Talk:List of fictional universes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on August 25, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 7 June 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

[edit] Notice

I moved the (undated) list of (apparently) problem universes to leave room for talk, to this sub-page: talk:list_of_fictional_universes/problems

As I found it, this article page is very confusing to see, and there are obviously not enough people involved as evidenced by the lack of discussion.

See the Motion to Revise section below for details. --FrankB 14:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Begining before 09May2006

Perhaps the Novels and short stories section should be merged with the Literature section. We (???) think that the D'ni series (Myst) should be classified as science fiction. --24.106.177.36 03:43, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pern: space travel, genetic engineering, re-introduction of lost technology ... it must be fantasy!
Should Koholint, Termina, Labrynna, Holodrum and/or Subrosia be listed as separate universes under video games? (All appearing in various Legend of Zelda games.) --Freso 15:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd say 1 universe with several islands, or "worlds" or what have you. Peter S. 23:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Organization of this page

This page is oddly organized. At first it seems to be organized by genre (science fiction, fantasy, etc.), but then it becomes organized by medium (literature, TV/movies, comic books, et cetera). This leads to oddities such as DC Universe being listed under "Multidimensional fantasy" and "Comic books". I think the page should be reorganized to be either by genre or by medium, but I don't feel strongly on which way it should go. Any thoughts? --Josiah Rowe 15:40, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Genre might be easiest/simplest, as, for example, the Hitchhiker's series now exists in the mediums of radio program, TV program, album(s), computer game, novels, and film. MakeRocketGoNow 19:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Peter S. 22:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest that an additional page might be added of "List of fictional universes by medium" RandomCritic 21:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Limit for universes to be listed here?

Every piece of fiction creates its own universe by creating characters not existing in the real world and letting them do things they didn't do in the real world (wouldn't be fiction otherwise, duh! :-D). This brings the problem that, basically, this page might explode. Currently, most entries link to a article describing specifically the universe itself, but there are also some others, like many of the entries in the "video games" section. What would be an appropriate rule what should be added here?

  • Only universes that have a wikipedia page describing specifically the universe itself
  • An arbitrary list based on the principle that "the universe must feeel important", and in case of conflict, we discuss and vote
  • Something else?

Comments? Cheers! Peter S. 23:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest at least limiting the article to "multivolume" universes. That is, universes explored in series of novels, or in various media. Speculative catholic 12:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
That's a nice idea. Which current universes would this change drop from the list? Peter S. 16:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major Revision

I revised the page to omit duplications, fix links, and classify world by type of fictional world (which usually but not always overlaps with genre). I moved the classification by medium to a new page (List of fictional universes by medium) but this page still needs work.

There may be some mistakes in the classification of various worlds, as I am not familiar with every setting and depended upon Wikipedia and other online sources which may be misleading or incomplete. Go ahead and move any work that seems in the wrong place to a more appropriate spot. Thanks in advance. RandomCritic 03:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Good job! :-) Peter S. 09:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Things to do

RandomCritic 13:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of candidates for addition - from Category:Fictional universes

What a mess. Any ideas for criteria for sorting through all this? I mean, I don't doubt that in some sense the Berenstain Bears exist in their own fictional world. Obviously, it has talking "bears" (that look less like real bears than a stuffed teddy). But I harbor some doubt as to whether this list was designed for that sort of "world". What could we say? That a fictional universe/world needs to have a distinctive geography? Needs to be large-scale, at least continent-sized? Needs to depict a type of civilization different from that contemporary with the writer? I see the point (above) about a "universe" that connects a group of books but that could let in every hack writer who produces a sequel. Same questions, mutatis mutandis, wrt. tv shows, anime, RPGs, videogames. RandomCritic 02:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Motion to Revise

I cut out the (undated) list of (apparently) problem universes to leave room for talk into this sub-page: talk:list_of_fictional_universes/problems

As I found it, this article page is very confusing to see, and there are obviously not enough people involved as evidenced by the lack of discussion.

  1. IMHO, the article probably needs to be split multiple times (fork) and be morphed itself into a list of lists reflecting the coresponding category Category:Fictional universes (which last night I annoted with this as the main article).
  2. Classifications like ficton need to be considered in the reasoning, and no matter what,
  3. some 'Checklist of criteria and rules' for placing 'universes' (whether covered (yet) in our articles or not) listed herein or on it's sub-pages should be boxed and replace the notice box at the top.

I'll have notified user talk:Peter_S. and user talk:RandomCritic directly, as they seem to be the only editors engaged in discourse, and calling for some help from one or two others including a librarian to at least discuss the reorganization.

I'm minded that this should go up on an RFC, VP, or peer review to draw more attention if we can't get some good ideas here below. I've placed a Clean above as well for the same purpose. Best regards, FrankB 14:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on Reorg

  1. Propose the article be split.
  2. Sectioned by literary (sub-many including 'comics'), mythological, multimedia (digital implimentations), 'multiple-media', screen-arts (sub-television, sub-film, and 'cartoons'), etc.
  3. multiple-media' implimentations be co-listed with link to main trunk, organized 'by 'origin where occured first, but not worrying that something is listed twice, thrice or such, as if it is to be comprehensive and useful to users, the easiest 'searching effort' should strike 'gold'; tagging the origin is, IMHO, important.
  4. The cross-linking comments (terse like a disambig page) are the spirit of the guideline: WP:Btw.
(Belatedly revised 'hurried bad effects' above towards 'intended and hoped for' emphasis and clarity. Can't make a Doctor wait, even (or perhaps especially) if he is going to shove a six foot camera-snake up your rear! <G>) FrankB 02:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments? FrankB 14:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me here. You know, a "list of fictional universes" is the same as a "list of all fictional works" (minus cases when two stories talk about the same universe), because any fiction creates its own "universe". So this is an incredible huge list we're planning here, and I'm not so sure what the benefit of it would be. Splitting the list up won't increase the benefit, neither: there would be no chance that such a list would ever reach just 10% of being complete. I see only one way out: We define some narrow rules about which works might enter here. There are quite a few ideas about such rules on this page, and we could just pick one. What do you think? Peter S. 14:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two suggestions

Howdy all - I'm a librarian, and my goal is always to facilitate access to information, so my first thought was, if I were Jo user, what would make more sense to me? One kind of reader might be looking for a particular "universe" to see where it originated, and where else it has spread. Another might be looking at a particular type of media to see what "universes" were available in a certain medium.

My first suggestion is to create a table, with these headings (and links wherever possible): the name of the universe, the original medium where it appeared, other media where it's used, and a see also link if necessary to a portal, main category, or other universes (i.e. the aforementioned Asimov robot-Foundation connection). It would look something like this:

Universe Original medium Other media Type See also
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Book Television, film, video Fantasy TUGS
Star Wars Film Books, video games, television Science fiction Star Wars Portal

My second suggestion is to make this list available sorted different ways: one by the name of the universe, one by original medium, and one by type.

This is all I can think of at the moment, but I haven't had my coffee yet...HTH, Her Pegship 15:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the (now relatively stable) Planets in science fiction list, and see if that structure would be useful for this page. By the way, the current look of the page reflects a structure -- not unreasonable in itself -- placed upon an arbitrarily selected sub-group of fictional works, simply those that happened to be listed here at the time. There is no other rhyme or reason behind the selections. -RandomCritic 20:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC) whoops :)
That's a good example of what it would look like without the table formatting, plus it would be easier for noobs to contribute (as table formatting can be a little daunting). I would, of course, want to pretty it up a bit, remove those annoying # signs, etc. <g>—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegship (talk • contribs) 21:23, 9 May 2006
Yeah, split it up, with each header as a whole new article. With that kind of space you can afford to be lax in standards and put everything that has a claim to be here, in here.--HereToHelp 20:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


slight refactor/section indent change FrankB 02:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I drastically altered the colouration and fixed the indenting at this talkpage, per discussion at User talk:Fabartus#Color Suggestions. -Quiddity 04:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where does this end?

I hate to rain on this obsessive-compulsive parade, but couldn't this article include every work of fiction ever produced, in some form or another, especially speculative/science fiction and fantasy? It took me a moment to even think of one useful purpose such an article might serve, but there is one: to simply outline the conceptual differences between such fictions, as this does to some degree by detailing the different categories of fictional universes that can exist. There is absolutely no function served by creating a repository in which everyone can note their favorite fictional universe. Examples are useful, sure, but I think some limits should be in place. I put my opinion out tentatively--clearly someone is interested, if so much has been done here, but I think this is more a case of interest on the part of the creators than on the part of potential readers. No one can really gain any kind of knowledge from these "shout outs" to our favorite works of fiction. Fearwig 03:52, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree 100%. Peter S. 09:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Someone has nominated the article for Afd. I've been remiss in getting back here... actually did so endorsing Pegships organization suggestions, but lost the edit in a browser snafu. Apparently the nominators care little for the fact that one might just like to browse and poke around in a related group of things, nor do they seem to care it's the base article for the category of the same name. See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_fictional_universes, nominated by User:Fearwig on the third of June.
As far as how far, and what set or subset of tales create a fictional universe of note, seems to me the Category:Fictional universes has a pretty good criteria in place already, and if a user wants to add something he/she are fond of, so what. Such can be fun reading. In a paraphrase of Jimbo Wales words (re:Last weeks VP Wikipedia in the News... interview with Jimbo), 'It never ceases to amaze me the great diversity of things great and small that someone that cares about them so much as to create an article.'
If Jimbo's happy with such, who are deletionists to say nay to him? // FrankB 19:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm running down the exact quote, and refactored this into the reorg section header. // FrankB 19:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC) Strikeout 23:55, Wednesday June 11, 2008 (UTC)—I spent an hour or so, but I think the Wikipedia in the News Feature I saw linking the interview was being massaged for archival. In any event, I couldn't relocate it again there, nor when trying to parse out the off wikipedia web site having the actual interview text... my history in both browsers gets more than a little unweildy in such an long interval. Best regards! // FrankB 07:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
As i noted at the AfD, i've added a {{Dynamic list}} template to the top, which i think covers the objection sufficiently. A complete list of fictional universes would be still far far smaller than all the actors in imdb. Please don't try to get such large quantities of work deleted just because you disagree with its premise. It may end up proving very useful to any number of curious readers. Thanks. --Quiddity 00:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
If you believe there are more actors in IMDB than fictional universes ever invented, you are sorely, sorely mistaken. I can take every novel off my shelf--no--every novel on Amazon, Gutenberg, and a million novels out of publication, and put them in this thread. I respect that people have put work into this, but it is (as I said) the very definition of indiscriminate. If you think Star Wars, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Don Quixote, and Are You Being Served? are related concepts, you are using a form of "related" that actually causes damage to the logic centers of my brain. If the deletion request fails (and I suspect it will, judging from the initial response), I will happily submit to the will of Wikipedians and add every single fictional universe on Wikipedia to this list until my fingers cramp and fall off, legitimately adding to the completeness of this list, yes, but hopefully proving that its length, when complete, will be unacceptable, unreadable, and really utterly worthless. After all that work, I will be happy to see it gone. My apologies for any hyperbole and any well, spirited language used here, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around this one. Fearwig 00:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Fictional universes ever invented, sure, at least as many as there have been people. But universes that actually made it into print/media, and are notable enough to garner an entry in wiki, is very much a finite set. See The encyclopedia of things that never were, and The dictionary of imaginary places. Yes it's a vast subject matter to cover, but that doesnt mean it shouldnt be undertaken. If anything, this list will continue to grow for a little longer, and then be split into 3 or more seperate lists.
I mean, this stuff is great! List of fictional universes#Art There's no way i would have stumbled upon Iblard just now otherwise.
Don't underestimate how big wikipedia can become ;) -Quiddity 00:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Reply to your addendum: Ahh, you meant to nominate it for "Cleanup"!. Yes inaccuracies and oddities have crept in. It's a large page. But they can be cleaned up, it doesnt require deleting everything!
You may (or may not) be interested in m:Wikipedia sociology#Types or tendencies. Know thy enemy, and Know thyself, kinda thing ;) --Quiddity 00:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think you see what I mean. I didn't mean to nominate it for cleanup--I believe that it is far too general a list. The articles I suggested were not "related" aren't listed near one another in the article--my point is that they are so intrinsically different that they don't deserve to be in the same article at all. This is even more broad than, say, List of works of fiction. In my opinion, it's closer in its generality to List of people who said things, or List of things that are made of wood. Fearwig 01:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, well, those examples definitely help me understand your view a bit more. And i do understand your perspective; i just refuse to give an inch lest you take a mile ;)
The cleanup comment was a gentle joke :)
I'll suggest this (and bear in mind i havent actually contributed to this list, i just watchlist it for curiosity), if it doesnt get split up into a few seperate pages before the end of the year, it could potentially be moved to a fiction wikiproject subpage, or turned into a category scheme.
What i'm overall trying to suggest, is that there are often better solutions than resorting to outright deletion (unless it's vandalism. Then you should club the perpetrators to death with baby seals.)
(and please use edit summaries ;). Thanks for letting me ramble! -Quiddity 01:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad we understand each other, at least. I see why people wanted to make this article, but I still maintain that it isn't very useful to the user. On a tangent, I'd love to see List of things that are made of wood. I can already imagine the heated debates over whether things made of paper and particle board can be included. "This article is clearly POV trash written by a softwood Nazi!" Fearwig 20:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Ha! (and, bamboo!)
Yesterday, I was looking for a Category:Folding tools, a list of swiss army knife ancestors/descendants type-thing. No such luck there either ;-) --Quiddity 20:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Going back to Fearwig's original observation, "couldn't this article include every work of fiction ever produced": yes, it could. I see your point, F, and I removed the section referencing "Earth as we know it"; such a list would be ridiculous indeed. Perhaps clarifying the parameters of the list would help -- List of alternative universes? As in, alternative = "existing outside traditional or established institutions or systems" ([Webster]. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 18:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structural revision

Howdy all - I made some changes. Feel free to revert if you hate 'em - I'm trying to make the article easier to browse.

  1. Removed the "Earth as we know it" section as that would include every fictional work ever (per Peter S.).
  2. Reworded & reordered sections (i.e. all versions of Earth together).
  3. Still want to integrate the "Planetary romance" items elsewhere; PR is a genre, not a setting per se.
  4. Still think multiverses could be integrated into the other sections, those which include Earth & those which don't.

♥ Her Pegship♥ 18:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion criteria

I've posted comments on the ongoing AfD discussion, and have been reading that discussion with interest. The main issue seems to me to be the potentially infinite size of the list. I see a couple of comments on this talk page that would restrict this list, but they have not been implemented yet on the article page.

I'd like to suggest the following list of criteria: a universe would be listed only if it satisfied every criterion in this list.

  • Multiple works about the universe should exist. A single book or film does not count. For TV series and comics I would suggest something more restrictive, since these by their nature are multi-volume. Perhaps a good criterion for TV would be two seasons or more; I don't know what would work for comics but perhaps someone else could suggest something.
    • This one I agree with. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree with this, it has to be more than a single book or film. It should be at least 2 seasons on TV and at least 12 issues for comics (some exceptions could be made for mini-series that are designed to only run 6 or 8 issues). PeregrineV 22:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There should be evidence of significant popularity. The main evidence would be the existence of an active fan culture, evidence of strong sales (appearance in best seller lists, etc.), or simply wide cultural awareness of the universe. (This criterion could be weakened a little if the other two are met.)
    • I'm reticent on this one. One of the glories of Wikipedia is that something doesn't have to be widely known to be included, and there are many lesser-known phenomena that I have learned about through stumbling over (and enjoying) them here. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Me too, but not putting them on the list doesn't mean not putting them in Wikipedia. I'd actually argue that shortening the list increases the chances of finding good things serendipitously; if this list were twenty-five thousand items long, I'd never use it for anything, even a lookup -- I'd do that with Wikipedia's own search. If it were a hundred items, or ten categories each with fifty items, I might well scan those lists. I'm concerned that length will make this unusable. Mike Christie 13:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • The universe should be regarded as having been influential or important within its field. For example, John W. Campbell, Jr. published a series of space operas in the early 1930s about three characters named Arcot, Morey and Wade. These were ultimately published as three books in the fifties. Campbell was a significant space opera author at the time, but I would say this universe does not quite qualify -- it was not influential on other writers, being essentially just another (quite successful) example of pulp space adventure.
  • The universe has to be more than simply a subgenre. Westerns, for example, are a genre, not a universe. Romance fiction about nurses working with celebrities are certainly a subgenre but don't qualify unless they are about the same characters or are in some other way the same universe.
I think this is the main point. What we want here are fictional universes that were groundbreaking and new for its time. Here's a new suggestion for a criteria: There must be a wikipedia article about the universe itself. This limits the list nicely in the direction we want it to go, inclusions are debated on terms of "notability for their own article", and the list is much nicer, as for every entry, there is a link where we can read about more details. Comments? Peter S. 23:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've omitted a requirement that the universe have its own Wikipedia entry, since I think that's too weak a requirement.

Some examples of universes that might or might not be included:

  • Louis L'Amour wrote some westerns set in the same universe. These probably met the popularity bar. I don't know enough about westerns to be sure, but I suspect they do not meet the influential bar; L'Amour was successful but not copied in the sense that his universes influenced other writers.
    • On the contrary, Louis L'Amour is considered a role model in the western fiction genre, and he definitely meets the popularity criteria. However, I think the flavor of this list leans toward the "reality not like our own" type scenarios, not just the "any fiction" one. I did suggest we change the title to List of alternative universes or alternative realities on the afd page. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • E. R. Eddison's fantasy novels may not have been bestsellers (I don't know if they were or not). They were certainly influential. If they are truly obscure books that have never sold well, they are probably best referenced out of the authors who were influenced by them, because the universe in those books does not have much intrinsic interest in that case. If they were popular, or have become so, or are widely known now because of their historical influence, they might qualify.
  • Bewitched has spawned spinoffs, competitors, films, remakes and so on. The fantasy premise was certainly influential, and it was very popular. For this to qualify, however, I feel someone would have to argue that the series itself, not just the premise, was influential or is felt by critics to be so. Every successful TV show is influential in that it is likely to spawn competitors. But is it critically interesting in the history of its genre? I suspect Bewitched is not (though again this is not my field of expertise).
    • My take is that it's one of the first instances of witchcraft on television (and probably the first to present it as comedy), but I could be wrong. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • The Chthulhu mythos was originally the creation of H. P. Lovecraft, though by now it has had many contributors. It has sold well, and has been very influential in the field of horror, leading to many imitators and changing the direction of the field. This clearly qualifies.

From the current page, the following are some of the universes that might not qualify. I'm not expert on all of these, so please correct me if in fact some of them do meet the criteria I suggest -- I'm just trying to illustrate the criteria with examples from the page.

Some universes I'd remove (reason why):

  • Digimon and possibly Pokemon (influence)
    • These have had more influence than you might think. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, yes, upon pre-teens. Influence in general? Honestly, that mentality is the root problem of this thread. Fearwig 03:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
        • Am I to understand that someone's age determines (a) the value of their opinion and/or (b) a less desirable mentality?? Is there no room in Wikipedia for the younger enthusiasts?? (Or older ones who think younger?) ♥ Her Pegship♥ 03:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
          • It's not the age of the pre-teens that is the issue; to me, "influence" should mean something that extends beyond the immediate impact on the audience. Peg's comments on Bewitched seem reasonable to me, but they talk about the importance of combining witchcraft and comedy in the mass-entertainment genre. That's an argument for influence. Everything read influences its readership; everything successful has spinoffs and copies. Did Pokemon start a new genre which is now ongoing independently of Pokemon, and has significant success? Has Pokemon modified critical standards or changed the historical view of cartoon entertainment? Or is it just another (albeit successful) mass-produced entertainment which fits naturally in its genre and did not provide a significant break with previous universes? Mike Christie 13:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Nyumbani (popularity and influence)
  • Wild Cards (influence?)
  • Glorianna (popularity? and influence)
  • Matrix (influence? Seems to me it was the apotheosis of a type of fiction, not a significant influence on others)

That's enough to give the idea. I hope this is useful; please comment and let me know what you think. Thanks. Mike Christie 11:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike, for your analysis. My humble opinion is that it's more stringent than necessary; I think just limiting the list to "alternative realities" would eliminate the need for some of the criteria. How about:
Multiple works about the universe should exist.
There should be evidence of significant popularity.
The universe has to be more than simply a subgenre.
I leave out the influence/importance issue because (as you may have noticed) this is a major sticking point for nearly every Wikipedia discussion, and I don't think you can establish how to define it to the satisfaction of the contributors, of this article, at least. Just some thoughts - ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree influence is hard to determine. I am still concerned that without some such constraint the list will become too long to have any value. Mike Christie 13:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Pegship's criteria would improve the list significantly--I am especially fond of #1. Fearwig 00:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy proposal

Please see: Wikipedia:Locations in fiction, fictional locations, and settings.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 20:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] inclusion of universes

i think that since most works of fiction create a universe, only the universes that include more that one work of fiction(discluding sequals) should be included.

[edit] Star Wars universe

Why is this listed under "Universes that exclude earth?" Doesn't "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" imply that it's our universe, just a different galaxy and epoch? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.239.211 (talk) 21:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)