things forward from there, but I'd like to hear if anyone else is already ruminating on this. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you wish, you can start sending people to the task force proposal page of this project. If WikiProject Films would like for this project to handle film franchises, a link to the above could be useful to keep down the paperwork at Films. Most franchises these days have more than one media, so send any over to the link above where the proposals can be looked over. This way, Films can focus on the broad issues without having franchises to deal with as well. Plus, we could use a little help to get this moving forward. I hope that made sense. - LA (T) 21:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Just heard this WikiProject exists. Normally we've been having people make tasks forces for WP:TV, WP:ANIME, WP:VG, etc. I guess I can see the logic for the ones that don't have a clear dominate media, but taskforces can be listed under more than one project. *shrug* -- Ned Scott 08:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Rescoping

Here is the proposed scope of this project. - LA (T) 20:37, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

That seems about right. I have been working on a lot of the categories to make them work together (with consistent naming and the like) and have used {{seealso}} to cross link related categories, e.g. Category: Comics based on films and Category: Films based on comics. Obviously, being included in this category doesn't automatically make it franchise but those are the places that franchise start to come together and it'd make sense to tag the various categories. (Emperor (talk) 22:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Is this an appropriate project, or is the concept too commercial?

To LA: As I understand it, a media franchise is a commercial concept based on exploiting intellectual property. So why is it appropriate for a non-commercial encyclopedia? I see you are the only active member here. Can you give me an idea of what you are trying to achieve? Thanks and best wishes. --Kleinzach 22:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The word franchise is being used rather loosely here. Some topics might not need a full blown WikiProject, but a task force here might do winders for the articles of the topic.
Examples where a full blown WikiProject might be too much.
Alien Nation has 7 films, 1 television series, and 1 book.
Cagney & Lacey has 1 television series, 4 films, and 3 books.
The Kids in the Hall have 1 television series, 1 film, and 2 stage plays.
Ripley's Believe It or Not! has 4 television series, 1 radio series, 1 game, a lot of books filled with trivia, and the museums.
This is the kind of thing I am hoping we gather here. If within a week or so, there isn't enough interest, I may shut this project down as a failure. - LA (T) 00:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Although I do most of my work in comics there is a lot of crossover with other media and I have done a lot of work in those areas trying to get the various structures coherent and consistent, see e.g. Category: Comics by source and Category: Works based on comics. There is a higher level category Category:Media by source (with the child Category: Media based on media) but this is out of just about everyone's jurisdiction (there were probably easier ways of doing this and an already existing structures but the CfD went no where). I see such a project as this as helping keep an overview on this issues that are beyond the scope of any one media-focused project. It could help keep naming consistent across media so that it is easy to slot it all together.
I've also worked on getting CSI franchise fixed up, which I hope is a good example of what you are talking about - the first CSI series spawned a franchise of TV shows as well as spin-off media with books, comics, games and toys. We based it on Law & Order franchise which also has a big franchise of TV shows but not so much spin-off media (some books and games). We were largely making it up as we went along, largely based on the single existing precedent in the same area. It would also be handy if there was help and advise from a project like this which would allow other people to establish such franchise-based projects/pages. It would help keep consistency across the various articles and the input of people who have set up such pages would be invaluable. I would expect this project to be fairly quiet but really useful. Perhaps some example pages would be handy to let people know what we are talking about. I posted a couple above but you also have: Alien vs. Predator and Alien (franchise). SOme are currently pitched as say a film series with spin-off media tagged on when you are really looking at a franchise, for example the Alien one was originally Alien (film series) and was moved [2] (see also Ghostbusters (franchise). Examples of pages that could benefit from similar treatment include: Evil Dead (series).
A good first stage might be tagging the talk pages of the articles and categories I mention above with the media franchise header. It would help get more involvement from people who are actively involved in those areas who can help those looking for help and perhaps build up resources which people can use. (Emperor (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2008 (UTC))
I would love to see that happen, however, I may be the only active member of this project so really need help to get this off of the ground. This project needs more active members to tag articles, help find a direction, build templates, etc. It is just so overwhelming for just one person. Any help is better than none. LA @ 01:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
OK I've added my name to this. As I'm already doing work in the area it makes sense to make it more official.
As I only found out about this when you dropped a note into the comics project I think a bit of publicity can't hurt. I'll start adding tags to talk pages and try and cover the main ones, it would also make sense to drop notes into the various franchise projects (I just dropped a link into the CSI franchise project on your front page) - they are the kind of experienced people who can be useful in offering help and advice. (Emperor (talk) 03:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC))
I will be doing that in a bit. Give me time, I am only on dial-up, so I have to take a really deep breath before diving into a mass appeal. Welcome aboard. :) LA @ 03:21, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Good stuff. List of 24 (TV series) media is virtually already a franchise article and a good example of the kind of depth and breadth we'd be aiming at. (Emperor (talk) 22:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Infobox

You spoke of a media franchise infobox, well, here is one that needs to be tested on various pages before being put into official use. I have added as many types of media which I have encountered over my time here. I am thinking of other tweaks, but this is the bare bones basic framework of it. So, take it for a spin (add it to a page and fill it out, hit the Show preview button, and see what it looks like) and tell me what you think either here or on its talk page. LA @ 07:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Great. I'll give it a spin later. (Emperor (talk) 17:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC))
I started it at its permanent home. The links above will take you to it. LA @ 20:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Great - it might as well go live. I've added it to CSI franchise and it looks good. One thing though - would it be possible to swap the order of the fields? Obviously with CSI the most important part of the franchise is the original TV series and the two spin-offs with the other media merging from that. For the Batman franchise you'd expect the comics to be first followed by the films, TV series and then novels. I imagine swapping them around within the template wouldn't work but could you add an "order" field so for CSI tv_order=1, then video_game_order=2 and for Batman we might have comic_order=1, film_order=2, etc. I suspect it would need fiendishly complicated markup but perhaps if you had a number of slots to be filled, the code would look for what has an order of 1 and put the appropriate content in slot 1, etc. Anyway just a thought, as looking at it I can see that is going to be one of the early questions about the infobox. Other wise looks good. (Emperor (talk) 20:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC))
I wish I could come up with a way to do that, but right now I am tapped out of ideas. Let me give it a good long think. The reason for the Origin field is to show which item was first, and where the others sprang from. Please give me some time. Thanks! LA @ 20:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
No rush, just an idea that occurred to me. We should also see if there is a great call for it. (Emperor (talk) 20:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC))
Added to Law & Order franchise. Shapes up nicely. (Emperor (talk) 00:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC))

Article importance

I think we need to have a chat about article importance on the assessment talk page soon. We have over 100 articles assessed as ours, and we need to figure out how important they are. LA @ 05:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Good idea I agree, and will try to get the conversation going. -Sykko-(talk to me) (yesterday but forgot to sign)
I put a few suggestions on the talk page. I figure there is likely to be a bit of adjustment needed so comments would be much appreciated -Sykko-(talk to me) 14:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Things to do Section?

As I am considering joining up I was thinking how it would be useful if there was a list of exact things that members of the project should do. This would give me a better idea as to if I have the ability to contribute enough to make joining worth it (as I dropped all my other projects due to the fact that I couldnt figure out what to contribute) -Sykko-(talk to me) 20:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Right now there isn't such a list since this project is being rebuilt, so a direction is what we need first. Feel free to suggest areas which we should focus on. LA @ 21:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
We could always stick an {{todo}} box at the top for starters. We could throw in links to categories for unassessed talk pages so when we are on the same page we can sort them out.
Some other thoughts:
  • Perhaps have a list of franchises we could reach out to - I was looking at Buffyverse and it struck me it could be improved by expanding the focus on the franchise. Batman franchise media might need a slight rename and it could also do with including the Bat Family titles. What you tend to find is articles set up as "in other media" or focused on the core series and then tagging on the spin-off/tie-in media on the end (Aliens (franchise) started along the lines of the latter example, Batman franchise media is "in other media" that has evolved slightly - I feel Superman in other media could be moved up to a franchise article. See my further thoughts on other comics franchises here).
  • We could draw up examples of good franchise articles
  • Perhaps draw up other resources - do you think we need an infobox? I note most of the media franchise articles don't have one and where they do (e.g. Aliens (franchise) it doesn't seem to fit). Fields might include original work, media (TV, film, comics, etc.)
  • Possibly draw up an outline of things like might be useful to include (sections for each media, beginning with the original work and any spin-offs within the same media) and also perhaps any characters/locations/objects that reoccur (the major ones would obviously have their own articles).
Anyway just a few ideas on where we can focus our work and really help people improve and round out articles that have arrived at the brink of being a franchise article from a number of different routes. (Emperor (talk) 22:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC))
Oh another thing - most franchise will tend to generate its own footer template but if it doesn't it'd be worth out pitching in to see if anyone needs help starting one. Could be one of the checks to do when we run across a franchise.
I suppose ultimately we'd want to act as a guiding hand to help people get all the franchise articles up to standard and relatively consistent. (Emperor (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC))
Sounds good! so in general I have decided that I will help out, but am not exactly joining for now. I don't want to commit myself to stuff right now so this may be something I get involved in for a day or two or a month or I may eventually join as a member of the project long term. -Sykko-(talk to me) 02:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Way I see it is that I am already doing things in this area anyway so I might as well contribute my thoughts on the topic and I can also have one eye on Media Franchise Project needs while doing what I am doing (like adding talk page headers, spotting likely candidates for help). I suspect activity is going to be variable as well, kicking into gear if someone needs help setting up a franchise page or in related matters. (Emperor (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC))
A couple more examples of things we could do:
  • Warhammer 40,000 spin-offs, could be easily converted and upgraded into a media franchise section
  • Starship Troopers (film)#Spinoffs - this is crying out for a "Starship Troopers (franchise)" article. It isn't even mentioned on Starship Troopers, partly because the spin-offs are largely from the film but anyone going there looking for information on something like the TV series could easily be stumped. If you had a franchise page you could at least link to it from "see also."
So we could spot articles that could easily be converted or we could reach out to something like the Starship Troopers article with an offer of help and advice in starting the article (it'd make sense to split off the Spinoffs section as a core and then add information on the original book and the film from which everything else flows.
So we keep an eye out for the two general cases (those articles that can be improved to cover a franchise and those that need it) and focus on them. With general background activity adding the talkpage header and infobox (see above), as well as rating unassessed articles. (Emperor (talk) 17:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC))

UBX

This user is a member of the Media Franchises Wikiproject.

Hey, I just threw together an user box for the project. {{User:Sykko/templates/ubxmediafran}} if you want different colors or anything let me know and I will edit it, or feel free to go in and do the edits yourself. Here is what it currently looks like (going to subst it so that if it gets changed people can look back on this version here. -Sykko-(talk to me) 20:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, though green might be a better color as it is more encompassing. Maybe... LA @ 21:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
This user is a member of the Media Franchises Wikiproject.

OK, second go at it. Let me know what you think. -Sykko-(talk to me) 22:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This user is a participant of the Media Franchises Wikiproject.

Look at the code, let the editor choose the color. :) LA @ 08:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks great, take a look at the template and let me know if you think I should do anything different before moving it into mainspace User:Sykko/templates/ubxmediafran -Sykko-(talk to me) 14:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I like it, why not move it to {{User WikiProject Media franchises}} to get the ball rolling? :) LA @ 21:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, move sucessful -Sykko-(talk to me) 21:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The image is ok, I suppose, but can we lose the "star"? (Or perhaps save it for use as the project's Barnstar? - jc37 02:04, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I simply used it because it was the image on the tag for talk pages that fall within the scope of the project. if you have an alternative idea we can definately test it and see what people think about it as an alternative. Although I think it is fine as a star, and a project barnstar should without a doubt include this star symbol though since it really fits in with the project and should be recognizable as a symbol for the project in general. -Sykko-(talk to me) 02:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Jc37...I put in a request for an image to be made here. You are certainly invited to try your hand at making us an image out of those. LA (T) @ 03:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
While I am happy to discuss, images aren't my forte. I was merely suggesting that the "star" seems less-than-indicative of a franchise, and instead can seem to give other less appropriate connotaions: Star=actor; star=5 "somethings"; star=barnstar. Even just those three possible confusions would seem to be enough to suggest (as I did), that, if keeping the image, the star part of the image be removed. - jc37 05:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Naming convention?

Resolved
 – Wrong venue, and we already have guidelines on this: WP:NCDAB, WP:MOSDAB.

Should we go for a naming convention here? There are so many ways these types of articles are being named, that it is hard to keep track.

Do we want to argue with the editors of each article about the name? There may be some who will adamantly refuse to change. LA @ 21:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well my thoughts:
  • "X franchise" and "X (franchise)" seem pretty interchangeable - there might be a guideline somewhere on the naming but I'd say encourage people to go for the latter but the former seems OK too.
  • "(series)" and "series" tend to focus on one aspect of the franchise (often film series) and it depends on how they shape up - this would be the kind of thing we'd be looking out for to help encourage people to expand into a franchise article, which would usually involve adding the spin-off media to it. Alien (franchise) started like this and I and others expanded the comics, books and video games until the article became about the franchise and it was renamed. That happened organically but offers of help could certainly help move things along in the right direction.
  • "in other media" (and actually "franchise media" in the case of things like Batman franchise media) are the opposite of the series as they usually contain only the spin-offs in other media. So, for example with Batman, the original is Detective Comics but has spawned various titles Batman (comic book), and many others. "in other media" has its place where you can get characters appearing in other media (without them being the franchise, for example Cyclops in other media, where the franchise is the X-Men).
So as you can see the coverage is variable and it feels like the franchises should be helped to develop their pages with an eye for a rounded franchise page and there are clearly two types of articles that need one area or another expanding (series need the spin-offs, in other media need the original works and spin-offs in the same media). I don't see a big problem with this as it is the end point of the natural growth of an article although it might be impeded due to the naming. It may be when we check that there are pages that are already media pages named as something else and it only needs a renaming and the infobox to set it up. These might be a natural first step. I plan on floating the idea to the comics project - using Superman in other media, Batman franchise media and the X-Men as natural jumping off points (the last being interesting as no "in other media" article exists so we could split the article straight to a franchise article) and there are others like Hulk (comics) and Spider-Man. See how the land lies and there might be enthusiasm get all the eligible ones done. (Emperor (talk) 20:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC))
I see on Talk:Law & Order franchise you've asked them if they'd mind changing to "(franchise)" - is there any preference? If it is actually about the Law & Order franchise then it doesn't seem a bad idea. I mean when we disambiguate we usually do it to differentiate between things of the same name, e.g. Superman (film) is about the film with the title Superman, equally that article isn't about the franchise called "Law & Order" it is about the "Law & Order franchise". Although I had a hand in naming CSI franchise I don't think I am fussed either way (actually thinking about it we probably only named it that way because we were basing it on the Law & Order one) but if we are going to prefer one and look for them to be renamed I'd rather we settled on something sooner rather than later as it'll mean less mess later on. (Emperor (talk) 00:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC))
My preference is (franchise) because I love the pipe trick. It makes listing things so much easier if I only have to type the name once, and then use the pipe trick to fix the link.
[[Law & Order franchise|Law & Order]] vs. [[Law & Order (franchise)|]]
What would you rather have to type? LA (T) @ 06:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Well if I was writing "This video game is part of the [[Law & Order franchise]]" then that. If I was referring to Law & Order, it would be "This novel is based on events and characters in [[Law & Order]]" as you'd need to be specific. It might be unwise to overuse piping in those cases as the piping would be misleading, for example some of the Alien comics (like Avenging Angel) are specifically based in the Alien universe and you'd want to be clear what you are referring to (i.e. it is not based on Alien (film) but on the Alien franchise (which in that case means the link requires more typing. So if I see "this is based on Law & Order" I'd expect it to be referring to that specific show, if it is a spin-off from the wider fictional universe then it should clearly say that, e.g. CSI: Miami span-off from the main CSI series and CSI: New York span-off from CSI: Miami, whereas some of the law & Order spin-offs are more generated from the fictional world of the franchise rather than any one specific series. (Emperor (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC))
Good points. I think I need to do another round of messages to get a wider consensus from other WikiProjects before we do any mass renaming. Let's not get everyone in a tizzy. What do you think? LA (T) @ 18:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Got the message. Quick question. Which of, (if any), of the articles in Category:24 articles by quality would be renamed, under this new naming convention? If you could give me a list, then I can discuss it amongst our project. If there are none, thats fine too :). Steve Crossin Contact/24 22:38, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
2¢-ish running off of Emperor's comments.
I'd prefer "<series> franchise" with a clear statement of purpose an article so named is covering what has spun off of the focal series and how. So articles like Doctor Who, Batman, and Star Wars would still be the primary articles on the core concept in the media the started in, and each would have a "child" article covering the spin-offs, or pointing to articles on specific spin-offs.
I'd also think that the "<comics character> in other media" articles, an the like for other fictional characters/concepts, would fit under this project as well. In most cases they are "franchise" stubs or starts. It the odd one that is for a character that isn't, link Emperor's Cyclops example. The character isn't a franchise per se, but part of the "X-Men franchise" which, as an article, would have a natural break point at how the cast of characters for the franchise are/were portrayed in other media. - J Greb (talk) 23:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
To answer Steve's question: The only article that might be effected by the naming would be: List of 24 (TV series) media which, I suggested above, is the one that would make sense as a franchise article. So it would become either "24 franchise" or "24 (franchise)" if you all wanted to rename it. (Emperor (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC))

←Whatever naming convention, ya'll decide on? is exceptable to me. GoodDay (talk) 23:08, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

For my 2 cents, as the founder of WP:ALIEN...I only think this is an issue if a disambiguation is necessary. For example with Star Wars no dab is necessary, since Star Wars is the umbrella title for the entire franchise and there is no single item within the franchise that is simply called Star Wars (excepting the original 1977 film, which was later re-titled to fit within the episodic film series). For Alien (franchise) the (franchise) dab is necessary as there are numerous single items within the franchise that use the singular title Alien (the 1979 film, a comic book series, and several video games), therefore we need a dab phrase to show that this article is about the franchise as a whole. I would say that for Batman or Superman no dab would be necessary, since these are franchises built around single characters and therefore the character articles are, in effect, articles about the franchises as wholes. Basically I'm saying that article naming is going to fluctuate on a case-by-case basis depending on the name of the franchise and the nature of the article, so a set of naming conventions isn't going to be all that helpful. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't really hold a position on (franchise) vs. series, but I don't like <subject> franchise or <subject series. It'd be like calling Shaun of the Dead "Shaun of the Dead film". - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
It's not quite that... It's more Shaun of the Dead - an article about the movie - and Shaun of the Dead franchise - an article about the spin-offs, the toys, games, TV show, musical, etc.
The "franchise" articles should not, never ever ever, be though of as a replacement for the article for the core series/property. A logical split, yes, but not a replacement. And Batman is a good example of when this happens. The article right now, covering the character, pushes the threshold of too larg file-wise. Various things were split out of it, opne being an "In other media" section. That article is the start of a "Batman franchise" article, deliniating where, why, and how DC Comics has licensed and marketed the character outside of its original comic book series. That article then points to the article on the seriels, the television shows, the films, and the video games.
- J Greb (talk) 00:06, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. Batman and Superman aren't franchise pages. As mentioned above the ones that come closest (and could be refocused as franchise articles) are Batman franchise media and Superman in other media. Any work that spawns enough spin-offs to be considered a media franchise are going to either have a page covering the media (like the two examples there) or are bulging at the seams and need such a page (in comics I've flagged X-Men as being one such - Shaun of the Dead may be another). (Emperor (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC))

How is this not instruction creep? -Malkinann (talk) 01:26, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I doubt deciding whether "X franchise" or "X (franchise)" would be the best way to go is really instruction creep but it could be argued that it is best to leave it up to the various projects. However, as the media franchise is a grey area where media crossover you could easily find clashes if the TV project went for one and film went for another. I suspect in the end, as consensus, looks to be far off it will come down to discussion on the talk page of the relevant articles, which is fine by me. (Emperor (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC))

This doesn't really seem to be very necessary to me. Most, if not all, of the various projects who left messages with have their own naming conventions that work just fine, and simple discussion deals with any conflicts. Rarely, and I mean seriously rarely, is there a need to disambiguate a franchise as it should be the main article of the topic. For example, from the Anime and Manga project, we have Sailor Moon, the franchise. It needs no disambiguation at all. The character is Sailor Moon (character) to disambiguate, and there is a disambiguate page for other instances as needd. All in all, I applaud your enthusiasm, but your message notes that "this may affect one or more articles under our project" when in reality, no, it won't. Our naming guidelines come first on all our articles, not anything decided here. I'd recommend doing nothing more than linking to the various naming guidelines already in place. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Generally speaking, the franchise should be the main article anyway, and other naming conventions shouldn't be dictated by this one Project; its scope is just too general for that to work. --Masamage ♫ 02:22, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
I also think this may be a solution in search of a problem. What exactly is the reason why this naming guideline would be useful? Could the advocates of this guideline perhaps point to some existing "franchise" articles in which the naming is problematic or ambiguous? If this is just for the sake of standardization, then I oppose it. As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
I've always thought that "<subject> (franchise)" was the best way to title these pages, especially since I've seen many articles use that layout. Inclusively, for the majority of articles there is "<subject> (film)", "<subject> (comics)", "<subject> (fictional character)", etc., so I definitely think "<subject> (franchise)" may be consistent enough to follow similar page names. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Specifics

I think that this should follow the same convention that "series" does. (per WP:NCF, WP:NC-TV, etc.)

The dab phrases are things like: (TV series), (film series), (video game series), etc.

Books are apparently the exception, per WP:NC-B.

So for franchise, just follow the same format, deferring to the medium in which the franchise began.

  • Star Wars (film franchise)
  • Lord of the Rings (franchise)
  • Charlie's Angels (TV franchise)
  • Street Fighter (video game franchise)

etc.

Thoughts? - jc37 02:03, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

There are some cases in which the medium in which a "franchise" became most popular is not the medium in which it first appeared. I'm thinking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which began as a film, but gained widespread popularity as a television series.
Incidentally, there doesn't seem to be an article for The Lord of the Rings regarded as a franchise. The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation) shows articles for the books, the recent film series, and several on adaptations in other media, but no article on the "franchise" as a whole.
By contrast, the articles Star Wars and Star Trek seem to do fine covering those two franchises without any disambiguation. Doctor Who, by contrast, is primarily about the television series, with a section on "adaptations and other appearances". This seems fine to me — I don't see any need to install a one-size-fits-all rule for different franchises, which don't necessarily fit into the same mold. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
This would be open to interpretation - "Star Wars (film franchise)" would be the equivalent of "Star Wars (film series)" so the addition of the media type is either going to make it overly redundant (where "Star Wars (franchise)" would be fine) or confusing - it'd be best to keep it simple (one of the principles at WP:D, after all). (Emperor (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC))

Here is a few sample franchises where a naming convention would be a good idea.

Firefly franchise or Firefly (franchise)
The word firefly is a common word, so nothing in this franchise would be able to use it without disambiguation.
Television series
Firefly (TV series)
Film
Serenity (film)
Soundtracks
Firefly (soundtrack)
Serenity (soundtrack)
The Kids in the Hall franchise or The Kids in the Hall (franchise)
Television series
The Kids in the Hall (this is the original work, so gets the non-disambiguated article title)
Film
Brain Candy
Plays
Kids in the Hall: Same Guys, New Dresses
Kids in the Hall: Tour of Duty
Young Frankenstein franchise or Young Frankenstein (franchise)
Film
Young Frankenstein (this is the original work, so gets the non-disambiguated article title)
Musical
Young Frankenstein (musical)
Soundtracks
Young Frankenstein: Dialogue & Music From Original Soundtrack
Young Frankenstein: The New Mel Brooks Musical

So, we are just trying to figure out which is preferable. LA (T) @ 07:14, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't like the parentheses because they seem to imply that the entire franchise in question is a proper noun. The use of the parentheses in something like "Star Wars (franchise)" implies that the series related to Star Wars is named "Star Wars," which it's not. "Star Wars franchise" on the other hand avoids these implications (Does that make sense to anyone?). Which is preferable: "Rudy Giuliani during the September 11, 2001_attacks" or "Rudy Giuliani (during the September 11, 2001 attacks)"? Just my opinion. -- Wikipedical (talk) 05:37, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe that if the primary title of the related works is the subject title (i.e. Friday the 13th is generally the primary title for all of the related works, though there are a few exceptions), then it should be "(franchise)". Now, something like "James Bond" is not the primary title, though it is a franchise. In which case, I think "James Bond franchise" is more appropriate. With "Star Wars", that is generally the primary title of all of the related works. So, a parenthesis would be more appropriate.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Right, and in answering the question which is the best naming convention, if we want a naming convention that is, I would go with no parentheses because it includes all of the above, all franchises with primary and just general titles. We should look for a way to include all types of franchises, like James Bond and Star Wars, in one stroke. -- Wikipedical (talk) 20:32, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Why? Not all "franchises" are the same. What is the urgent need to fit them all into the same mold for naming? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
If you read my comments, I said nothing about urgency. I am not a part of this WikiProject. I was merely invited to state my opinion about which naming convention is better and most consistent in my opinion. -- Wikipedical (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

One or the other, but not both

Here is why this is important, at least to me. When making a general template, it makes things a lot easier when there is a set naming convention in place. Now, I was planning on making a template to help make a list franchises. Now, to find out if a franchise has a franchise page, I would use the following... 

{{#ifexist:<subject> franchise|[[<subject> franchise]]|[[<subject>]] - no franchise page}}

Now, if there were more than one way to name these articles, I would have to nest several #ifexist functions within each other. The problem is that after 500 occurrences of #ifexist the parser function ceases to work due to technical limitations. I know that I would already have to split the list up, putting up to 500 franchises per page. For each variation that I have to nest, it cuts that down even further. If there were 2 ways of naming these articles, that means only up to 250 franchises per page. If there are 3 ways of naming franchises, that cuts it down to 166 franchises per page. If there are 4 ways of naming franchises, that cuts it down to 125 franchises per page. If there are 5 ways of naming franchises, that cuts it down to 100 franchises per page. It keeps reducing the more variations there are.

So, please, help us figure out the one way which these articles, templates, and categories can be named to make it easier to create them without having to agonize over the titles, and help make templating these things easier. LA (T) @ 20:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, articles should be named based on most common usage, not on what makes templating easier. Some franchises (such as Star Wars) are commonly referred to by the name, and "franchise" could be used as a disambiguator. Other franchises, like the James Bond franchise, work well as an article title (per Bignole's argument above). Still other franchises, like Young Frankenstein, are rarely referred to as franchises, so putting "franchise" in the title would be odd. (A Google search for the phrase "Young Frankenstein franchise" gets no hits.) I'm sorry that this inconsistency in common usage complicates template-making, but you can't put everybody's feet in the same size shoe. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Poll

This is just a poll to find out how things stand as of right now and to possibly get this discussion wrapped up sometime in the very near future. The discussion part of consensus building sometimes wanders far from the topic. So while this poll may not lead to an ultimate decision (thought it could), it will at least hopefully speed things along. LA (T) @ 09:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

PS. Voting is a tool :) LA (T) @ 09:23, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Your desire to "speed things along" and the wording of the initial message to "independent projects" (especially "implementing sweeping changes") make me wary of this poll, therefore I have added the "polling is evil" option. -Malkinann (talk) 09:40, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the discussion above is pretty clear. Few people think this project needs to do anything regarding naming conventions at all. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
<subject> (franchise)
Lady Aleena (talk · contribs)
Sykko (talk · contribs) - although my opinion on the matter perhaps should not carry as much weight as others since I am not entirely deep into the subject, but I do agree that the parenthesis seems to add more of a consistency to the articles and keeps it in line with many other naming conventions
Sesshomaru (talk · contribs)
<subject> franchise
Emperor (talk · contribs) - although I'm leaning towards letting people decide this is the option that makes sense to me. It doesn't need disambiguating as "X franchise" is the name, for example the CSI franchise isn't called "CSI" and so doesn't need disambiguating from other things sharing the name "CSI."
Wikipedical (talk · contribs) per my comments above.
Hiding (talk · contribs) per this is the title and content you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia. Dab phrases are meant to be used in exceptional circumstances, they are not the norm. We don't have an article on Space (outer) (Outer space) or Space (exploration) (Space exploration) or even Space (European Union) (Space policy of the European Union). Dab only when absolutely necessary. The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors. Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things. Hiding T 13:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Voting is evil
Malkinann (talk · contribs)
Masamage (talk · contribs) - This does not need to be standardized.
Quasirandom (talk · contribs) - need to be flexible depending on circumstances of given subject
jc37 (talk · contribs) - Normally, I'm a fan of straw polls, but this actually seems a case where the poll is interrupting discussion.
Steve Crossin (talk · contribs) - per jc37, while I'm all for progress, this seems a little rushed. Remember that there's no deadline, and that if things aren't done right away, it's not the "end of the world", so to speak. I'd suggest you give this some more time for discussion before trying a straw poll, but I'll add I understand the frustration. It's hard to get a dead Wikiproject active again, just keep at it. It's not impossible. Best, Steve Crossin Contact/24 05:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) per Quasirandom and jc37 05:44, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Josiah Rowe (talk · contribs) — I'm not convinced that the ease of template making is sufficient reason to impose a one-size-fits-all rule to media franchises which might be quite diverse. Some franchises are commonly called "the such-and-such franchise", whereas others, despite being franchises, are rarely called by that name. Hiding is correct above when s/he says "use the most common name ... that does not conflict with the names of other people or things", but that doesn't always point to the use of the word "franchise" in the title. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It will be one or the other, so choose which one you like more. This stupid fence sitting is intolerable. How hard is it to pick one? I will be making templates and those templates will require a choice. If you wish, I will change my opinion to be what Emperor and Wikipedical like just to get a decision. I want to start getting articles written and to do that there needs to be a clear naming convention. I am getting very weary of this. This was supposed to be short and sweet with a choice made quickly, basically a no-brainer. Instead it is getting drawn out intolerably. Why do we need flexibility? What is there to be flexible about? If the article is about the Xanadu franchise, then name it Xanadu franchise or Xanadu (franchise), whichever way this falls. What is the big deal about one or the other? Make life for editors simple by having a hard and fast rule for naming these articles. Again, please get off the fence and make a decision. LA (T) @ 06:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Voting is evil is not "fence sitting", it is conscientious objection and, I believe, a strong indication that consensus is unlikely to be reached at this time. For my part it is objection to the poll, to the poll being started up before discussion has properly been addressed and to the idea that this needs to be standardised at all. -Malkinann (talk) 09:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Patience, Aleena. When you're talking about a standardization that may affect articles across several subject areas, it's going to take time to get a consensus. Let the talk continue for a while longer before demanding a snap decision. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Getting aggressive is not an appropriate response. If consensus goes against a standardized name, you as an individual don't actually have the right to insist on something else. Please review WP:CREEP--there absolutely does not need to be a rule about everything, and as Malkinann indicates, voting that both of these are bad choices is not the same as deliberately hampering the process. Meanwhile, you are more than welcome to start writing articles without setting rules for everybody else. Pick whichever you like best--I think "<subject> (franchise)" is perfectly fine--and go for it. To avoid any confusion, just create a redirect from "<subject> franchise" and you're good to go. --Masamage ♫ 16:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I want to apologize for my outburst, but what I thought was going to be a no brainer turned into brain surgery. LA (T) @ 08:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not part of this WikiProject, but I do seem to have an opinion on the matter and case against using parentheses, which I have stated above in this discussion and that User:Hiding seems to echo in the above poll. To keep the discussion moving as opposed to rushing to action or stalling consensus, I would ask what problems could arise from standardizing non-use of parentheses, e.g. "Star Wars franchise" as opposed to "Star Wars (franchise)." -- Wikipedical (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

LA, what kinds of templates are you intending to make? -Malkinann (talk) 01:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I am thinking about adding a line at the very bottom of the existing infobox templates for each media type along the lines of...
{{#if:{{{franchise|}}}|
{{!}}-
{{!}}colspan="2"{{!}}Part of {{#ifexist:{{{franchise name}}} franchise|the [[{{{franchise name}}} franchise]]|[[{{{franchise name}}}]]}}.
}}
...or something like that.
That way there is a link in the infoboxes to the franchise article where more general information can be retrieved by the user that is at the top of the page instead of having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the articles, some of which are so long that they take forever to load, especially some comic articles.
The reason that I am for (franchise) is because there are already conventions in place for (novel series) and (film series), which if there are both a novel and a film series in the franchise, they would be linked on the (franchise) page if it is needed. Not all articles will need franchise on them at all, such as Dragonriders of Pern which is a novel series, has a soundtrack, has various games, a comic book, and a possible film in the works but not one item in that franchise is called Dragonriders of Pern the last time I checked. So, yes, I would have to tweak the code above, but that is simple.
Another thing, there is an incomplete list of possible franchise articles which need names, and until this is sorted, they can't be started since too many pages moves makes me nervous. The convention to be decided here is how to disambiguate franchise articles, and usually disambiguation means (term). LA (T) @ 08:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Cheers for explaining - I wasn't sure where the template talk was coming from, as it wasn't in your initial message to the projects. What does that code mean in English? What will it do? Would it be very difficult to make it have a different display name to whatever the article's called? WP:ANIME has an {{Infobox animanga}} that you might like to have a look at. -Malkinann (talk) 08:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Malkinann, what it does is provide a link to the article about the franchise as a whole. The article about the franchise would be a general overview of everything within the franchise. See the example franchises above, please. LA (T) @ 12:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

General comment: I agree with a name convention. This would give Wikipedia a more standarized and professional look. However, I have still some doubts regarding this. I will work with Harry Potter as an example, as I am an active member of the WikiProject. The main article for all things related to Harry Potter is the one linked before, without any sub-title (like "series", "book series" or "franchise"). The introduction of the article mainly talks about a "series of novels" and most of the article is about the book series, but it has also a section for "Other media" that includes the film series, videogames, and other stuff. I do not know if this article is indeed about a franchise or only about the book series. Apart from this article, we have also a Harry Potter (film series) article. There is no article for the videogame series (each videogame has its individual article), nor the soundtracks (there was previously a ridiculous article called "Harry Potter music" that was a list of tracklists with each song's appearance, and that now is a disambiguation page). --LøЯd ۞pεth 01:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Under the 'no parentheses' convention, the idea would be that the currently-named "Harry Potter" article would become "Harry Potter franchise," "Harry Potter (film series)" would become "Harry Potter film series," and that "Harry Potter (character)" would become "Harry Potter." -- Wikipedical (talk) 03:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I would have to disagree with that happening; generally when someone says "I love Harry Potter!" or for that matter "I love Sailor Moon!" they're talking about the series, not the character. --Masamage ♫ 15:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Lord Opeth, I just took a look at the Harry Potter article and am a bit disappointed at the sever lack of information in the article about the films, video games, stage productions, and theme park attraction; also why no information about the soundtracks? For that article, my first take would be that the sections for the various media would be == level 2 ==, so ==Novels==, ==Films==, ==Soundtracks==, ==Video games==, etc. which would all go before anything else about the franchise. Move the "other media" up above "structure and genre," and split other media up to their respective media types. I would also suggest that an article for each media type for Harry Potter be started. Harry Potter (novel series), Harry Potter (film series), Harry Potter (video game series), Harry Potter (soundtracks), etc. Oh, and the article name is fine since it is the name of the series and the only item in the series that shares that name is the title character, which should stay Harry Potter (character). (Isn't there another Harry Potter character from another unrelated series?)
Basically, this naming convention is for disambiguation if the title of the original work is the same as the franchise, which is why I prefer (franchise) <standard disambiguation> over plain franchise. And right now I am a bit tired. I took a few days away from this topic because I was getting a little frustrated as you all could plainly see with my angry outburst above. Right now I am not sure if I am making sense or not. If I didn't, I will try to explain when I am more cogent. LA (T) @ 12:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your answers. To Wikipedical, I think that, for practical purposes, the title character's article should stay as "Harry Potter (character)" or "Harry Potter character". As Masamage said, Harry Potter is more like a general subject, that's why there are articles about real-world issues like Politics of Harry Potter, Harry Potter influences and analogues or Harry Potter fandom.
To LA, I get your point, but I think that the Harry Potter article does not lack information on films, music, games, etc. I think that we instead lack a general article about the franchise, because as you noted, this is really centred on the book series. I agree with you, however, that we still need to separate the book series from the general franchise and expand all issues about the franchise. But I am not sure about having individual articles on the soundtracks and the videogames. The Harry Potter music article I talked was an annoying list of tracklists, with each song having a description like "this song is a very comical one that you can hear when Harry falls from his bed." For instance, soundtracks and videogames have individual articles for their own (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (soundtrack) or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)). --LøЯd ۞pεth 18:09, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Disambiguations go in parentheses (round brackets). Period. See WP:NCDAB, WP:MOSDAB. If some unusual exception is believed to be needed, a case needs to be made for that at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation so that it can be updated to account for it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

assessments...

I was just wondering if anyone would be willing to help me out with assessing importance on articles that have tagged talk pages. Aleena and I have come up with a pretty solid standard on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Media franchises/Assessment so it takes alot of the guess work and subjectivity out of it. Anyway the reason I ask is because I am pretty much doing most of it for now and it will take me another couple of weeks to get it all done but if I had someone helping me out I could potentially get it done a lot quicker. Typically I do about 10-15 a day, and as of this post there are 81 that need assessments. So between 2 people at 10 a day we would have it all caught up by the weekend and then we can deal with them as they get added later. -Sykko-(talk to me) 01:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just wondering: Why are assessments necessary for this project? - jc37 22:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Assessments are necessary for any project for the benefit of organizing which articles need help and perhaps how much attention they deserve from that project. If per-se someone were to go on a hunt to improve articles with the project's infobox they could benefit by starting with articles of top importance of a low quality scale as often stubs can be easily taken up to start class. It's just a way to really look at large-scale article improvement in a quick glance -Sykko-(talk to me) 00:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Depends... will the project be assessing importance, something that really doesn't make much sense, or "class", which does make sense. - J Greb (talk) 22:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
All of the class assessments have been caught up, it was a small backlock of 10 or 15 articles and I took care of that a few days ago. Importance is as important as class if not more-so since it helps members of the project get an idea of priorities without having to guess based on title names.
All the same, if assessments aren't even important then I need to know now because it actually does take work and time to take care of and I would hate to be doing it for nothing. -Sykko-(talk to me) 00:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, well... I guess I will just hold off on continuing this work until I know it's worth it. -Sykko-(talk to me) 20:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Groovy enough, I hope you all the best success with this project :) -Sykko-(talk to me) 02:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Example article to show what this is all about

There is an example article for those who are interested in what this project is all about. It was written using the Young Frankenstein franchise. I can put together several more if need be. LA (T) @ 05:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

PS. If you want to improve it by replacing the lorem ipsum in the example, feel free to do so. LA (T) @ 05:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm still not seeing that its necessary at all. It overruns several other projects, which already handle their franchises fine. I've yet to see any major issues of conflicts, or any need for one project to "reign in" the various parts of the franchise. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that other media specific projects tend to focus on one media only and neglect the rest. The above mentioned Harry Potter article is all about the novels with everything else squirreled away at the bottom of the article. The films and video games should have an equal amount of coverage in the article as the novels, and there is no mention of the soundtracks at all. The only item in that article which should be given a little more attention then anything else is the very first novel, as it is the origin of the franchise. The article should have links to every other article about the franchise in it somewhere that is not the navbox. So, this project, which is non-media specific aims to get articles written which are media neutral. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of franchises that the only way to find out there is a franchise is to find the origin article and hope that everything else is linked in it.
It is hoped that this project will be a bridge between all media specific projects. This project will hopefully enhance the others and give media franchises a place to call home, especially the small ones which may not merit a full blown project. This project is for those franchises which may have only one item per media type.
I am still working on a list of media franchises in my user space that, when done, I hope will provide a base for this project. (It takes a lot of time to track down all related media of a subject, and I have had to take breaks to catch my mental breath.)
This project does not want to usurp media specific series which have not branched out into other media as of yet. If a novel series does not have any other media attached to it, that novel series falls under the auspices of WikiProject Novels. If a film series never produced anything other than films, it falls under the auspices of WikiProject Films. And so on. But once a media specific series crosses between media, that is where this project comes in and starts writing the franchise article and making sure that everything in the franchise is treated equally. Also, if there is a media franchise that is large and without a project, this one may suggest that one be started. Just look at how much there is to The Addams Family. It is a very large media franchise without a project, but something as small as The 4400 (1 television series, 1 novel, 1 book, and 1 soundtrack) has a WikiProject.
I hope that starts to clarify why this project was started. LA (T) @ 22:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why there needs to be as much information about, say, Harry Potter video games as about the books. There's far less to say about them, as they've affected the world less, and far fewer people have given a hoot over their existence. They're not as important, and have not received as much coverage in secondary sources. There's no reason to inflate their significance just because they're part of a franchise. I mean, one of the biggest parts of any franchise is the merchandising, and it's not like there's going to be a viable article about Harry Potter T-shirts, cereal box offers, action figures, and bedsheets. Some things just are, and there's little to say about them. --Masamage ♫ 22:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
That's a pretty strong accusation (of a sort) and wholly inaccurate. The anime and manga project certainly doesn't neglect any of the media, we cover all of it as part of the series. Ditto the television project. And, again, yes, you are usurping by presuming that it should take over any article that has multiple media. Again, anime and manga project includes ALL its media, including the manga series, the anime, the films, the art books, the video games, etc. Addams Family has a project as well. It is part of Television, with specific articles also being part of films. Projects can and do overlap. That's how it works. It has nothing to do with neglect. Yeah, sometimes the articles are of various quality, but that's ALL articles. There are a limited number of good editors who actually work to bring articles to standard. There will also be some in the cracks waiting. Also agree with Masamage. We don't give undue weight to secondary "media' and marketing materials. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
How about using a more difficult franchise as an example of how you want to do this? Young Frankenstein seems to be pretty straight forward and easily pressed into a scheme, I'd say the same is true for Harry Potter.
Why not use Transformers as an example? I think that would be a good proving point. The Transfomers franchise has comics, movies, video games, but those are interwoven into Generations or subseries. How would you handle Transformers? For example, there are two movies which have been shown in cinemas, one belongs to the G1 cartoon [in comparison to the different independent G1 comic canons: G1 UK, G1 US, G1 Dreamwave, G1 IDW - the cartoon itself has partially alternate Japanese only seasons], the other started a new subseries with books, comics, soundtracks, video games of its own. Not to mention Beast Wars (which stems from an amalgam of G1 comics and G1 cartoon), the Unicron triology and all the others. Which layout would that franchise get? --89.246.214.218 (talk) 15:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Collectonian and Masamage, above — sometimes a concept exists in more than one medium, but not all the media are equally important. I don't think it's a big problem, for example, that Doctor Who doesn't mention the Doctor Who pinball game — because in the long history of Doctor Who, the pinball game isn't that important. There are scads of reliable secondary sources talking about the Doctor Who television series and the films; slightly fewer talking about the books and other spin-offs. What exactly is to be gained by squeezing it into the model you propose with your Young Frankenstein example?

Another question that would have to be answered is exactly what constitutes a "franchise". (I'm not mad about the term, actually, as to my ear it emphasizes the money-making aspect of a creative endeavour over the creative impulse, but I'll let that go for now.) Is it any work which appears in more than one medium? What about something like the comic book Hellblazer and the film Constantine — the latter was supposedly an adaptation of the former, but it underwent so many changes that it's hard to say what a "Hellblazer/Constantine franchise" would be. It's also worth remembering that "franchises" aren't limited to fiction: for example, the television show Pop Idol has become a franchise with multiple national incarnations and spin-offs in different media, and I don't know how well something like that would fit into your Young Frankenstein example.

Perhaps I'm missing the point here — if this isn't about standardizing articles which are currently being shepherded by different WikiProjects, what is it about? And if it is about that sort of standardization, isn't it a sort of "meta-project", with (to mix my metaphors) fingers in lots of pies and the potential for stepping on lots of toes? I can see the benefit for "lesser franchises" like, say, Alien Nation, which might otherwise slip through the cracks, but in cases where a project exists I don't really see the benefit of this "media-neutral" approach. Sometimes one medium is more notable than another, and the people who care about the subject are likely to be able to determine when that is. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Without wanting to pour any more cold water on this concept, I happened across the list which appears (please correct me if otherwise) to include Bedknobs and Broomsticks simply because it's a musical/film based on a novel, and therefore in two discrete mediums: print and film...
That would tend to imply that - perhaps under a misconception of the logic underlying the focus - all films based on novels are immediate "media franchises" (patently untrue) and might also cross-suggest that under the current logic any film that is novellised also enters the scope of this project...!
I think there's a likely need for an eye to be cast over cases like, perhaps, Harry Potter, Transformers, Superman, Batman and The Shadow, but I question what the current guidelines entail. Certainly it would be more inaccurate to spend as much time on the Potter videogames as on the Potter films; and just as bad to take as many words to detail the films as to cover the books (in that specific example, as mentioned above). An insidious side-effect of the project as it stands might be that it opens the floodgates for individuals to offer their own slanted opinion over which incarnation/medium's representation of a particular character is the "most true" - there's already some confusion over the origin of Two-Face thanks to the differing depiction on film. Clearly Two-Face is a comics character first and foremost; the Potters are books; Transformers is more confusing, and so forth. Not every medium is equal in all (or even most) cases, as has already been noted. ntnon (talk) 23:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The point

The purpose of this WikiProject is to create articles which offer an overview of an entire franchise and links to all of the articles on the subject, specifically the media of the subject. The articles would not overburden the reader with specific information about a singular media or group of media of the subject. So, as we are using Harry Potter as a continuing example, the entire section on the novels would be trimmed to a few sentences on each, and for the secondary media, there would be a section on each secondary media type with at least a list of the articles created. So, in the section on video games, a mention of the producer of the games would be in the lede of the section; in the section on the soundtracks, the composer and record label would get a mention. Both video games and soundtracks articles would then be listed. Also, the image in the infobox could contain a novel cover, a DVD cover, a soundtrack cover, and a video game cover to show how varied the franchise is. (I have not read the novels, just seen the films. It might take me a while to afford the novels, since first edition first printings are probably very expensive.)

As another example, let's look at the Blade Runner franchise, some of which surprised me when I was looking into it.

Blade Runner
Blade Runner novels
by Philip K. Dick
  1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ISBN 0345404475
  2. Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995) ISBN 0553099795
  3. Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996) ISBN 0553099833
  4. Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon (2000) ISBN 0575068655
Other novels
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick (1966)
Total Recall by Piers Anthony (1989) ISBN 0380708744
Blade Runner films
Blade Runner (1982)
Total Recall (1990)
Soldier (1998)
Blade Runner soundtracks by Vangelis
Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner (1994)
Blade Runner (2007)
Total Recall by Jerry Goldsmith (1990)
Blade Runner television series
Total Recall 2070 (1999)
Blade Runner video games
Blade Runner by Westwood Studios (1997)
Total Recall

I had no idea that Total Recall and Soldier were part of the Blade Runner franchise for several articles. If there had been an overview (franchise) article, I would have known at a glance that all of these media were connected. I didn't know that there was a novel series for Blade Runner. All I knew about was that the film was based on a novel with a long name, which I couldn't remember until I read the article on the film again. It took a lot of digging though articles to put that list together.

The Total Recall media are all buried at the tail end of the article about the film. They don't even have infoboxes for the television series or the video game. The article doesn't mention the soundtrack or that it was released again as a Deluxe Edition.

So, instead of tucking all of the secondary media away at the bottom of articles, they get moved to the overview article which shows everything. Also, when it is found that an article needs to be created such as the Total Recall novel, video game, and soundtrack articles, the talk pages get tagged with the appropriate WikiProject banners. The novel would get tagged with WikiProject Novels, the video game with WikiProject Video games, and the soundtrack with WikiProject Albums all as Needed-Class above with the WikiProject Media franchises banner. Also, a Blade Runner navbox might be created with all of the media in it, if one hasn't been already.

By the way, Bedknobs and Broomsticks has two novels, a film, and a soundtrack. The film is the only article created. There are no articles for the novels or the soundtrack nor infoboxes for them in the article either. The origin of the franchise should at least have an article, which is the novel The Magic Bed-Knob: Or How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons.

I am staying away from extremely large franchises in my examples, since, well, I have not completely searched them yet. Also, if the word franchise is not appropriate for this project, please help me come up with the more appropriate title. I am certainly willing to change the name of the project and all of its subpages, categories, and templates to suit.

So, this WikiProject was not formed to be a meta-project over other media WikiProjects. It was formed to build the media bridges between the articles of those WikiProjects. So, a film based on a novel belongs to WikiProject Films and WikiProject Novels, with WikiProject Media franchises acting as a bridge between them by creating the article that would join the articles on the film and the novel together. If a video game spawns a soundtrack, the article would belong to WikiProject Video games and WikiProject Albums, and again WikiProject Media franchises building the bridge.

WikiProject Media franchises will follow any guidelines set forth by the other media WikiProjects in regards to naming and templating articles on a media specific article. All that is asked in return is that our one template is used on the overview article. Also, if anyone has any ideas of how to shuffle the sections of that template around so that they can be more adaptive to the franchise, I am very willing to listen. LA (T) @ 08:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Now Blade Runner is a good example. I wonder though, based on the Blade Runner article, whether creating and adapting infoboxes might not be more helpful in many cases..? For example, I don't really see the definite need for full articles on all the Blade Runner novels - let alone novellisations or minor videogames. Surely AN article on "Blade Runner novels" would suffice in this instance, and mentions that "a soundtrack was released featuring the music composed by..." on the page for the film would take care of the soundtracks?
Similarly, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is not a particularly notable novel - it's really only famous because of the film. (And the soundtrack surely doesn't deserve anything more than a very minor mention on the page about the film. Should every film that has a soundtrack released have a separate article..? Some are certainly independantly notable - often thouse "inspired by" rather than simply "music from"; most are not.)
It is very helpful to put those Blade Runner links together, telling people who aren't aware that the other films are set in nominally the same universe, but that could be done with links rather than an overview page. Is the intention to have the Franchise Article be the "main" article..? Otherwise, how will the franchise pages be linked? ntnon (talk) 21:08, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I can sort of agree that not all of the novelizations need articles and also that one article on them would suffice. I also agree that there will be a need for media specific infobox modifications. A place to see where there was no infobox to cover the various television programs of a franchise is at Ripley's Believe It or Not!. There are three television programs, and I remember adding the three infoboxes for them. Another helpful editor came in and just made a custom infobox for the article to tidy it up. The infobox looks good and is far better than the three I added. With that as an example, we could expand on that work.
I also had an idea of an infobox shell for articles which will cover all media, as with the Bedknobs and Broomsticks example. That article would have 1 {{Infobox film}}, 2 {{Infobox Book}}s, and 1 {{Infobox Album}}. I have already added the Infobox Album to the section that I renamed to Soundtrack from Songs. However, do we want the infoboxes in the sections for each of the media, or do we want to shell them all at the top of the article?
Also, I was thinking that there would be "main" articles about the various franchises. Blade Runner (franchise) would be the main article for that topic, however Bedknobs and Broomsticks is doing a good enough job as the main and sole article of that franchise.
It is hoped that the various media WikiProjects will participate here to help bring their articles together whenever one media crosses over to another. This project can not act without the approval of them, since it is their templates and conventions we will be following, with the exception of {{Infobox Media franchises}} which is for the "main" franchise articles where there are seperate articles for the various media within it. That is why I am hoping for those projects to sign up as liaisons so that we don't step on their toes. Maybe come up with a co-ordinated naming convention between them, or at least a page with all of the naming conventions listed.
Bridge building is tough, but that is what this project is trying to accomplish. LA (T) @ 08:39, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't see the reply here pop up on my watchlist thing. Weird. Anyway, better late than never...
Interesting comment about Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and yes the combined infobox works well - that's another case ripe for a specific Ripley's template, to my eyes. Deserving topic; highly notable; little known off-shoots, etc., etc. ...that said, such an Infobox pre-supposes that the strip, the shorts, the TV series' and the museum(s) have their own pages, which as yet they don't. Ridiculous, and sad, but something to work on. (N.B. I may have conflated 'infobox' with 'template' at some point in the last couple of posts... but since a mixture of both is of benefit, it should make enough sense as is.)
I really don't think an album - particularly a soundtrack - is a notable enough addition to another media to be considered part of a potential (or existing) franchise. Maybe I'm in the minority, and (although it's perhaps difficult to explain or describe) there's a difference between music "inspired by" something; a "score" and a "soundtrack." The B&B soundtrack is interesting (unused songs, stereo/mono), but not really part of a potential "franchise," which I still don't fully consider B&B to be. I also don't see the need for a specific infobox for the album on the B&B page, not least because the Shermans, Kostal, BV and 1971 are already in the infobox for the film. A combined box would be better, but I'm still not convinced that it would need to include an album/soundtrack section. Not as a basic option, at least. Vangelis ought to be mentioned for Blade Runner; but the fact that a musical film released a soundtrack of the film's music is not particularly surprising, nor should it be a consideration for what constitutes a franchise. In my - half-formed, badly defined and possibly incoherent - opinion.
I would certainly say that the infobox should be SINGLE and at the top; and for the more "real" franchises (for want of a better expression), a proper template should complement the separate pages the franchise will span. Like Star Trek or Wars, for example. So I think that the Blade Runner template pretty much covers the need for a mass-infobox, or even really a franchise page for the BR franchise. Now, the infobox as is needs to expanded upon: Soldier is mentioned; Total Recall is not, for example. But that template should serve as the franchise "hub." I just don't see a need for "Blade Runner (franchise)." Blade Runner IS Blade Runner, a film. However, in addition to the film, there's the source story, the 'inspired-by'/'same universe' films, the TV series, the novels and the music, but Blade Runner means Blade Runner, not the 'franchise.' Any mooted franchise page would just be an expansion of the template (which could, conceivably, be renamed "Blade Runner franchise" or similar), and thus serve no real purpose: - it would be links + a precis of the individual pages. The links are in the template; and while a precis is sometimes nice, the pages themselves are just a click away (and the individual article lead-in should be that self-same precis, if the editing is working right).
So I do see some need for a project spotting the links between disparate pages and cementing them as parts of a larger whole through links, infoboxes and templates, but I don't think "(franchise)" pages are necessarily a) needed or b) the right way to go about compiling the links. Absolutely they should be made, but there are (possibly) better ways to make them. (If that makes sense! :o))
Without digging down into it too deeply, I like your {{Infobox Media franchises}}, but I still say that "Soundtracks" do not make or add to a 'franchise,' and have no place in the infobox. On the article pages, (e.g. Bridget Jones the film can - and does - mention the soundtrack. It does not yet mention the second volume, so fixing those kind of omissions would be a marvellous use for a concerted effort/project) yes. Great! But they should have no place in the infobox. "Music," yes, but not soundtracks.
Bridge building, recognition between different groups that their subjects are crossing into other media, links and bringing cohesion across disparate elements: great. Infoboxes and templates, fantastic. Specific (franchise) pages... not at all convinced of their need. ntnon (talk) 22:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I really like your ideas here. I think greater use of nav templates and interlinking would be a great thing for this project to work on. --Masamage ♫ 22:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
All what's going on here (at this discussion) is alot for me to digest. You're all miles ahead of me in what you're discussing. It's gonna take awhile for me to grasp what's happening. GoodDay (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I like showing people Ripley's as a media franchise. Most don't realize how big it is, especially the youngsters who have only seen the sugary Dean Cain version. Please dig deep, we need people to root around and help figure out what this project should be doing.
Now, I don't know why you think soundtracks are not important. In my opinion, they are just as important as the book the film or television program was based on or the video game spawned by the film or television program or if the soundtrack was based directly on the video game. They become their own entities when released on CDs, cassettes, or (gasp) vinyl. Soundtracks showcase the composer's work without the actors and the script getting in the way. (I would buy the prequel Star Wars soundtracks, but not the DVDs. I like John Williams, I loathe the prequel films.)
There could be two types of articles. The first is franchise articles which would be something akin to an overview which would include such things as common characters, settings, etc and get the {{Infobox Media franchises}}. The second would be all-in-one articles which would cover everything in a franchise all on one page and get another infobox called {{Infobox Media franchises all in one}} which would have sections that can be shuffled around depending on the importance of the various media. So, while Star Wars would get a franchise article, Bedknobs and Broomsticks would get an all-in-one article. If someone ever came along and remade Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the all-in-one could handle the new film or could become a franchise article. Ripley's is currently an all-in-one article.
So, we need to look at every infobox for every media out there and decide what goes in the all in one template. Frankly, if everything is included, the all in one template could be longer (visually) than the article unless each section is collapsible (though it would not be collapsed when printed). What do you think? LA (T) @ 07:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, RIPLEY'S very much needs greater coverage, although that's down to proper editing and work, rather than the - current - prospective purview of this project... although it should definitely be an offshoot: Highlight the pages that ought to be legion, rather than packed, and encourage people to expand/split/improve them.
I'm not sure how best to explain (further) my issue with soundtracks, and it may wind up getting lengthy, confused and confusing again, so be warned! :o) I'll try and explain by example (and probably confuse myself in the process).
  • STAR TREK is a franchise. It began as a TV series and grew to empass five TV series' and a cartoon; nine or ten films, hundreds of spin-off books and comics; at least one fictional language (and associated texts and translations); specific conventions & fandom; videogames, etc. That's clearly a cross-media franchise, rooted in all the main separate areas. Fine.
  • BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS isn't a "franchise." It is a film, based on a (pair of) book(s). That's all. That it had a soundtrack is neither here nor there - it's music from the film, and is the same as the film. The CD isn't a new, novel spin on the B&B theme, separately inspired by the books - it's simply a release of the songs used in the film. (Fair enough, it's very interesting, maybe even notable - but not the franchise-breaker. Because that's what it would be. Road to Perdition isn't a franchise - it's a film based on a comic. Marley & Me isn't a franchise - it's a film based on a book. A CD soundtrack supports the film, but isn't really a separate-enough entity to be considered <in my opinion> a separate entry in a potential franchise. And certainly is hasn't the weight to MAKE a franchise, as seems to be the implication for B&B. It's not independantly notable.)
  • THE MATRIX is a franchise. A film, two sequels, a spin-off series of animations set in the same world, an online game, another game(?) and some comics. BUT. The "music from" and "score" are not independant parts of that franchise, they merely compliment the film. (I don't see why the score has a separate page, frankly. I understand that the information on the "music from" page might otherwise clutter the film page, but the score can be folded in easily - chronology is irrelevant; picture goes next to the tracklisting; composer in the film's infobox; produced either joins it or gets mentioned in the text. Simple!)
  • JURASSIC PARK became a franchise, but wasn't when it was just one film. It was a film based on a book. When The Lost World was written, it became a film based on a book that had a sequel. Only with the second film did it become a franchise.
Basically, what it boils down to is - loosely, and with some scope for negotiation - this: pretty-much EVERY film released (and more so for genre films) has a soundtrack and a novelisation. That does not make every film a franchise. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Arguably (and this could be where it dissolves into pure semantics) a film with a videogame isn't a franchise, whereas two films and videogame might well be. A film and a spin-off book may fast approacj franchise-status, but it would need another spin-off book (or a videogame) to make it. (In my opinion, at least.)
Looking at the list, I'm somewhat bemused at many of the entries - not least because there are obviously many levels which have, for the time being, been conflated into ONE LIST, where there should be several subsets: 12 Angry Men certainly isn't a franchise on the same level as Buffy, for example. I'm not convinced it's a franchise, even though it does now stretch into three media. Mainly, my reasoning for it is that it's all-but identical on stage as on film, so the two are two close to be separate strands of a 'franchise'. "Cross-Media-<thing>": Yes. "Franchise": No. Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy, the Batman films; maybe 28 Days Later - those are franchises. "Batman" as a whole really isn't, however.
Cases like Beauty and the Beast... yes, there are different adaptations. Yes there are also (pseudo-)sequels, and inspired-bys like the TV series, but the majority of the major elements (story, La Belle, Disney, Disney-on-stage) are broadly adaptations of the same source. I don't think that remakes and re-adaptations make for a franchise. Hence, 12 Angry Men is not a 'franchise,' even as it is a "Cross Media something." Beauty & Beast is more franchise-like, but it isn't as obviously A FRANCHISE as Buffy, Batman and the Avengers.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't common elements. As far as identifying those popular culture stories/things that have cross-media exposure, with the intent to interlink those exposures and better integrate Wikipedia's coverage of them, then there are definite parallels. Which is why I feel infoboxes (for straight, but small, 'franchises': a film, a sequel and the book it was based on; three books, one film and a short-lived cartoon; etc.), templates (for the more "proper" - larger - franchises: three films, the book each was based on, the spin-off videogames, the direct-to-DVD spin-off, and the TV series; four iterations of a TV series, two spin-off series of novels, a film and a cartoon; etc.) and fair enough in some select cases a main page linking to everything is the way to go. For things like ALICE and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, you need first-and-foremost a disambiguation page, because most things under that name are unconnected. For BEAUTY, the Disney (better known?) version has probably enough elements to make a 'franchise' - and the key word for the musical/stage show is "INSPIRED BY," rather than simply "moved to" - and might therefore deserve a tailored infobox (and probably the videogame(s) merged together), but there's not need for a "Beauty and the Beast (franchise)" page: it would confuse rather than enlighten, and not be long enough to justify existing.
More examples: BEWITCHED is a minor franchise - the TV series, the spin-off and the "inspired by" film, a minor cartoon and a minor spin-off comic book; CAGNEY AND LACEY is not. It is a TV series that had four TV movies - so that's basically the same medium - and, if I remember rightly, a handful of books which were novelisations of the series. There are a couple more non-fiction books - a memoir and an academic text or two - but those aren't part of a mooted franchise. Novelisations don't count. CD soundtracks don't count. They are part-and-parcel of the original programme/film. They cannot be cited as examples of a multi-media expansion. DR WHO has crossed onto CD with all-new adventures. STAR TREK has, too. But when the BBC tries to shamelessly cash-in on Fawlty Towers and Blackadder by releasing the audio from the programmes on CD, that doesn't count. Arguably, some "novelisations" that work from earlier film drafts can be said to be 'alternate world' renditions, and might technically count as separate entities, but broadly speaking there's no essential difference in plot or point, so novelisations are not franchise expanding or creating articles. You need to have SPIN-OFF books or CONTINUATIONS or SEQUELS or INSPIRED BY... or SET IN THE SAME UNIVERSE for a "franchise."
CHARLIE'S ANGELS is touch-and-go. Yes, a TV series, two films, videogame(s), books and sundry toys and items. BUT. The films could be argued as remake/reinterpretations; the games are simply the film-on-consoles and the books are, again, novelisations of the episodes/films. There are not - to my knowledge - continuations in novel form. There was a brief UK comic strip, so maybe CHARLIE'S would count as a 'franchise,' but it's a complex issue that seems to have become confused by the assumption that ANY instance of ANYTHING in another media equals a franchise. That's not true. A separate videogame counts; a shoddy-film-tie-in game based on the film doesn't. A spin-off, sequel or prequel novel counts; a novelisation does not. I can't think of a way to easily express the subtle distinction I see between most film's soundtracks and the full Vangelis score for Blade Runner, but there is one - maybe "soundtrack" is too broad: scores, musicals-music and 'songs from' are all "soundtracks" - the latter two are not notable, the former could be, however. The Bridget Jones CDs, for example, are rightly not given their own page. They merely contain songs used in the film. That's worth a mention, but not separately notable, and certainly not another medium into with Ms Jones has spread.
So... that's lengthy and confusing. Sorry. But simply: there's little need for (franchise) pages - in large part because most things on the list are not really "franchise"s. There is definite call for some disambiguation pages, many composite infoboxes, several templates and a lot of corrections, integrations, links, mentions and expansions. Some page splitting, some page compressions. Not everything is template, page or infobox material - novelisations and (most) soundtracks fall into that category. Not everything that ticks a box in a different media can actually be said to have moved into that media - a film-tie-in-videogame doesn't count; the new Ghostbusters videogame DOES; the novelisation of the I, Robot film doesn't count; Asimov's book DOES; 2010, 2061 and 3001 DO, and the Kirby comic was 'inspired by' and counts; the Time Bandits novelisation doesn't count, neither does the Marvel Comics comics adaptation - they're both straight adaptations, not "inspired by"; Terry Gilliam's projected-but-may-never-happen sequel comic WOULD COUNT. - even though most of it may be worthy of passing mention in the article(s). Those that fit on one page, should. Those that need several are probably better covered by a template than a (franchise) page, I'd say. Overviews and disambiguation pages are one thing, mentioning that there are other pages worth noting on the MAIN page is another, templates sit between the two - (franchise) pages would seem to be an unnecessary complication of the three.
...any clearer..?! ntnon (talk) 16:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I totally agree with you on the list being bemusing. 10.5 is NOT a franchise. Its a television miniseries with a sequel. There are a ton of similar titles, or television series with a soundtrack (not a franchise), etc that are not franchises. Its one of many reason I oppose this entire project, the apparent inability to even realize what is and is not a franchise. There are NOT that many "franchises" out there compares to the number of films and television series. Just people trying to call it that because it has some related media (as Ntnon notes, this does not equal instant franchise). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Ntnon...I respectfully disagree with you. The CDs (cassettes or records too) will always be just as important as all other media produced for a subject such as films/DVDs (VHS or laserdisks), books, audio books, games (video, board, strategic card, pinball, arcade, etc), plays, television or radio programs, etc. However, I am willing to compromise and say that those could be included in an all-in-one article.
Collectonian...earlier in this discussion, I said that if franchises was the wrong word for this project, I would be willing to change the name of the project to more accurately describe what it is trying to accomplish which is to have full coverage of all media related to a subject that has been released. As far as I know, that is what a franchise is. Please be a little more positive, I am trying to find a happy medium here. So, if franchise is the wrong word, please tell me a word that would cover what is being discussed here.
I was hoping to see articles created which were overviews of the subjects which included common characters and settings, a listing (at least) of all articles related to the subject, and all media released about the subject. With a "parent" article with all of the common items within a subject, things like character/cast lists would be smaller in the "child" articles and not have to written over again.
I do not think that a media specific WikiProject should be expected to cover all the media of a subject, the media specific project would only be responsible for that specific media. So, continuing with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, WikiProject Novels would be responsible for the section on the two novels, WikiProject Films would be responsible for the film section, and WikiProject Albums would be responsible for the album section. WikiProject Media franchises would alert the other WikiProjects of deficiencies of a media type and be responsible for the all-in-one infobox and tying all of these together and balancing the sections. At least, that is my vision of this project. LA (T) @ 19:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't have the time or inclination to go into specifics, but overall I agree with the criticisms of Ntnon and Collectonian. In particular, just because a fictional property exists in more than one medium that doesn't mean that it's a "media franchise" in any meaningful sense. A single movie with a soundtrack certainly isn't a "franchise" — nor, I would say, is a book adapted to film. By the logic of this project, To Kill a Mockingbird should have a "franchise" article, because it exists as a novel, a film (with noteworthy soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein), and a stage play. But the notion of treating "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a "franchise" is absurd on the face of it.

A media property is a "franchise" when it is treated as one by the people who own it — when the "brand" is exploited in multiple media, for the purpose of making more money. (One highly unscientific rule of thumb might be, "If there are toys made out of it, it's a franchise.") And not every such franchise merits its own article. So Clash of the Titans had a novelisation? Big whoop. It can and should be mentioned in the article about the film, unless it's been covered by reliable sources as a work of its own. An article on "Clash of the Titans" as a franchise seems desperately unnecessary. The inability to distinguish between fictional properties which have appeared in more than one medium and actual media franchises such as Star Wars and Harry Potter seems like a fatal flaw in this project.

I think that this project is overly broad and overly ambitious, and is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. I'll keep an eye on its progress, and chime in if my opinion is requested, but I'm afraid that I won't be contributing to it unless a way is found to focus its purpose more than the current overly broad goals. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Collectonian and Josiah Rowe (and others) echo my bemusement over the terminology, scope and composite parts used to describe the articles and properties mentioned here. I think Collectonian goes too far in then opposing the project as a whole, although I think these points can be addressed.
Lady Aleena, that's fine. :o) Healthy debate is exceptionally important. However, I'm not per se trying to denigrate CDs and cassettes and records, merely pointing out that they should be seen as a sub-part of their TV programme/film, and not as a separate building block for a mooted franchise. So I think your compromise - all-in-one-article parts - is absolutely the way forward, and eminently sensible. So this list needs somewhat revising: it should describe the DISPARATE, SEPARATE, constituent parts of potential "franchises" and allow us as a community to see which properties come under which headings. That means that soundtracks (except in certain circumstances) and novelisations are considered extraneous and in-relation-to-determining-which-properties-are-which a non-issue. They can be excellent, they can be enjoyable, they can even have been written about at length here (although most should not have been), but they should not be considered on their own to show a property has expanded into the audio or literary mediums. Hercules and Xena you have listed as franchises for two TV series and a soundtrack. No. Hercules and Xena are a franchise because they have TVMs, TV series, a prequel (Young Hercules) series, comics (MANY comics!), and toys. That establishes them as a franchise, the CDs are mere decoration. Mary Reilly, Pretty Woman and the Breakfast Club are no where near the scope of this project.
In addition, I'm not sure if this is your intention or not, but you seem to imply that a pinball game is as relevant as a film; that a spin-off boardgame is as relevant as a spin-off TV series; that the Harry Potter videogames are as relevant as the Harry Potter films. That's really not the case on any level. A good hierarchy would have the ORIGINAL-SOURCE material/medium take joint "most important" position with the BEST-KNOWN material/medium. Next up would be the direct spin-offs (NOT adaptations, spin-offs) in book, TV, film and radio form. Them the pseudo-level of this (direct-to-CD, direct-to-video, direct-to-DVD, online-cartoon, etc.). And then toys, cards, games and soundtracks. Or something like that. But there's definitely a hierarchy, not equality.
"Franchise" is inherently complicated and confusing as a term, and the page here at Wikipedia is not (in my opinion) the best definition. Certainly it is fair to say that a "literary franchise" is a series of books; a "film franchise" a series of films, etc. But a "media franchise" is not 'something that has appeared in more than one media,' it is something that has crossed into multiple media, and thrived in several. Realistically, I think there should be direct links between disparate elements - I don't consider all incarnations of SHERLOCK HOLMES to be equable with STAR WARS, because the many and various elements of Star Wars (excepting some novels, the original Marvel comics and some of Dark Horse's Star Wars Tales comics) happen in the same universe, with the same characters. The Rathbone and Brett Holmeses are discrete entities. So there's a difference, even if it is hard to fully explain..! Batman and James Bond are different. Bond is nominally the same individual in all the films and books; Batman is not the same in Begins as in the TV series as in Returns as in the cartoon. Each is a mini-franchise (because the 1989-97 films begat sequels and spin-offs, games, toys and media exploitation; the TV series also - although mostly toys rather than novels and the like; Begins has Gotham Knights, a sequel, toys and similar; the cartoons have comics and toys and books) under a meta-umbrella.
I shall propose discrete terminologies below to hopefully address this issue.
I think full overview articles are not really required for any but a few specific examples - Bond, Star Wars, Trek, CSI, Potter, etc. - and those broadly exist. However, there is definite scope for guiding the elements in accord with the individual projects (and Books, Comics, Films) to help add a professional and lined aspect to these pages. More importantly, I see the purpose of this project lying in infoboxes, templates and expansion (highlighting and doing). I think adaptation of "parent" articles has more logic than creation of new parent articles - so there's no need for an "Addams Family Franchise" page (and see below over terminology, also), but there is definite call for an all-in-one infobox at The Addams Family. In addition, it needs better set out (and {{main}} links) sections to give an overview of the TV series, films, cartoon and other expansions. Focus should be given to the strip, because that's the source, and that's its primary page. But 50%(ish) strip and 50%ish on the 'franchise' elements would be an excellent addition, and definitely (I feel) the primary scope of this project, and a boon to Wikipedia.
"I do not think that a media specific WikiProject should be expected to cover all the media of a subject, the media specific project would only be responsible for that specific media. So, continuing with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, WikiProject Novels would be responsible for the section on the two novels, WikiProject Films would be responsible for the film section, and WikiProject Albums would be responsible for the album section. WikiProject Media franchises would alert the other WikiProjects of deficiencies of a media type and be responsible for the all-in-one infobox and tying all of these together and balancing the sections. At least, that is my vision of this project." LA (T) @ 19:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Broadly, I agree. I think this Project should also become the facilitator of templates and infoboxes and the editor/revisor of section-headings. So it would be down to you/us/the project to go through BEDKNOBS and do the following:
  1. Determine which level of "franchise" it is (see below)
    1. (Minor; film based on book)
  2. Determine which element is paramount, and therefore is the PRIMARY focus of the article
    1. (Film)
  3. Create/improve/revise an infobox (in concert with FILMS) Anyone know why the Film infobox does not have a "source material" section...? Is there a reason?
    1. Better mention to the book, possibly more mention of the soundtrack, but preferably not.
  4. Revise and improve sections, proportionate length and assess coverage
    1. Maybe only minor tweaks, heading changes, etc.
  5. Alert editors/projects over article coverage deficiencies
That (to me) addresses everything Lady Aleena proposes, and seems like an entirely worthwhile scope, purpose and mandate. Excepting only the manner by which the articles are selected and seen to be worthy of this projects attention. ntnon (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


Revisions, scope, suggestions

Particularly in light of terminology comments, broadness of scope and confusion over what does and doesn't fall into the project's mooted purview, here's some more thoughts. Possibly (hopefully!) better organised and more readable:

  1. PROBLEM: "Franchise" as a term is too broad, too inaccurate(ly used), too confusing and too off-putting to be used here.
    1. SOLUTION: Three basic levels of articles:
      1. "Inspired by" (Category-only): Film-based-on-book; Book-based-on-comic; Comic-based-on-film, etc. (Two, two-and-some-halves, maybe three separate media only)
      2. "Cross-media Properties" (Broadly, at least three separate mediums, preferably four; sometimes two if there are discrete multiples in one or other, or both medium)
      3. "Media Franchises" (Basically, any property that exists in all the listed mediums, or at least a high proportion of them. See the various grids.)

So we have three tiers. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a film based on a book; Greg Rucka's Queen & Country novels are books based on a comic; Jack Kirby's 2001 is a comic based on a film. THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE novelisations of films. They are not "based on" (i.e. 'inspired by', 'set in the universe of', 'other-media sequels to', 'spin-offs of') the film, they are the film. Sometimes there's a subtle distinction in plot, more often there is not. Adapting a book into a film creates a totally separate property (more so if it's fundamentally revised/changed); transforming a screenplay into a novel tends not to. It is not inherently notable (nor is it the building block of a "franchise") that there is a novelisation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film (by Kevin J Anderson), even though it exists; it IS notable that the film is based (loosely) on the comic. Likewise the Batman, Hulk, Iron Man, Constantine novelisations - these do not help create a "Cross-media Property," although they should be mentioned as part of the film article. Likewise, most soundtracks and specifically-adapted computer/videogames. (Most) Soundtracks and novelisations at best would equate to a property being half present in a particular medium. So Batman, Hulk and Iron Man are already present in novel form, and are at least CMPs (and actually MFs); Constantine is not. Film based on comic only. THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF "Half-media" EXPANSION.

  • i.e. THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton was turned into a TV series by the BBC. NEVERWHERE was turned into a TV series by the BBC and a comic by Vertigo Comics. So the TV series are "based on a book" and the comic is "based on a book." Two media for BORROWERS; three for NEVERWHERE. BORROWERS is "TV-based-on-book" (and "Book"); NEVERWHERE is borderline CMP, but probably it is merely TV-based-on-book and comic-based-on-book. Not a CMP. Both fall at the bottom of this project's scope.
  • The ALEXANDER videogame (which stupidly doesn't link to the film...) is a "videogame-based-on-a-film", and is a minor aside, a half-media expansion. It should be categorised (and is) as such, or prefably - with the album - folded into the film article entirely. The (album) should probably be (soundtrack) if it has to survive, and that might be under the purview of this project, since possibly FILM and ALBUM might both disown it. (I would advocate separate infoboxes for videogames on the same page, if they warrant an infobox, rather than having them in an all-in-one box. Likewise - if they need one, and I don't feel they do - for soundtracks.)
    • BASIC INSTINCT was novelised by Richard Osborne. Worth mentioning in Basic Instinct, otherwise unimportant. It has a film sequel, and a soundtrack. Still - it exists in one medium only: film. Not in the Media Projects purview (although an offshoot might want to crawl about noting the existence of novelisations).
    • TIME BANDITS was novelised by Alverson, Palin & Gilliam; the screenplay was released and Marvel adapted the story into a one-shot comic. All worthy of mention, but again, TIME BANDITS exists in one medium (film), and is not in the purview of this project.

Blade Runner and the Addams Family are probably at the borderline between CMP and MF. 24 is an MF. Alice in Wonderland as a whole is 'none of the above,' although the separate films are 'film-based-on-book', and the title as a whole - as it does - should have a DISAMBIGUATION PAGE. That there is now a comic inspired by the Disney film creates a potential CMP for the Disney-cartoon-Alice alone. Aliens, Predator and Aliens vs. Predator are probably all either CMPs or MFs individually, but also a meta-'Aliens and Predator'-MF overall.

For Batman, it's both accurate and inaccurate to refer to "Batman" as a franchise. The 1989-97 films are an MF. The linked-cartoon TV series and films are an MF. Begins and Dark Knight are an MF. But all separate, not together. A "Media Franchise" is linked, if only by the same universe and tenuous strands - but different iterations of Batman, Sherlock Holmes, Alice or Dorothy are not to be confused with an over-riding "franchise." The overarching theme is a 'To-be-named term', but here at Wikipedia, at the TOP of the tree - where needed - should be (disambiguation). THIS is one set of Batman films; this is another. Battlestar Galactica - two discrete franchises; Flash Gordon - several.

  1. PROBLEM: Determining which property is which.
    1. SOLUTIONS: Consensus. Common sense. This grid - as a starting point only.

Using the grid as a starting point - and while it is both incomplete, partially inaccurate, confused and misleading in parts it is a phenomenally helpful one! Good work. :o) - I shall stress that the final column "total media" should be discounted. It creates a disproportionate picture, particularly when comparing something in 5 media with 5 aspects (Constantine) and something in two media with 13 (Batman - and this example clearly already misses TV series, alternate comics, etc.). That's an inaccurate comparison.

It is a good start, however. But:

  • It appears to include as "books"
    • Source books
    • Spin-off books
    • Novelisations
    • Guide books
    • 'other' books

A source book doesn't create a franchise, nor does it create a CMP. It can ultimately be part of either an MF or a CMP, but it should be discounted unless an MF or CMP is independently in evidence. A spin-off book (or several) is absolutely important, contributes towards both, and is great. A novelisation is irrelevant. A guide book may be indicative of a CMP or MF, but cannot be considered a building block of one. Other books - memoirs, 'science of', etc. - are also not constituent parts of a mooted franchise or cross-media property, but tend to imply there is one there (or a companion book would be unlikely to exist and sell).

Again, with all due respect, a soundtrack is not a building block to a CMP or an MF. It may be independently notable, at which point it can be added to an existing MF or CMP, but it does not help to create one. And most soundtracks - while absolutely worth a mention - are a footnote, an aside to an article on a film or TV series. They are not indicative of a medium into which a property has spread.

The Breakfast Club, to pick one example, is NOT in this project's scope at all. It is not based on anything, so it doesn't even make the bottom rung. It is not in multiple media - that it has released a soundtrack is neither here nor there - and it certainly isn't a franchise of any stripe.

NAMING: Article titles standardisation. Clearly this is contentious - with good reason - as detailed above. Several people see no call for standardisation; many (I think rightly) favour the common-sense KISS approach whereby a CMP with a clearly "main" article becomes not a (franchise) page, but Lady Aleena's proposed all-in-one article. There is scope for some commonality of theme and intent, but these should probably be best addressed by working closely with individual Projects, and not by dictating name changes. For example, the following pages (above) seem to have broadly the same intent, but are waywardly named:

  • List of 24 (TV series) media
  • CSI franchise
  • Law & Order franchise
  • Aliens (franchise)
  • Buffyverse
  • Superman in other media
  • Warhammer 40,000 spin-offs

(As per comments and highlights above, esp. those by Emperor.) As variations on a similar theme, it might benefit Wikipedia as a whole if discussion here - and with the pages themselves - could try and reach a consensus on whether they are different enough to continue under vague-and-various titles, or whether standardisation avoids WP:CREEP and fitting a solution to a non-problem.


SUGGESTED PROJECT ACTIONS

  1. Identification of which properties fall into which category.
  2. Liaise with other projects over naming conventions and highlighting areas that need improving/expanding/creating.
  3. Formalise infobox and template outlines. Maybe also work on overarching disambiguation pages (particularly - if workable - using some to group together CMP-strands, as per: Beauty and Beast disambiguation, which separates the Disney aspects).
  4. Splitting and combining articles that ought to be separate strands (and expanded)/are identical or redundant

SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS POST-IDENTIFICATION

  1. Proposals about how to deal with each level:
    1. MF: Maybe a franchise page. Certainly a template (and adding to existing templates in some cases)
    2. CMP: Maybe a template; more likely a composite infobox on the MAIN page, linking to the other pages (plus interlinking, "see also," and "main" links in the article). For smaller CMPs, an all-in-one page would be great.
    3. For book-based-on-film, etc. articles adding the appropriate category should suffice. Making sure the link is made in-text is obvious. ntnon (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
This sounds great. I'd love to hear more about practical methods that the Media franchises project is planning to use in order to achieve their goals of "organizing information in media franchises", (including notable character articles). -Malkinann (talk) 06:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Scope II

At the risk of burying the above, I've gone over the As and Bs in the grid, to see which of them I feel are worth the attention of this project. Several should be checked for categories (book-based-on-film; film-based-on-book, etc.), but broadly speaking of the 68 listed most should not fall into the main purview of this project which should, in the terms I put forward above - and may not be the most ideal - be primarily about MFs and CMPs.

Of the 68, most fall into categories of "X ...based on... X" (film, book, comic), some are film + soundtrack, some are film + guidebook. Some are series of films, and therefore fall under the scope of the FILM project. Likewise, series of books. Toys are not mentioned on the grid - possibly wisely, since levels of toy and notability or relevance thereof is very debateable - which skews some evaluations, but I think that only the following are actually CMPs/MFs:

  • 28 Days Later
  • Addams Family
  • (Alien)
  • (Predator)
  • Alien & Predator
  • Alien Nation
  • Andromeda
  • Avengers (there's only one film - the other Avengers is unrelated! There are books, a radio series and a stage show, however.)
  • Babylon 5
  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Beetlejuice
  • Bewitched
  • <Bionics>
  • Blade Runner
  • Buck Rogers in 25th
  • Buffy

14 of the 68. And most of those are CMPs, not MFs. I'd say Buffy is MF; Alien, Predator and AvP are borderline, along with Blade Runner and the Addams Family. The rest are pretty much solidly CMPs, although arguments could be put forward for several of them to be raised to the status of MF - or at least using my proposed MF action and making a Template for them. Most need to be expanded upon and increased coverage given to the notable, yet sub-main sections: the Avengers novels and comics ought to be expanded upon, for example.

Brewster's Millions is a film series based on a book, plus other films based on the book & play. Not a franchise, not a CMP. Bring it On is a film series; Bridget Jones is a film series based on a book series, etc. Disney as a whole is a media franchise, a label primarily based on toys and child exploitation exploiting a child's desires.

Two defy categorisation, and probably need a very careful consideration:

  • BATMAN (more so), and
  • BLADE (less so).

Both exist across serveral media, but the primary (comics) sources for each are distinct and discrete from the film series (and in Batman's case - as above - both film series, the TV series and a number of cartoons). So these are tricky, and probably best left - with suggestions and comments and offers of help to the COMICS project to facilitate.

I would also query these:

  • The 4400 (are there separate books, or novelisations/guides only?)
  • The A-Team (there are toys, but while that means the programme was exploited and treated as a franchise-like property, they shouldn't be the breaker.)
  • Alice (The Disney property might cut it as a CMP, with the recent comic.)
  • Arthur
  • Battlefield Earth (As per 4400.)
  • Beauty and Beast (As per Alice, substituting stage production.)
  • Blood Ties (Might just be as per Bridget Jones.

I think that kind of reasoning and whittling of the list would sort out the vagueness and scope concerns over the project somewhat. Hopefully! ntnon (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Scope III

I am happy to see that Ntnon found the media franchises pages in my userspace. Please remember that the ones that are listed there are media items that I or my fiance likes, so a lot will probably go begging on that list. There are just some things that I can't stand such as The Simpsons; any Idol series or look-a-likes; any films/television programs with JCVD, C. Norris, or Segal; anything called reality that is really a game show in disguise; and anything called anime or manga. I am basically using those pages as extended watchlists. They are so very incomplete, I haven't had the drive to complete those on the list lately. There are dozens of comics and video games that still need to be identified, plus adding 50 or so which are still in a text film on my computer which I haven't had the energy to completely look into yet.

I used my personal list to create this list in this project's space. I have also added a table to that list to start sorting the items there by what they really are.

I am going to see if I can sum up Ntnon's comments, just to make sure that I have it right in my head.

There will be three or four levels of articles within the purview of this project:

Media franchises
A group of closely related media which heavily cross multiple media.
For the largest of these, a portal might be created.
Cross-media properties
A group of media which lightly cross multiple media.
Media based on media
Self-explanatory? Careful attention paid to in-text links and the categories in which they are placed.
Media tie-ins
Novelizations, soundtracks, some video games, etc which will mostly be all-in-one articles with an all-in-one infobox.

Portals might be good for some subjects such as Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast too, and disambiguation pages would definitely need to be maintained.

Some small corrections:

The A-Team has a comic book which I have not added to my personal list, yet.
Alexander (video game) did have a link to Alexander (film) in the lede, but it was tiny and missable.
Brewster's Millions are several films all based on the same book but do not share each other's continuity.

Does that about sum it up, or did I miss things? LA (T) @ 08:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

First off: Sorry - I didn't fully grasp what that list was until I'd written the above since that was the only link I saw. So thanks for the link to the "proper" list. :o) (Would you like/mind my editing this list to help facilitate the move of the properties into the hopefully-clearer groupings...? Not sure how to do it with the table you've provided, but I could label/move/leave it alone as you'd prefer.)
All these uses of the term "media" tend to confuse things a little, but broadly I think that's pretty much exactly what I was proposing, yes.
  • Bearing in mind that most true Media franchises will likely have their own tailored Projects (Potter, Trek, Star Wars, Bond, Buffy, Disney, Holmes, etc., etc.), so care must be taken not to step on any toes; to discuss any proposed standardizing of article layout, and so forth. Advising/querying over whether there should be a "main" page to deal with a franchise as a whole (as per CSI franchise), or whether the main page should be about the most major aspect of a franchise (as per: Blade Runner), or... Certainly it could be primarily this project that helps to ((formulate/))adapt/improve the Templates for the MFs, making sure that they do cover all the major aspects and pages.
  • Dealing with CMPs will thus probably be the major purpose of this Project, since the MFs will be largely covered by tailored groups. Primarily, I suggest CMPs be addressed mainly through use of templates, composite infoboxes and rigorous linking, rather than overview pages.
  • Media from other Media will, yes, probably just be tackled through proper categorisation; checking to make sure they're noted at all, and then making sure they are done so "properly" and well-linked, etc.
  • Media tie-ins: novelizations (& straight comics adaptations), soundtracks, direct-videogame-adaptations, board games, pinball machines, etc., etc. Also most toys (since most tie-in toys will be casual mentions, rather than deserving of separate articles as independantly notable things) and any peripherals that warrant mention. (Comics spin-offs, for example include Spider Jerusalem's glasses; the Watchmen badges/buttons and so on.) Yes, these would probably be under this project's projected purview (in close collaboration, of course, with the specific projects overseeing the specific pages). And absolutely they will (almost) all be part of all-in-one articles, but probably not be worthy of mention in an all-in-one infobox.
  • Portals, disambiguation pages and the like should certainly be watched and/or created. And - in consultation - wisely split to group things together than ought to be. (As per: Beauty and the Beast (disambiguation))
As for the all-in-one infobox: I suggest that an all-in-one infobox would likely fit on The Addams Family page, mentioning the TV shows, films and maybe the videgogames; but would certainly not need to mention the advertisements or M&Ms nor the various dolls and toys. So not all the media tie-ins should be in an infobox, no.
  • What specifically ought to be covered in the all-in-one infobox template should be the subject of considered and deliberate discussion.
That should help focus things, hopefully. Now to find out if there's any agreement or observations..! ;o) ntnon (talk) 20:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Yes, I missed the Alexander link the first read, and forgot the A-Team comic. And I was under the vague impression that either/both the 1921/26, 1945/61 Brewster films were linked, but then I know very little indeed about those films. ntnon (talk) 20:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I like the distinctions that Ntnon is drawing here, and the consequent curtailing of the project's potential scope. For the sake of clarification, how would To Kill a Mockingbird be described under this rubric? There's a film (with soundtrack) and a stage play, both based independently on the novel. Since the film and stage play are both direct adaptations of the novel, would they be considered "media based on media" or "media tie-ins"?
It's also worth pointing out that it will be necessary to consider both what medium a property originated in and what medium it became notable. For example, the film It's A Wonderful Life was based on a short story titled "The Greatest Gift", which had not even been published when production began on the film. The story has subsequently appeared in other forms, including a radio drama (made at the time of the film, with much of its cast) and at least two later theatrical adaptations (one of which has a Wikipedia article). But the film is unarguably the most notable version of the story, and if it were considered as a cross-media property it would probably be best regarded as a "film-based" property.
Finally, it's worth questioning the extent to which narrative continuity determines a franchise. To take the example of Batman, Batman Begins was widely described as "rebooting the Batman franchise", a phrasing which suggests that there is a single Batman film franchise which has had several narrative versions (depending on how far you want to go back, you could say that there have been at least four: the black-and-white serials, the 1960s film based on the TV series, the Burton/Schumacher series and the current Nolan series). The last two narrative versions have been produced by the same film studio, with some of the same producers, I think. The creative staff changed, but the people controlling the property were the same. So from a business standpoint (which, after all, is where the term "franchise" comes from) it's the same franchise under Nolan that it was under Schumacher.
I've got some other thoughts, but they're still a bit inchoate, so I'll wait and let them percolate a bit more. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Josiah Rowe...the scope isn't being curtailed, we are just discussing how to differentiate between different types of media groupings there are, how to handle each, and each group's importance to the project.
The film To Kill a Mockingbird would be a film based on a novel with the soundtrack discussed in the film article. The play To Kill a Mockingbird would be a play based on a novel. In-text linking would be a great idea through the various infoboxes.
It's a Wonderful Life would more than likely get a disambiguation page for the two films, and the short story may get its own article since there is more than one item that is based on it, or it would get an all-in-one article with everything all in the same article.
Batman is a slippery slope and a headache. We will have to tread carefully there.
I am glad that you are willing to jump in to help out. Welcome aboard. LA (T) @ 08:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


I concur with Lady Aleena, and like the examples/potential problems rasied by Josiah Rowe (indeed, I did highlight Batman specifically above for much this reason...) I hoped to pre-emptively answer these kind of questions in my own arbitrary theories on the scope, but I'll try and attack these new(ish) examples in much the same way:

  • To Kill a Mockingbird - as Lady Aleena writes above, there should probably be (and already is, for the most part):
    • The BOOK (main article, with a "for the film, see..." link): primary medium; most notable medium
    • The FILM (strongly multi-linked article, inc. soundtrack): MBoM - Category: Film Based on Book.
    • The PLAY (probably simply a minor section of/mention in the main article): MBoM - if split at any point Play Based on Book. (N.B. It might get tricky and need multiple categories or careful debate when you have cases where a play is based on a film, which is based on a book. The play may not always be based on the primary medium. Or even a slightly more linear example: The Producers (2005 film) based on The Producers (musical) based on The Producers (1968 film). But not Producers (2005) based on Producers (1968). Subtle, but sensible.)
    • The SOUNDTRACK (mentioned in the film article): MTI

>I would suggest three infoboxes. Box 1 - Book (in detail). Box 2 - Combined Book, Film (+ soundtrack??), Play, OTHER (brief). Box 3 - Film (+ soundtrack??). Boxes 1 and 2 go on the main (Book) page; Box 3 on the film page.

  • Wonderful Life (as per BLADE RUNNER discussion, I hoped we'd written about making sure to consider primary medium of notability as well as source medium, which may well, as noted, differ).
    • The FILM (main article, mentioning in lead and infobox the source story): secondary medium; most notable medium: MBoM - Category: Film Based on Book
    • The STORY (not the main article. Neither MBoM, not MTI, nor any other accronym, merely "Source")
    • The RADIO drama (probably simply a minor section of/mention in the main article): MBoM/MTI - if split at any point, it could get a little tricky. Probably 'Radio drama' Based on Book, conceivably 'Radio drama' Based on Film. Possibly Film Tie-in. Some investigation would be required at that hypothetical point, but for the moment it should be secure as simply a mention in the FILM (also main) article.
    • The MUSICAL (strongly linked article): MBoM - Category: Musical/Play Based on Film.
    • Other adaptations: MBoM - Category X Based on Film/(Book).

>A disambiguation page can separate "things coincidentally/in homage called A Wonderful Life" and "things related to the story/film" as a primary step. Then, infoboxes basically as above - only the secondary composite all-in-one box will be attached to the FILM page (the main page) rather than the STORY page. So the FILM page will be 50-75ish% about the film, and then the remaining percentage will be briefly about the MTI and MBoMs, with the composite infobox and (maybe) some {{main| }} links.

These two examples with very little additional work indeed could fairly reasonably be used as standard examples of 'good practice' and "ideal" pages to show how these ideas can work. Plus, perhaps, (with slightly more work) the Blade Runner MF. That would give some added examples for ease of reference.

  • As for Batman (etc.) I would say that narrative continuity is a primary determining factor of an MF. Commonality and interlinking should be present, although several tree-links can exist (I think I postulated wildly about meta-MFs above somewhere, using Aliens and Predator). Batman is a global phenomenon. Batman is a 'Widely Adapted Figure'. Batman is an overriding umbrella containing a number of discrete MFs, all of which on some level are as an entirety (the whole distinct MF) an MBoM. i.e. The two Batman Serials are linked to each other, and as a discrete entity are "Based on the Comics", individually and together (although "inspired by" would be more accurate, but that's drifting in techincal-levels of labelling...). The TV Series & film are a CMP or MF in their own right; the 1989-97 films are an MF in their own right; BEGINS et al. is another MF. All these are also MBoComics.
    • I think it reasonable to read one interpretion of "rebooted the franchise" as "restarted the franchise," ergo two discrete franchises with two discrete "begin"ings. Ultimately, there is "Batman in Film" which can cover all films, but even though the so-called "Batman film franchise" covers 6, 7 or 9 (or even more, including the cartoons) there are SEPARATE "Batman film franchises." Hence, while there is a single Batman (film series) article (covering the seven 'true' "films"), it separates deliberately into West; Burton&Schumacher; Nolan. Three separate discrete series'.

So, yes, these things are a bottomless pit of interpretation and discussion, but I've been trying to focus quite deliberately of differentiating between SEPARATE BUT SIMILAR MBoMs (i.e. the dozens of SHERLOCK HOLMES films individually based on the Conan-Doyle stories; some of which form discrete series', most of which would not be CMPs or MFs, merely "the Rathbone film series" and "the Brett TV series" with little cross-media expansion (bar, say, tie-in book covers or linked radio shows, etc.). So for the most part the major factor in these cases will be determination of which elements are based on which (should be mostly simple), and then grouping them on a disambiguation page. Those that have several linked strands may be CMPs (or MFs) and then be dealt with on that level.

Business definitions are somewhat relevant, but not on a great level. It's important to consider parent and child relationships, so while the controlling interest in Batman has always been DC, the tier under DC has changed down the years, and the tier under them are probably the primary determining factor "business" factor worth considering. i.e. Even if the producers are the same, if the in-universe narrative structure is notably and distinctly different (and stated as such in third party sources, etc.) it's not going to be very controversial/take too long to debate that there are separate Batman MFs and CMPs under the meta-umbrella-<something term, I like WAF, WAMedia or FrequentlyAdaptedProperty, or similar.> MF.

Slippery slope, headache and problem are probably easier - and as-accurate - descriptions, however! ntnon (talk) 21:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

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