Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Archive 29

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Hugo Danner, GA on hold

I went a head and nominated the article for Good Article status. It is currently "on hold" because of a few very minor issues, which is very good. I have fixed 99% of the issues and have drastically increased the size of the article during the process. It should pass GA within the next day or so. Then the project will have one more GA! --Ghostexorcist 08:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Good work. It is looking pretty solid. Seems like you have everything in hand too. (Emperor 12:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC))
It passed! --Ghostexorcist 18:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations - you've really picked up the ball and run with it doing the bulk of the work needed to lift it up so I think you can pat yourself on the back for that. (Emperor 18:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)_

Create a Korvus article

Someone should create a Korvus article, but Rook'shir shouldn't have his own article. All info about Rook'shir should be in Korvus's article. (This is the new character from The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire.) 66.189.137.113 16:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and start it. ;) (Emperor 02:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC))

I would if I had the resources to, but I don't. I don't know how to start an article; I don't actually own The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire (I read it at a Barnes & Noble); I don't spend enough time on Wikipedia to make it notable enough that it wouldn't get deleted. That's why I posted the suggestion here so someone else would be inspired to be bold and start it! 66.189.137.113 03:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Another potential Good Article

One article that I have noticed that was once nominated for a Good Article is Nocturne (comics). It almost received the status of Good Article. If a few editors more knowledgeable than myself spent just a little bit of time on it I think one more Good Article could be added to the comics group, on top of Hugo Danner. 66.189.137.113 04:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Good call. I think with the idea above we should be able to target entries like this that are either on the border of making it or have been demoted. That way we could rapidly increase the number of GAs (and working on raising others too). (Emperor 12:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC))
I've started a section over there for input on improving things. (Emperor 13:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC))

Category:Spin-off comic book superheroes

I just stumbled across this category: Category:Spin-off comic book superheroes and am unsure about its viability. See the discussion on the talk page. (Emperor 03:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC))

It's not viable. See CFD. Postdlf 04:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Exterminate. Doczilla 05:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The CFD agreed to delete it. I have already deleted it from a lot of articles, but some still remain. 144.92.58.224 14:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The CFD hasn't been closed yet, even though it's a foregone conclusion, but it's still better form to wait until it's formally over before you empty it. We furthermore have procedures for emptying deleted categories, usually software-aided, so no need to manually do it yourself. Postdlf 15:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

editor removing possible fair use images from articles

Mithra2001 (talk · contribs) is removing images from comic related articles (and breaking infoboxes as he goes) using CSD I6 rationale - "no fair use rationale attached". Only problem is that he just seems to be removing them from the article, he doesn't actually seem to be CSD the actual image. I know next to nothing about fair or image usage - so can someone check his edits and 1) check that he's using CSD in the right way and b) that the images he is removing should be removed. --Fredrick day 08:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If you dislike the removing of these images, you can very easily remove any issue of fair use by giving the images a fair use rationale and then putting them back. If no fair use rationale can be given for an image, then he is absolutely right to remove it. If a fair use rationale can be given, then just give the rationale and put the image back. -- Lilwik 09:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
because I know nothing about images, I have no idea what fair use is, where to add a rationale, what it should say etc etc? Which is why I asked for people here who did know to check? did you read my post or just cut and paste that answer from somewhere else? --Fredrick day 09:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. Mithra2001 is removing free use images under CSD6 (Byrne and Lee pics) which is a no-no.
  2. The user is also punching out images that have FURs, either by template, text section, or wording of the summary. Yes, some need the FURs cleaned up, but this isn't the way to get it done.
  3. Lilwik, please don't bite someone who is coming he looking for help.
- J Greb 10:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I apologize. I had not intended it as a bite, I just assumed more knowledge than I should have. I didn't consider the possibility that you could really know that little about the matter. Fair use rationales are actually quite simple and anyone with any inclination to understand them can be writing fair-use rationales in a matter of minutes, but I should have taken your claim to ignorance more seriously. Every image on Wikipedia has a page about that image with text that you can edit just like an article, and every image in an article is a link to the corresponding page. The text usually provides a summary of the image and copyright information. For non-free images, it is supposed to include a fair-use rationale to explain why we are taking the liberty of using someone else's property without permission or compensation. Any non-free image without such a rationale is on its way to being deleted, including most images in comics articles.
If you take a moment to read WP:FURG, you will see what a fair-use rationale should contain, and even a great template that will allow you to create a professional-looking fair-use rationale with very little effort. Then all you have to do is edit the image page and add a fair use rationale and the image becomes nice and legal. It's that easy.
WP:FURG is very short and it's something that everyone interested in this project should know. I really hope that you will consider learning about fair-use rationales and writing a few, because this project is in desperate need of fair-use rationales and there are nowhere near enough of us writing them. -- Lilwik 11:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This should be a project wide discussion...

Please see Talk:Green Arrow#Volumes/Series Numbering

The substance of the thread is something that needs to be addressed project wide since it touches on how primary sources are going to be cited across many, many articles.

All views, comments, and such welcome.

- J Greb 23:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

How do you trace an IP address?

Not comic related, but the usbject doesn't seem to have a project group. A Detroit radio station, WKRK, changed formats this week, starting Monday. At the same time, the wikipedia entry has had a huge number of edits since this change, allmost of of which were made by anonymous users. I suspect that the edits are being done by a public relations person. How can I find the origin of these posts?--Drvanthorp 21:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

  • WikiScanner has been getting a lot of interest for this kind of thing but you can look up IPs using simple online tools like Sam Spade. You could also request an IP check if you suspected sock puppetry. (Emperor 22:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC))

Related GA's

While we're at it, Jean-Claude Mézières has been a GA for quite a while yet but wasn't comicsproject assessed yet, and Valérian and Laureline is currently nominated and deserves a GA as well. Halo Graphic Novel was also an unassessed GA. The mangas Azumanga Daioh, Believers, Bleach (manga), Death Note, Elfen Lied, Fist of the North Star, Golden Boy (manga), Hibiki's Magic, Kashimashi, Planetes, Sailor Moon (and no less than four subarticles), Suzuka (manga), and Yotsuba&! are GAs as well, but are not added to the comicsproject yet (do we add manga, or leave them alone?). Similarly, Newshounds is a GA webcomic which hasn't been added to the Comics project, and The Soxaholix is a comics based blog GA... Fram 13:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Manga tend to be dealt with by the specific daughter/sister project although OEL manga falls within our remit since it was rejected by manga and recategorised under comics. I am unsure about the division of labour but we don't flag merges or note new manga articles and it might be cheeky if we were to take credit for it ;)
I think before we draw up big lists of things that need attention we should formalise this following discussion above. (Emperor 13:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC))
Halo Graphic Novel is now a GA and I've posted Jean-Claude Mézières and Valérian and Laureline as GA nominees here - if you see any entry that looks to be in need of reassessment then you can post it here. The others are probably best dealt with by our sisters projects on manga and webcomics. (Emperor 21:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC))

What should be the main image?

I moved the images of the new versions of Omega the Unknown and Howard the Duck lower in the article, allowing their classic likenesses the most prominence. In these articles, where the original is particularly tied to their creator, I believe I did the right thing, but I was wondering what the Wikiproject's policy on this. After all, Red Bee (comics) shows a character that has just been introduced under that name, even though the bulk of the article is about a different person. --Scottandrewhutchins 14:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Good work (for those searching the changes are [1] and [2]). I often see a drive to change the infobox image to the latest version which can often be a bad idea (as that Howard the Duck example). The comics guidelines suggest you should try and aim for a classic representation of the character which most people (and most people are the average visitor not comic book geeks who already know the latest tweak to someone's costume months before it is published ;) ). If someone wants to change it (or objects to the one currently in use) it is probably better to discuss this on the talk page (or here if you are in a before jumping straight in because (as in those cases) it is a bad idea and is only going to get switched back again when someone notices. Anyway keep up the good work - if there are disputes then be sure to let us know as it is an issue we like to keep an eye on. (Emperor 20:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC))
It should be case by case. If Sue Storm were to suddenly become a big ol' goth for six months, maybe that image could go lower down, but a most common depiction should go up top. A major example of a "main image" debate is Talk:Ganon.~ZytheTalk to me! 21:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree strongly with moving the Howard the Duck image down. I'm more torn on Omega the Unknown, simply because I think the high profile of the writer on the new version might nudge that one to higher prominance. but I think, really, it's justifiable either way. Phil Sandifer 23:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

New good article

I'm happy to announce that Willy Vandersteen is our twelfth Good Article. Let's hope that many more will follow!. Fram 08:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We have only 12 Good Articles? Really? How is that possible? Wryspy 05:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes that has surprised me - I'd guess we have as many there were GAs and have dropped back again (too many chefs indeed).
Perhaps we should have a new area on the noticeboard: "Improvement Drive" - spot half a dozen articles in each quality band that can be brought up to the next level and start a section on the relevant talk page for input and ideas. When it moves up take it off and add another. Even if editors can't improve the article directly they can pass on ideas for covering the shortfalls. Obviously we want more GAs but it could also help improve the stub and start articles (as they are probably also the easiest to improve). (Emperor 13:38, 29 September 2007 (UTC))
Another possibility: WP:MILHIST has a contest department. Maybe this project could kind of copy that. Part of the problem this project has that a lot of other don't is the fact that almost literally anything said today could be changed by next issue, and that might have made people leery about trying to get articles up to GA. But such a contest certainly might help get more articles up to Start or B status, and it might even generate some more GA or highers. John Carter 22:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Which is why we should probably put focus on important series which have finished. For example, three articles that should be at least GA: The Sandman (Vertigo), Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Kingdom Come (comic book). Note that all three have absolute editions, which are full of nice things to cite. I have the Absolute Sandman vol 1, so I might help with that article after I'm done actually reading it.--SeizureDog 22:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
A contest is an interesting idea. I do wonder if a more collaborative approach (by highlighting a few dozen articles) might get better results but a contest might work on a broader focus - we have a lot of stubs and you could hoover up points taking stubs up to start (and we have a lot of stubs). I'd suggest seeing how collaboration works and then go from there. One I'd propose is Hellblazer - 20 year anniversary next year (which might bring some interesting interviews and information) and yet it is still a start. (Emperor 22:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC))
One other possibility, perhaps admittedly belatedly, would be to combine the two, and create a contest which by definition is limited at least initially to only a few dozen of the older, classic, more "stable" characters and books. But that probably is only moot now. John Carter 16:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
No I could see them both working, it is just that a contest would take a bit of organising. Just targeting one article to improve it can be done quickly and easily to see how things go. I see the improvement drive as being a quick way to get a lot of eyes on an entry to help give it an extra bump (often this might just involve removing some bits, a quick rewrite to the lead and throwing some sources in). I suspect there is a point where that might not work and more major rewrites are needed to hammer an entry into a more consistent whole (I think someone is working on a Watchmen rewrite?) and it might be that this is what a contest could be aimed at - obviously people can give input on improvements but one person would have to be doing the rewrite. So perhaps that is where the distinction could come in. People could take one or more articles that would need one-on-one work to bring it up to the next level and a contest could encourage this. (Emperor 16:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC))
We shouldn't worry about how things change from issue to issue. Wikipedia is not really a news service and I don't think it needs to be kept up to date with every little change in a character. We should focus on old, classic characters and let new little plot twists age for a while until we are sure that they can be considered important in the grand history of each character. -- Lilwik 23:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
GA status is most likely with articles that have stabilized and don't undergo a lot of changes. So I support both SeizureDog's idea about looking at series that completed long ago and Lilwik's thought about focusing on old, classic characters. Doczilla 05:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Let's pick one of the three mentioned above by SeizureDog and try to do that into a featured article? crisis on infinite earths anyone? --Fredrick day 11:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Crisis on Infinite Earths it is. I'll start a section on this on the talk page and we can take it from there. [3] (Emperor 12:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC))
OK this seems to be proving popular. I'd recommend formalising this - start a section on the notice board talk page where people can nominate articles and a list in the notice board listing say up to 3 from each class that we will be focusing on improving.
It strikes me from discussion below that it might be a good idea to first focus on some house keeping - focusing on articles which should already probably be moved up to the next level but just need some attention, a last polish and then nomination. We should be able to blast through quite a few of these and get them up to standard.
Anyone got any thoughts and ideas before I get the ball rolling? (Emperor 13:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC))

If you're serious about getting an article to GA (and possibly FA), I'd suggest Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Wonder Woman, or Fantastic Four. I have access to a number of sources on the first two and I have an idea of how to fix up the last one. WesleyDodds 10:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

OK I have taken the above suggestions and some thoughts and started discussion on the Notice Board talkpage. If people add their nominations and thoughts we can get the section up on the notice board up and running and take it from there. I'd like to see more stubs nominated as we have a lot of them and can pretty rapidly deal with them. (Emperor 00:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

Comics databases

I was adding a few to an entry today [4] and was wondering if they should be templated. I suspect some won't last or will change/merge and it'd mean we can monitor and change the links where needed. If that seems like a generally good principle are there any not worth templating? Of the three I added I have to say Big Comic Book DataBase is the least comprehensive (and possibly lacks notability) but I have found it useful sometimes.

Also while we are discussing this are there other sites that probably need a template for the link? (Emperor 02:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC))

Looking at the three:
  • Big Comic Book DataBase smells like a wiki, or a "rate the news to push a spin" site. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
  • GCB would need multiple links to pull all information since it will only throw one creator type (Penciller, Inker, Writer, etc) per search. It's also currently got a blind spot with covers. However, IMO, it is preferable since the information can be put in chronological order with "Order by Date". I may be biased there though.
  • CBDB lacks the ordering, but it does have nice adds. Though I wonder how it's editing works.
I'm tempted to say hold it to the GCB and CBDB. - J Greb 02:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Makes sense. Neither is yet a comics equivalent to IMDB but bringing a couple together does seem to offer pretty comprehensive coverage on the bibliography front (as best as I can check such things - they probably miss out some indie work and we'd need to keep an eye on how often they are updated, but good enough for general purposes - you'd need a fan site to get the complete coverage).
One thing to bear in mind is that the CBDB seems to flesh out the author bio by using the Wikipedia entry - I was initially worried that the Charlie Adlard entry was copyright violation lifted from there but a check of the history showed the entry has been put together piecemeal by various editors over the years (rather then being dropped in by one editor) so no problem there but it might be that a nervous editor flags this at some point so I thought it worth mentioning to head this off at the pass ;) (Emperor 13:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC))
Just a quick comment but you can but the Comic Book DB's entries in order - the default seems to be alphabetical but I had a nose around and you can order things chronologically (there is a link at the top of the list of issues) so Charlie Adlard by date is here and as another example here is Cyborg. I also looked around to find out how the editing is done - I can ask further if you like (they have a forum) but it looks a bit like IMDB where you can submit errors and then an editor will check them and make the updates (I noticed the covers to Mighty Mouse 4 and 5 are miscredited so could even do a test run on the system). Checking around they have just celebrated their second anniversary and the listings seem stable and (comparing with others and what I have in my head) are fairly comprehensive. No one comic database can have full coverage but this and GCB should prove useful in providing what we need (at least as far as English language comics go - I haven't checked other languages). (Emperor 16:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
Actually, editing is much more wiki-like in that it goes live as it's done, without being checked by another editor. You have to be registered though. I've been a member for a while there, let me know if you have any questions. --Fritz S. (Talk) 16:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the update - I'm still nosing round the place and it seems very handy (being able to have a group link is useful). I suppose the main question then is if it is more wiki-like what checks and balances are in place to stop information from degrading and being vandalised? (Emperor 17:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
As far as I can see, nothing really, apart from users being able to fix mistakes again and the discussion in the forum, of course. Strangely enough, it seems to work pretty well... I guess it's a little too specific a project to really attract vandals. --Fritz S. (Talk) 18:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
OK unless there are any objections I'll make templates for the Comic Book Database (note there is also a CBDB which is different) and GCB tonight.
On a related note there is some confusion on names and the like and some odd redirects (there are basically 5 comics databses) - see here. (Emperor 12:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC))
OK I did {{comicbookdb}} and you can see the creator link on Charlie Adlard and the title link on A. Bizarro (as I just stumbled across it and thought it looked like it needed a link or three). Seems to work OK (and they use a relatively simple URL so it should be flexible enough to cope with things). GCB seems to be down at the moment but when I can get access I'll sort that out too. (Emperor 16:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

Watch for new stubs

User:SkiersBot has recently been mistagging articles with the {{D&D-stub}} template as stubs of your WikiProject. Keep an eye on where your talkpage banner links; revert them whenever they hit the wrong pages.

I have informed User:SkierRMH about this bot malfunction and reported it to WP:AN/I; I don't have every D&D stub watchlisted and it would be too much time for me to find all of them. -Jéské (v^_^v Kacheek!) 05:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Blade Characters

The character profiles for Blade characters(Abigail Whistler, Blood Pack (Blade II), Eli Damaskinos, Jared Nomak) have all had their pages redirected to the main movie article. Even though they have not appeared in comics I think these still have merit as Comics Project pages in some form. If not as seperate pages than as a single page called Blade Trilogy Characters -- 69.182.73.240 07:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Those look like appropriate redirects. Those characters lack notability outside the movie. Their articles were weakly written with too much speculation (e.g., guessing that Abby could have been based on Rachel van Helsing). Doczilla 07:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. They are low quality articles about characters who have only appeared in those films so redirecting seems the appropriate course of action. I am unsure about a page for characters - there aren't many who appear across the trilogy and those already have their own pages. My advice would be to remove the cast list tables and prosify the cast section with a concise paragraph. There have been questions raised about using tables cast lists and it works for a quick and dirty list but a longer section with short bios would be more useful. If you do go down this route it'd be wise to post the example on the talk page first for discussion but I'd certainly support such an approach if done tight. (Emperor 11:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

More team categories

I spotted these today: Category:The Authority members and Category:Gen¹³ members. The former has been around for 2 years and the latter for a year and a half. I know there is a general "no team categories" consensus - is there a good reason these are still hanging around? (Emperor 17:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

If these exist in a navbox somewhere, I'll speedy the cats. - jc37 17:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any navboxes, just the infoboxes on the top of each main article page. John Carter 17:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
If some kind of navbox was deemed preferable to a category then I could knock one up and see how it goes. (Emperor 19:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
If that's a request for an opinion, I say go for it. Navboxes save the step of having to go to the category to find other members of the team. John Carter 19:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Wildstorm Universe has a small list of such titles. - jc37 19:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I am unsure we are talking about the same thing. I was asking if a "The Authority" navbox would be a good option. I could see problems occurring when someone has been in a number of teams (which was part of the problem with the categories) - someone like Batman or Superman could easily get half a dozen. (Emperor 20:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
In cases like those, and some of the Marvel characters as well, there could be problems. If the articles are stable, links to specific sections relevant to that particular version of the team might work. I don't see those conflicts necessarily arising with any of the WildStorm characters though. Navboxes for the teams from "smaller" publishers would probably work, even if they were limited only to the smaller publishers. John Carter 20:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Stormwatch: Team Achilles

Could I get some extra sets of eyes on this? I previously editted this a year ago and hadn't had it on my watchlist. In between a couple of big sections on controversy/cancellation were dropped in that make a lot of unsources claims without actually addressing one of the big reasons for its cancellation (the author himself) instead pointing fingers at other sources. Anyway see my comments on the talk page and if you want other information on the cancellation see: [5] [6] [7]. Given the fact that there are clearly vested interests in switching the focus of the story it does need a serious eye kept on it. (Emperor 20:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

Notability question

Came across this Batman: The Man Who Falls, and I'm wondering if it actually justifies an article. Right not the article is only plot summary, unsourced statements, and supposition. - J Greb 00:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It does have potential if it has indeed inspired the film and would be worthy of analysis but it needs referencing up the wazoo. Some links: [8], [9] (scroll down to the bottom), [10], [11], [12], [13]. Those would certainly help. (Emperor 01:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Super-soldier

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

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

Category:Madripoori

Hey y'all

Just letting you all know that this category is up for deletion and may need people's thoughts etc. Sweet StarSpangledKiwi 03:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I notice we also have Category:Wakandans and Category:Genoshans in Category:Comics characters by origin and that isn't what the category is for (if you look at the categories that were already in there). Although tempted to vote for Category:Madripoori to be deleted (fictional people from fictional countries seems to be a step too far and possibly not something we'd want a category for) but I'll wait and see what other people think of this before pitching in. (Emperor 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC))

Request for comment

I brought this up at the beginning of the month and noone responded. So please give your thought as Talk:Comic_book#I_think_a_rewrite_is_in_order.--SeizureDog 04:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Genosha

The Genosha article needs some sources cited, because none are. Does anyone know what issue certain things happened? I don't, otherwise I'd put them in myself. 72.33.69.125 14:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thunderbolts (comics) Cleanup

A while back another editor attempted to revise the section for "Faith in Monsters" but it came off to me as very biased and naive (for example, stating that Norman was legitimately looking for redemption). I attempted to give it a reworking but any other help would be great.--CyberGhostface 17:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Kavita Rao

Her article states she's a villain. Is she really? --DrBat 03:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read that endangered species story. Was she called a villain in it? She was shown with a lot of villains, but that's not enough to call her a villain. She has been McCoy's enemy and rival on some things, but that's not the same as being a villain.Doczilla 04:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
No, she wasn't called a villain. And she later tried helping Beast out. --DrBat 14:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Then no, I can't think of a reason to use that word for her. A reader might consider her a villain, but she hasn't been identified as such in the comics. Doczilla 17:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
She's a scientist with views that differ from Beast's. That does not make her a villain. 24.177.161.162 20:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

American Born Chinese

Hi folks. Even though I'm not part of your project, I've made so bold as to add American Born Chinese to it. This comic is an awesome little baby that you guys ought to be really proud of and give a high-end article!

Dybryd 23:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that - looks like a worthy addition (and personally it looks very interesting).
Also everyone is part of the Comics Project - its just most of them haven't realised yet ;) (Emperor 23:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

Amazon links

There is a bot going through compacting Amazon links and notice there are a number cropping up in the comics on my watch list, like Comic and City of Glass: The Graphic Novel. I was of the understanding that this was against WP:EL (as well as being unnecessary - all the information is available elsewhere) and have removed a lot of them previously. Can I carry on taking them out or is there a good reason for them? (Emperor 21:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

Yes, such links should be removed per Wikipedia:External links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided: "Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. For example, instead of linking to a commercial bookstore site, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving readers an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources." --Fritz S. (Talk) 13:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
This is what I've been working to (and somehow managed to upset an editor enough over it that they have left) but thought it worth double checking as comics is such a well-traveled entry I was unsure why this hadn't been picked up on. I'll sort it out later unless someone can come up with a good reason not to. (Emperor 13:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

Jason Macendale

There has been a bit of back and forth over whether to split this character off [14]. Someone has got the entry back up and running and I've added some links and formatting but we do need a consensus on this or there will be more back and forth. (12:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

This may be repeating myself, but... This article should not be using the {{main}} to link back to the costumes. And the costume articles should have the Macendale sections compacted with the {{main}} link. - J Greb 14:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I threw them in at the last minute while fixing up the entry. I'll take them out now. (Emperor 14:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC))
Jack-O-Lantern and Hobgoblin were already confusing enough with Macendale being both. I think it unnecessarily complicates things. 24.177.161.162 16:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware one of the advantages of a Macendale article is to help resolve the confusion - there is a lot of crossover and repetition between the two articles and extract the relevant parts to a separate article should help matters. (Emperor 16:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

Powers and abilities of Superman

Would anyone like to please help with referencing this page? Note also the talk page discussion. - jc37 23:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Condensing Deadpool

May I suggest that this article be put on the list of those which need to be condensed? There's a ton of redundancy and fan-boyness happening in it last time I checked. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of both Joe Kelly and Fabian Nicieza's Deadpool scripting, but I believe the best way to represent the character would be through concision, accuracy, and quality of article writing. The article is so large, it's daunting. Zebraic 07:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Good call. You can add things to the list yourself but I've added it as I was editing the panel anyway. (Emperor 13:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC))
Thanks, and good to know. I took a couple paragraphs out of the article this morning. I don't always have time to fix all the things I see, and this one's been bothering me for a bit now. ~Zebraic 15:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Comic Project Improvement Drive

Quite a few ideas have been kicked around and it looks like we have a handful that seem ripe for this [15] if anyone has any thoughts or ideas then throw them in there. (Emperor 03:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC))

I've started things moving WP:CMC/ID - important early things include having a look over each one and dropping notes in on things that can be improved and also throwing in any useful resources you might know of (even if you don't have it yourself we can try to track it down). (Emperor 23:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

Team categories?

I spotted this today: Category:Watchmen which was created at the end of August. A couple of problems - it is being used as a team category which consensus suggests is a bad idea. Then if you strip out all the characters then you end up with an entry that is probably too thin to warrant surviving. Thoughts? (Emperor 15:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

Seems like this was deemed a bad idea - it is now up for deletion so you can make you opinions known over there. (Emperor 21:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC))
Another one - this time a bit trickier: Category:Captain Marvel/Marvel Family. Strikes me it is almost a team one but also includes some enemies. (Emperor 03:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC))
And further on this point there are others e.g. Category:Planetary (comics). However, how different are these from Category:V for Vendetta and Category:Transmetropolitan? I know we have things like Category:Justice League which work well. It isn't too clear cut - the question is where we draw the line. (Emperor 13:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC))
You're really enjoying finding these, aren't you? :) For what it's worth, I can see having a category if the category contains a large number of characters who can't or aren't all mentioned directly in the parent article itself. Given that seemingly everybody in DC has been a member of the Justice League at one point or another, and that the list of members actually requires a separate page unto itself, that one makes sense to me. I could similarly see it if the category were used to link all the creative talent who produced substantial work on the topic. But several of the cats you mention above, like Transmetropolitan and V for Vendetta, don't seem to me to be so big as comics to justify a category of their own. I add that qualifier because I'm not sure whether the Film WikiProject people regularly make categories for characters in a given film or film series, which might apply to the V category. Just one opinion, though. John Carter 15:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Well I'm not sure about enjoying it - I've been through nearly every comic category tidying things up and thought it worth flagging those for debate. ;) There are a lot of such categories Category:Superheroes by team they just seemed to be representative.
For example it somehow feels odd that Category:Fantastic Four doesn't contain the foursome but then perhaps it doesn't need to. On the flipside Category:The Authority members (didn't we do something about this?) and Category:Gen¹³ members seem unnecessary so I can see how consistency across the categories applies.
The ones for comics (see also Category:Preacher (comics) - which is a mixture of characters and creators) is an interesting one as it does work where there is a lot of material (like Category:Justice League and Category:X-Men). The question about film characters is an interesting one but that is closer to our characters by company as some have such vast fictional universes this makes sense (e.g. Category:Star Wars characters). (Emperor 15:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC))

(←) Just a few thoughts, and salient points:

  • The general reason why the "Member of <foo>" categories got bounced was on clutter and confusion. Articles were getting forests of team cats, whether the character(s) deserved them or not. The roster lists were a result of that, the lists allowed more precision in inclusion and citing.
  • Similar reasoning saw the removal of "Supporting cast of..." and "Enemies/foes of...". These also had POV problems that were constantly hammered at in the CfDs.
  • Based on the various "<Foo> writers", "... Artists", "... actors", etc. categories which have been bounced, the same clutter argument holds for the bio pages. The only cat of this type that survived was for 2000 AD creators since it was presented as the "prestigious" group of UK comic creators.
  • Most of the cats like Captain Marvel/Marvel Family or Flash (comics) survive as collection points for articles on the comics, story arcs, films, shows, images, and the like. Some of these have gone up for CfD when they started collecting creators and characters outside of the eponymous characters and only survived when it was pointed out those should be removed, leaving the non-character, non-creator articles.
  • The self contained article sets may need to migrate from categories to navboxes. Look at articles like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, there are self contained character, novels, films, etc, but no Category: Tom Sawyer.
  • Also, based on the standing CfD consensus with regard to real peaople and fictional characters, the current cats may need to be vetted.

- J Greb 21:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Because we have strayed into this area recently here is the previous discussion. The general consensus was to aim for navboxes. There are Justice League and Marvel Family ones which work well (as well as non-team ones like Watchmen and V) and, as was suggested (but I never got round to), ones for The Authority and well defined teams like that seem better than categories. (Emperor 22:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC))
Although peripheral to the discussion (but connected) the {{V for Vendetta}} is up for deletion. I'd just as happily see the category deleted too as there is nothing that isn't linked in to the main entry but it'll be an interesting test nonetheless. (Emperor 17:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC))
It was me that put it up for deletion. There was a bright red navigation box at the bottom of Alan Moore that seemed both out of place and irrelevant to me. Please pop by and join in the discussion, as I'm sure your insights would be valuable. Maccy69 17:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to say I'm fairly neutral on the issue, although I do agree that the previous styling of the box was really out of place and that the changes you made really helped. (Emperor 18:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC))

Death of the New Gods

Do we need an article on this series? --Fredrick day 10:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that at least for now the relevant content could be added to the New Gods#Death of the New Gods section, which might make sense given that it apparently is, as it were, the end of their story. If it gets too long, then maybe spinning it off into a separate article might make sense. John Carter 14:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I said bollocks to it and have started creating an article here User:Fredrick_day/death of the new gods to see if there is enought material to make a full article - anyone who feels like it, jump it. I am using the kingdom come article as a template and am currently overwriting it. --Fredrick day 21:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If we all start editing articles that will just stay in someone's sandbox, that defeats the purpose of even discussing whether or not to create an article in the first place. Doczilla 22:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok I've decided to create the article it's at Death of The New Gods. --Fredrick day 22:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Main image for Hank Henshaw (Cyborg Superman) article

Which image do you think is better for Henshaw's main SHB image? Image:DoYouFearMeNow.jpg or Image:Cyborgsupermansinestrocorps.PNG? --DrBat 20:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd crop and shrink the jpg and go with that. The png invites arguments about "contorted pose", rotation, and relative size (the jpg should end up almost square, the png would be, 'box size, 250x149). - J Greb 21:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The thing I don't like about the cover is how Henshaw is wearing the glasses. :/
What do you think about using one of these two images (both would be cropped to focus on Henshaw)? [16][17] --DrBat 23:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I think they're both lousy images that show a needless and foolish presentist bias. Although Henshaw is currently appearing in Sinestro Corps Wars, it is in no way the story he is most known for, and using an image of him from it is a terrible way of illustrating the character as a whole. Phil Sandifer 23:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
And that's a valid argument too. And thinking about it, it may be a case that the Henshaw article should go with no image in the 'box. There really isn't an iconic version of him, nor is there a current long term version. Most of of the versions have been story arc specific, but not definitive.
Honestly, the "DoYouFearMeNow" works best of the four. Beyond that... 3 images, 1 per major arc and done. - J Greb 00:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
It is a good point. I do think this might be another example of trying to chase the latest design rather than something that at least works (which neither of those two do). I'd say go with the previous images - the first one which was used (and is still on the page) - the cover to Superman #79 or the second one Image:Hankhenshaw cyborgsuperman.jpg which was the main image for a year. Both show him as a cyborg version of Superman which gets the gist of the idea. If the character design stabilises on something and we can get a good shot of it then change it but if it is change for changes sake then stick with previous ones. (Emperor 00:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
I think 79 would be perfect. Phil Sandifer 00:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I would agree only if DoYouFearMeNow was kept as a separate image within the article. SaliereTheFish 05:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I Should also add that the claim that the Header Image does not represent the character as a whole is irrelelevant; as with Articles such as Mary Marvel or Kyle Rayner, the Header should represent the character's current form rather than his most popular.SaliereTheFish 10:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid it isn't irrelevant - it is part of the guidelines. "It is felt that using the most universally recognisable appearance of a character, for example Spider-Man in the red and blue rather than some other costume, and using a noteworthy image, either well discussed or used in many other sources, ... fits this purpose best". If those two examples you give are going against that then they need to be looked at. (Emperor 11:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
I agree. Presentist bias in our main images leads to abuse of fair use images as we feel obliged to have an image for every version of a character ever drawn. That would be... unfortunate in practice. Phil Sandifer 12:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
That makes sense. Doczilla 02:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yep. Looking at those two examples Kyle Rayner seems fine (although I don't know the detailed ins and outs of the character that is the general look I'd associate with him, without checking back issues) but the Mary Marvel is a bad choice and good example of what not to do. Ironically, I was going to suggest switching the image for the cover further down the page and I notice Phil has read my mind an already done it. (Emperor 14:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
And last I checked, Captain Marvel, Jr. needs the same review. - J Greb 15:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The change to a red costume seems very recent and this Image:CMJ1.JPG seems like a reasonable version of the costume he has used for an awful long time (although the first non-infobox one would do too). Given that he has worn a blue costume for decades it doesn't seem wise to switch to the very latest version which is red. (Emperor 15:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
If you wish, I'll handle that one. SaliereTheFish 21:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Go for it. (Emperor 22:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
Another one is Robin (Tim Drake) - the caption makes it clear it is a new costume as of mid-2006 and looking down the page it is clear that most of the time he is wearing a classic Robin outfit (and recently a variation on it). Not sure what alternatives there are (why do nearly all of them have huge power-lifter thighs?) but perhaps Image:Robin0.JPG is representative of the more iconic costume. (Emperor 02:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC))
Agreed... with the current 'box replacing the muddy image at OYL... - J Greb —Preceding comment was added at 02:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

DrBat keeps asking for a source more specific than DC comics for the image DoYouFearMeNow.jpg. I see no need to be taht specific, but the source is at a Photobucket account, here. Would this qualify? Or should someone ask the account starter where he got the image? SaliereTheFish 14:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

There is extra discussion on this on Saliere's talk page. My thinking is that it is obviously legitimate but doesn't seem to be widely circulated. The preview image and the one used in solicitations is lacking the final layer of "post-production" digital fiddling but it is perfectly fine for our purposes (which is showing the new costume). While not a direct source I'd assume we can still justify it under FURG but I wasn't comfortable about giving the go ahead without running it past the project first. (Emperor 19:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC))
It's all a moot point now, anyway; I found the real source. The official colorist had it on his myspace page, where he posted the final versions of some of his covers. --DrBat 10:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Another thing: why not move the page to "Cyborg Superman"? The character hasn't gone by any other aliases, and the casual comics reader (and especially the casual general reader) probably has no idea who Hank Henshaw is, but when you say "Cyborg Superman" then they kind of have an idea (we all read the Death/Funeral/Reign comics in the early 90's, didn't we?). WesleyDodds 23:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

When Henshaw made his next appearance after the Reign of the Supermen, in the Superman vs Doomsday mini, he ditched the Superman look and started calling himself the Cyborg. He only returned to being the Cyborg Superman when Geoff Johns brought him back in Green Lantern OYL. --DrBat 10:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
That's not that big of a variation. The article could be titled "Cyborg Superman" and then say in the lead "Cyborg Superman (sometimes referred to simply as The Cyborg) . . ." Add a diambiguation link at the top and we'd be set. The name "Hank Henshaw' is frankly obscure for even people into DC Comics (I only know it because I remember ridiculous things like that). WesleyDodds 20:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The Spectacular Spider-Man (TV series)

The The Spectacular Spider-Man (TV series) article is only listed under the WikiProject Television. Shouldn't it also be included in Comics WikiProject? 24.177.161.162 20:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. (Emperor 21:42, 13 October 2007 (UTC))
If I knew how I wouldn't have bothered posting here.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.161.162 (talk • contribs)
You asked a question. Somebody answered. When you ask whether if something should be done, that does not indicate that you don't know how it can be done. Wryspy 23:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about the mix up - as it is an article that isn't specifically a comic it can be a grey area (I know the book and novel projects will remove their header from anything that isn't actually a book or a novel) but if it is comic related then we are interested. If you'd asked for it to be done I'd have done it (I'm dense - you have to be explicit ;) ), but I see John Carter has done - you can grab the code from there or here: {{comicsproj}}. (Emperor 01:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC))
To be fair, the principle of being bold suggests that if you see something that should be done, then you are being asked to do it. It's almost universally true that if you think something should be done, then you should be the one to do it. -- Lilwik 11:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I have rated it as low importance, since it is only a spin-off, so tangential for our project. I agree however that it is a part of the wikiproject comics. 11:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs)

Merge with WikiProject Webcomics

Resolved

Considering the above named project is currently inactive, and in light of the comments above, I think that we should consider merging the Webcomics group in, probably as a task force. I personally would

  • Support such a merger/taskforcization. John Carter 18:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - taskforcise i.e. move to here (Emperor 20:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC))
  • Support - Though the more I think about it, I think we should probably use "work group" as our project's "term". (From what I can tell, we can choose either term for the WikiProject.) Why? Because we have seem to have enough opportunities for factionalism in WP Comics, there's no reason to have even a suggestion of militarism/agressiveness, even from a POV of semantics... - jc37 00:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support a move to a "work group". MURGH disc. 00:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support no preferance between task force or work group. - Peregrine Fisher 00:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Marvel

Just discovered this as it was just added to Fantastic Four. Do we really need this? It seems horribly fannish and subjective. WesleyDodds 01:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how there could be any clear criteria by which anyone decides which article gets this template and which does not. Doczilla 01:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
This could turn into the Worlds Biggest Template. Scary. The only way it could be done is with a very tight meta-template a bit like the way we carved up the CSI franchise templates so you have one universal one that can be tagged on the top of other smaller Marvel templates as long as the links are the general one: Marvel Comics, Multiverse (Marvel Comics), Marvel Universe, Stan Lee, etc. (Emperor 02:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC))
It seems like a good template for guiding people to the main Marvel articles. Not sure why it's fannish, but I guess the criteria would be all marvel pages. Emperor, are you suggesting that it be automatically be hidden like the ones at the bottom of Gil Grissom? That seems reasonable to me. I must be missing why it's a bad idead for a template, probably something obvious, but it escapes me. - Peregrine Fisher 02:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
It's a template that says "Marvel Comics" but only lists superhero characters and stories primarily from the Silver Age onwards. There's more to Marvel than just that. Creators, for one. Isn't there a Marvel template already? I remember seeing one that links to all the imprints, predecessor companies (Timely, Atlas), EiCs, and the like. Now that's an appropriate and useful template. WesleyDodds 04:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Exactly like the Gil Grissom page - there are 4 navbox templates in CSI - a general one and three for each of the series so you can mix them up - one pages dealing with the specific series you have two and on general pages (like CSI franchise) you can drop them all in. Previously each of the series templates had some similar information in making it horrendous to double or triple them up.
So with the Marvel one you can have a thin (a dozen or so) entries and then use that in conjunction with others like {{X-Men}} or {{Avengers}}. With the hide option that is largely in place on all templates everything would fold away tidily. Equally you can just use the very general one (e.g. CSI (comic book)).
Note this is up for deletion. {Emperor 11:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC))

The page history looks suspect. What exactly is going on here? WesleyDodds 04:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No idea... unless User:The Lizard was trying to create his own personal "Non-free comic" template. Which is supported by his placing it on Image:Lizard01.jpg before the annon hijacked the template. - J Greb 05:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that's just weird. Why he/she would name it Template: Marvel is puzzling. Doczilla 05:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be little in this template not done better by a category. Phil Sandifer 16:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

GCDB

Just a follow up on this - the GCDB template has now been made and seems to work fine: {{gcdb}}. I have spotted the solution to the main concern raised, that artists are listed as inkers and pencillers, as you can simply pull up all someone's credits which seems generally the best idea unless you are referencing a specific point (like someone being a prolific inker or some such).

Anyway have a look at it - if there are problems that need a major fix it'd be better to catch it now before it gets used a lot. (Emperor 13:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

Non-free images in Sentinel (comics)

There's currently eight fair use images there, certainly more then permitted by the Non-free content criteria. I've tagged it with the appropriate too much fair use template, but not having much background in the X-Men, I couldn't tell you which are most important to the concept, or really if any are needed at all. If someone from this project with the knowledge could go take a look and pull all but the one or two "bes" images from there I'd appreciate, otherwise I'll just end up deleting all but the first two, which I'm sure wouldn't be the right ones :) Thanks, and keep up the great work as a wikiproject! -Mask? 14:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Comic vocabulary

I just ran across Swipe (comics) and Homage cover (comics) (which was split off from the former) and am concerned (I dropped a note on the issue into the homage entry's talk page). Not only does there seem to be a bit of a fad for noting the minutiae of homage covers (Marvel Zombies and Arthur Suydam both have big fannish lists) but they are going to have difficulty avoiding problems (original research, notability, encyclopaedic lists, etc.). We have do have Comics vocabulary and I wonder if the best bet might be merging them in there (with proper references not links to discussion boards) and avoiding the lists. There are also various articles in Category:Comics terminology, like pull list, etc. which could be merged into it (not sure about things like metacomic this seems awfully like a neologism for breaking the fourth wall - the way Grant Morrison loves to do and surely two-ply can be merged to Bristol board?). I'm sure a skim through Scott McCloud's books (or one of the many, many others on creating comics) should find enough references for a lot of things. (Emperor 14:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

My only reservation is about metacomic, as recently (I think with Animal Man in "52"(?), and in earlier days when characters made "knowing winks", apparently to the reader), it might ultimately wind up being a significantly longer and more important article than it is today.
I agree that there are some excellent examples of this in comics and we can find lots of references I'm sure (especially to Morrison's use of it - I'd also include Deadpool see here) but I looked around and couldn't find any other authoritative use of the word elsewhere and I wonder if it'd be better as section of Fourth wall (which has section on its use in other media). It might be we can just move it to "Breaking the fourth wall in comics" but it might be wise to start as a section and if it expands we can split it off. Anyway lots of options - I don't want to lose it but I am unsure quite what to do with it. hence my throwing the discussion open ;) (Emperor 17:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

Cool way to find images for comics artists

I was able to find over 20 free images for comic artists in about an hour using this tool. You just give it a category like Category:Comics artists by nationality, and it automatically looks for free images. I think I did US artists up to the letter "H", but I wasn't able to figure out a way to start at "I", so things may be a bit sparse before it gets to "I". Anyways, it's pretty fun. - Peregrine Fisher 01:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting - I got a good haul just looking in British comics writers/artists:
It'll take a bit of digging to get all the right images out and trimmed and such but it could be handy (if only for interim pictures that can be updated later. (Emperor 02:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
One other thing. It uploads the images to commons in one click, but they won't be categorized correctly. Use a cat like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Comic_artists or one of its subcats. I don't know if a commons account is required to edit or not. - Peregrine Fisher 07:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics Cleanup

Considering all the WikiProject mergers, we should discuss this one. (I think it should be folded back into the main project.)

Here's the thing. We really need to make a decision on how we, as the comics WikiProject, want to indicate articles in need of cleanup, and those which we, as a group, feel that should be good/featured articles. ( I know... all of them : )

We also have Collaboration of the month, someone suggested starting an improvement drive, and a list in that big template above. (Plus noticeboards, etc.)

In my opinion collab of the month has several failings: they are usually listed longer than a month, but most work stops after the initial first few days, and it's only a single article.

With the above work groups now in place, perhaps we should just have an article from each Work group (chosen by them), and just have a noticeboard in the main comics project listing each, with the article not delisted until the work group suggests that the article is "mostly" cleaned up. (I think we'd be shooting a little high for GA/FA status right away, especially considering so many articles are in a less than presentable state.)

Also, I could see having a series of articles (such as those related to a "summer event") being selected for general comics cleanup for "the month".

There are many more ways in which we could do this, obviously, and I would really like everyone's thoughts and ideas : ) - jc37 22:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There is also the extant Wikipedia:WikiProject Transformers to consider. Personally, I like the idea of selecting a number of articles for collaboration for a given time. Then, if we have only a few editors really interested in such work, many of the listed articles would receive at least some attention. Maybe one per work group would be an option, maybe something else could be devised as well. also, an unrelated question. Considering the comics creator work group deals primarily with biographies, would the members object to seeing the Biography project sidebar added to the work group page as well, probably below the Comics project sidebar? John Carter 22:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
That's a very good idea. WP:BLP comes to mind for these as well. - jc37 22:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
And keep in mind there are already variable with in the project header for talk pages:
  • |attention=
  • |cleanup=
  • |fiction=
  • |future=
  • |image=
  • |infobox=
  • |rfc=
Each places the the article in to the relevant categories. - J Greb 22:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
One other option would be to maybe determine which articles are of greatest importance to the project and select the most relevant such articles for collaboration, at least until they achieve a given status, like WP:ACID does. Right now, all the articles that have been given top importance rating are listed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics Cleanup#Current top importance comics articles by their current quality level. I do think that a few others could reasonably be added to the top importance level, like maybe Lee Falk, Prince Valiant, Harvey Comics (maybe), and some others, but the existing list is at least a start. Maybe the number of articles in that importance level could be one of the primary focuses of attention. John Carter 23:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Categories and templates

I'm just working through the project banner and I'm realising how many categories and templates we've got related to clean-up. We're going to have to think seriously about what we want and need and make decisions about what to do. For example, we can use the future tag on the Comicsproj banner to indicate an article is written in the wrong tense, but we also have the template {{Comics-tense}}. Do we need both? Do we need {{Reqimagecomics}} and the image tag on the banner? Hiding Talk 20:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt very seriously both are needed. If the tense template looks to be used on about 50 page, and the request image template on about 1 page. I do think that maybe there won't be much effort in replacing them, if that's what's decided on, but clearly they is a redundancy here. John Carter 20:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
My mistake, the future tag does something different, it tags an article as describing a comic not yet published. However, we have a cleanup call on the {{Comicsproj}} banner, as well as an attention call. I'm not sure we need both. Another redundancy is the {{Comics-in-universe}} and the {{Comicsproj}} tag fiction. It's worth noting that the templates go on the front of the page whilst the comicsproj banner goes on the talk page. Hiding Talk 20:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Moved

The simplest solution is to move Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics Cleanup to Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Cleanup. I've been bold, and done so, and corrected the links. It'll need to be better absorbed, but there's no need to go for a separate work group, just amalgamate it into the notice board or some such. Hiding Talk 23:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Animation projects?

Maybe this is a strange idea, but considering the amount of overlap between this project and the various animation projects out there, would there be any support of maybe trying to merge the inactive animation projects in as well? John Carter 13:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I would support (and join!) an animation (cartoon?) work group. So I would have no problem with supporting that. Though we should also keep anime and manga "in the loop" about this as well. - jc37 18:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking specifically here about Wikipedia:WikiProject Web Animation, which is now inactive. However, there are a rather huge number of similar projects, including Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation, and several more specific projects, including Wikipedia:WikiProject Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Wikipedia:WikiProject Avatar: The Last Airbender, Wikipedia:WikiProject Cartoon Network, Wikipedia:WikiProject Family Guy, Wikipedia:WikiProject Futurama, Wikipedia:WikiProject Machinima, Wikipedia:WikiProject The Simpsons, Wikipedia:WikiProject South Park, Wikipedia:WikiProject SpongeBob SquarePants, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Transformers. Most of these I think could be reasonably kept separate, as many are still active, but I can see maybe trying to merge the Web Animation Project in. John Carter 18:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation appears inactive (the most recent the talk page notices are apparently canvassing). Perhaps we should just merge it with Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/United States comics work group. Honestly, when you consider that most of the comics articles have an "in other media" section, and many of those entries do not have their own page (some are parts of lists, and some only exist on the page, such as the Wonder woman movie), maybe the answer is to just have every workgroup have an "animation department". Each of the above WikiRojects are then "under" the umbrella of the individual workgroup, and under Wikiproject television or Wikiproject film, as appropriate. Our goal should be to network collaborators together, not further sift them apart. We've got to figure out a way to deal with unified articles having more than one WikiProject/work group interested, and how to "merge" inactive projects/workgroups as necessary. - jc37 18:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I just typed in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Animation. It redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation.
I think I want to expand my idea, and just suggest that Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation be merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics. After that, we can deal with the rest in a case-by-case basis. - jc37 18:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Generally, the project banner is equipped to indicate an article falls within the scope of several task forces, if required, so that wouldn't be a problem to indicate that a given article falls within the scope of more than one task force. I note that WikiProject Film is working to create several task forces as well, so there probably wouldn't be any objections to a joint task force there. The television projects don't seem quite so well organized just yet, though. Certainly, I wouldn't object to someone proposing the task force/merger you proposed above, though. John Carter 18:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'll post the merge templates, and we can start that discussion. Unless you have a concern, I'll remove your ATHF merge proposal, since will probably have to be determined after we determine this. - jc37 19:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidental thought about naming: Do task forces/work groups have to be sub-pages of a WikiProject? I think we're entering into territory in which a task force/workgroup could equally be one of more than one different WikiProjects. - jc37 19:40, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

No, they don't have to be. The various Australia and India projects all use the same banner as well. Also, it is possible to just name the project page as a subpage of one project while at the same time including the sidebar of any other relevant projects, making it effectively a subproject of both. I'm not personally aware of details beyond that general statement however. User:Kirill Lokshin, the driving force behind WP:MILHIST, would probably know more of the details than I would about trying to structure such things. I think he might be kind of sick of hearing from me as regularly as he has, though. I know I would be. You might be better off asking him about any further details yourself, as he doesn't have quite as much reason to not look forward to further comments from you. :) John Carter 19:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal (to comics-related media)

Per the discussions directly above. - jc37 21:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Support - as nominator. - jc37 21:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I don't really want to rain on the parade but I think maybe we should just let what we've got bed in and see how it all works first before we start expanding further. And I don't see that there's any need to perform a merge in order to set up the work group, if there is sufficient support. Also, I do have concerns over the practicalities of this work group and its scope. Realistically we don't want a large number of articles on this topic, or at least that's my thinking, so I can't see that there's much practical scope for this work group. I mean, would all articles tangentially related be tagged, or would it be only those that are specifically related to other media. And what are comics related media. In all honesty I think I'd have to oppose. 84.92.54.229 22:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC) Sorry, logged out. Hiding Talk 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    Sometimes the comic book is based from the film/TV series/video game, and sometimes the film/TV series/video game are sourced from the comic book. And sometimes there are films/TV series/video games/etc which have no comic book counterpart, but which are obviously of that genre. I think I could work up a list of quite a few related articles, without even delving into articles which just have an "in other media" section. - jc37 22:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    I don't doubt you can work up a list, but as you readily admit, it's a list with a looser connection than the other work groups, and there is going to be serious overlap with the other work groups as well. And your comment regarding articles which have an "other media" section is part of what concerns me, the scope is either too large to be meaningless or too small to be useful. I can't see how this is an area where a work group will enhance what we already have. It just doesn't feel like a good fit, and I can't see why we have to decide now either. Just let the WikiProject stay inactive another couple of months into 2008, it won't kill anyone, and let's focus our energies on getting the nine new work groups set up, running and full of participants before we add and perhaps unbalance what we've got so far. I can't see the problem this merger or work group creation will fix. What am I missing? I mean, right there you've got three, maybe four other WikiProjects that will need to be co-ordinated with, it just feels like too much too soon, and also a bad fit for a work group. We don't even know yet how the work groups we've already got are going to interact, without a new one which overlaps all of them. And we've still got the Superman project merge under discussion. Hiding Talk 23:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    Oh. I don't mind at all dropping this for now to discuss later. I do disagree with you on how you seem to see the work group, but at this point I think I would only persuade you by examples, and such (I could be wrong, but I am not sure you are seeing what I'm seeing...) And I'll admit you made me laugh appreciatively when I got to "nine" : ) - jc37 23:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    Maybe you should sandbox it? Let it ferment a while. I mean half the worry os that we've just absorbed two inactive WikiProjects, it would be nice to see them re-energised before we pick another to animate (runs for cover). Good night. Hiding Talk 23:35, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - propose waiting until after we find out whether the animation project proposal has legs or not. When we do, we'll know more about whether to try to create a joint task force or whatever. John Carter 22:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    Even if it becomes a WikiProject, I presume that we'll still need to work with it concerning comics-related media. And if it doesn't... - jc37 22:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    We probably will. But then we'll know whether there is a parent project or not. And it might work better to use that project's banner, and maybe make the page a subproject of the Comics Project. But we can't know the details until we know whether the group exists or not. John Carter 22:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose (this and the above if that merge isn't superseded by this) - while there is some crossover between comics and animation (animation based on comics and then we have comics based on the animation) animation isn't a subset of comics and this can't really be merged in. I'd support the proposal of an Animation Project which could work closely with the Comics Project (and the TV and Film ones too). I would also not necessarily object to a comic-related media work group at some point in the future but not formed by merging in American Animation. (Emperor 22:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC))
    As I mentioned above, as far as I can tell, this WIkiProject was only ever about comics-related "cartoons"/animation. - jc37 22:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking through their to-do list there is a lot of material that wouldn't fall within our remit. If the actual activity was concentrated on comics-related material then that is the unfortunate result of small focused projects like that - they can be rather at the mercy of the editor's interests. The fix is still to make it an Animation Project and then look into a comics-related media workgroup who would work closely with them (and other relevant projects). (Emperor 00:15, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
  • I couldn't find a "To-Do list" Though in looking over the page itself, there is a list of people involved in animation, and an interest in navboxes and info boxes. - jc37 00:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah sorry it isn't strictly speaking called a to-do list - I was going by the entries to deal with list which seems to mainly cover territory that wouldn't fall under our purview. (Emperor 01:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
That's just a list of people, mainly animators and voice actors. I don't see how that's different than writers and illustrators. They're all "comics creators". - jc37 02:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't class many of them as comics creators - people like Mel Blanc are certainly not tagged as such and rightly so as far as I can tell. (Emperor 03:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
  • Oppose. Animation is not a comic. There are too many differences in the related issues. It would make more sense for the film WikiProject to take over the animation project. Wryspy 05:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

FUR again like we did last Summer

BetacommandBot lurches to life again and is tagging images. I'll try and keep track and see what I can:

There are more though. It is also possible that some of these are OK or have been dealt with but they need a second set of eyes on them (I checked some out and some have FURs but of variable quality). (Emperor 00:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC))

There are a lot more I'll list later but Gary Erskine has uploaded an image for use in his infobox but it hasn't been properly tagged and might need someone more knowledgeable about the whole releasing it for use business to drop him a note on how to do this. Its: Image:Gary Erskine.jpg. (Emperor 15:31, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

Longshot

The Longshot article is in need of clean-up. I would volunteer to do it, but the reason I noticed the problem is that I was reading up on his history because I don't know anything about him. 72.33.109.69 15:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't claim to be an expert but there are often things anyone can do to help fix an article up - if there are any areas that you feel addressing then drop a note in to the talk page, there are often minor edits that can be done and a lot of entries are missing images and/or infoboxes. It also needs references and I'll grab a few in a bit and throw them in using {{gcdb}} and {{comicbookdb}}. Also a quite rating on the header can be helpful. So plenty to do ;) Thanks for bringing this up though as I was going to do... something I just forgot. (Emperor 19:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

Superman's powers

There is a discussion looking for consensus on how Superman's powers should be listed to avoid edit warring, [21] like if he can be said to have invulnerability or superhuman durability - yes I know it is splitting hairs but on such things edit wars are built. (Emperor 22:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

Creators adding their email addresses

This is a bit of an odd one. He is contactable via the 2000 AD forums but even then is this something we want? (Emperor 20:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC))

Maybe put that in the External Links section? John Carter 20:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy?

User:Hiding has just put a tag on Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, marking it as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics. Looking at that page, I can also see that Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy is listed as a comic-related "Good article".

I supose members of this project can decide to make whatever articles you want to be part of your project, but I really, really, can't see the connection. The cartoons in question were satiric/political cartoons drawn mostly by political cartoonists. I don't see any other political cartoons, or even any one-panel humorous cartoons, as part of your project. (I may have missed something.) Calling the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons comics is just plain weird, and wrong. --RenniePet 16:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Political cartoons are comics. Maybe you are confusing comics with superheroes? The comics portal news section carried a vast number of reports on the controversy, as can be seen in 2005 in comics and 2006 in comics. As for one panel cartoons being part of our project, The Far Side for starters? Hope that helps. Hiding Talk 16:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
> Political cartoons are comics.
Are they? Here's what it says in Wikipedia's article about comics:
"In Understanding Comics (1993) Scott McCloud defined sequential art and comics as: "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer";[1] this definition excludes single-panel illustrations such as The Far Side, The Family Circus, and most political cartoons from the category, classifying those as cartoons. By contrast, The Comics Journal's "100 Best Comics of the 20th Century",[2] included the works of several single panel cartoonists and a caricaturist, and academic study of comics has included political cartoons[22]."
If you search for the word "political" in the comics article, there are only two occurances, both in the above paragraph. I.e., nobody who has contributed to that Wikipedia article thinks that political cartoons are comics.
Call me a snob or whatever, but it makes me uncomfortable that very serious real-life problems concerning freedom of speech vs. religious tolerance, the use of violence to advance censorship (two Danish embassies were torched and over 100 people reportedly died in riots), the clash of cultures, etc., are lumped into the same "project" where people discuss whether Superman or Batman is more popular, and how best to present Superman's powers. --RenniePet 12:23, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I do think you are mischaracterising comics which aren't just about superheroes and/or do deal with Big Issues (what about Safe Area Goražde or Palestine, for example?). Most of the general public would still equate "cartoons" with the funny papers too. (Emperor 12:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC))
Certainly you don't fear that people who favour editing comics articles are prone to move in on the Jyllands-Posten article looking to push a juvenile perspective on a serious affair? Noone is "lumping" the subject into superhero context, but simply expanding the sphere of the WP:Comics project awareness. However you define snobbery, is it so terrible that political cartooning and social caricature be compared to other forms of drawn storytelling? This project often encounters sources concerning people and subjects operating a wide variety of such aspects, absolutely not limited to US comics book publications. And Scott McCloud doesn't get to limit the scope of comics simply by drawing a line by "no succession of panels". Several articles tended by this project cover subjects of political concern, from Thomas Nast to Doonesbury, and it wouldn't have been so incredible if a subject long covered by WP:COMIC, Politiken's Wulffmorgenthaler had found itself implicated in the business of being disrespectful of prophets. If you ask me, freedom of speech is pretty much at the core of comics too. MURGH disc. 13:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
While I can understand your concern, that split between political cartoons and Batman/Superman is a part of comics. I point to an issue of ImageTexT - a peer reviewed journal of comics scholarship (That, I admit, I work for) that, in fact, had material on both political cartoons (The piece by Mike Mayne) and superheroes (The pieces by Tobe and Almagor... and, actually, Norlund, if you want to count G.I. Joe): [23]. Phil Sandifer 14:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • If you search for the word "political" in the comics article, there are only two occurances, both in the above paragraph. I.e., nobody who has contributed to that Wikipedia article thinks that political cartoons are comics. Well I do, and if you check the edit history you'll see how wrong that statement is. Perhaps you'd like to retract it? As you've stated, our article notes, the term comics is ill-defined, but please don't make the mistake of assuming that the phrase equates to the superhero genre published in American comic books. One school of thought has the form originating from Hogarth and Rowlandson, very much political cartooning. We are all well aware of the seriousness of what happened regarding the publication of cartoons, but let us not over-cook this by seeking to accuse people who tag a Wikipedia article of trivialising the issue. Please let us all assume good faith of one another. Hope that helps. Hiding Talk 00:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I can understand that Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics does wish to include the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in your project, and although I still think it's pretty weird, it's obviously something that the members of this project decide, so good luck with it. In a way it's good that people still are interested in that tragic situation, and spread a better understanding of the importance of free speech and how it is more important to defend free speech than to accept religious censorship.

Two final points from my side, and I'll go away and leave you be :-)

  • You have to realize that the cartoons themselves were almost incidental to the whole business. If Jyllands-Posten had instead invited some Danish short-story writers to write 12 tiny stories about Muhammad, then it could just as easily have developed in the same way as far as becoming a major conflict between Western free speech and the Muslim cultural and power structure. It could have been a new Salman Rushdie case, and then Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics presumably would not consider it something you want to include in your project...
  • To Hiding, thanks for your rebutal. I just think that if political cartoons really are comics, that it should be stated clearly in the comics article. You suggest that I should look in that article's History, but that just strengthens my position - if the comics article previously indicated that political cartoons are included, and that information has been removed, then surely the result is due to consensus.

Good luck with your project. --RenniePet 10:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, actually. Had it been twelve short stories, it wouldn't have been visual depictions of Muhammad and wouldn't have been blasphemy. The visuality is actually key here - it couldn't have been anything but comics. Phil Sandifer 13:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Not only that, had they been short stories, would you have objected to Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature adding a tag on the talk page? But I'm glad we've sort of talked it through and we're at a point where we can at best agree to disagree. As a last throwaway comment, the term "superhero" crops up one more time than the term "political" does in the comics article, so I'm not sure how much we should read into the occurrences of the terms. Hiding Talk 20:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Couple of odd-balls...

I've tagged these as needing attention, but I'd like a little feed back before punting them to AfD:

  • JL-Axis - Based almost solely on the Countdown to Adventure appearance. Hasn't had anything of note done to it since tagged on the 13th.
  • The Batman Strikes! - The comic, and all it is is an issue list regurgitating solicitation copy. Just tagged today.

And what's the current consensus on articles that are just a list of a characters appearances in print?

Thanks - J Greb 21:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Just been bold and merged The Batman Strikes! to The Batman (TV series). Anywhere we could merge JL-Axis to? I'm not sure what to do with articles that just list character appearances. I can see some usefulness to researchers, but whther they'd pass notability guidance is another issue. Maybe a test case at afd to get a consensus there, or a centralised discussion? What sort of articles have we got? Hiding Talk 21:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm surprised there isn't a "Alternate versions of the JLA" page somewhere. How many other versions of the JLA are there? If there's enough, it would warrant its own page. Anakinjmt 21:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The easiest thing would be to just merge it into the Justice League page in an "Other versions" section. It could always be split off if the section becomes too large. -- 69.182.73.240 00:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Problem is, there isn't an "Other versions" section. Unless you're saying this would start that section? Anakinjmt 01:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Yep start one - there are plenty of others like the Crime Syndicate from JLA: Earth 2 and the Planetary/JLA crossover shows a variation on the Wildstorm Universe JLA (as shown in Planetary the Big Three were killed immediately but in the Elseworlds variation they survive and confront Planetary, who have taken on the role of The Four in that continuity). There are also numerous Elseworlds variants. This fits much better with things like that.
I think Batman Strikes! is viable though - there are plenty of others based on the DC animated universe continuity (so many I was considering a category) that one just needs the crap cleaning out and a note dropped in suggesting the places it needs expanding. (Emperor 01:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC))
Just for clarification, don't you mean the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3? Earth-2 had the Justice Society. Anakinjmt 03:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Morrison called it Earth 2 when he wrote JLA: Earth 2 (all very confusing) - its all in the links I give above. (Emperor 15:08, 29 October 2007 (UTC))

Publication lists

Just need some input on sorting this issue out [24]. (Emperor 15:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC))

Proposed merger of WikiProject Comic strips

Resolved

The above-named project is currently inactive, and seems to basically cover a small section of the scope of this project. On that basis, I am proposing that it merge into this project, possibly as a task force. Comments? John Carter 15:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Merge Move I think when we discussed taskforces we kicked around the idea for bringing in some of the smaller projects (like the Batman and Superman ones) and if comics strips is inactive (as it seems to be) then this seems like the best solution. I wonder if at the same time we do this we could implement some of the workgroups/taskforces we discussed? I know Hiding was working on it but is fighting the good fight elsewhere but I'll bother him about the code and see what is needed to implement it (and if I'm up to the job ;) ). (Emperor 17:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC))
    • Changed my suggestion to move to workgroup based on debate below. Location: Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Comic strips task force (Emperor 18:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC))
  • Merge - subprojects to this project are only going to lead to low-quality article glut. Phil Sandifer 18:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge. I think I opposed this same suggestion once a long time ago, but that project has obviously been inactive for a long time, so yes, we need to absorb it. Doczilla 18:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge/turn into a task force - I'd prefer it was turned into a task force sub-page (via move), and then marked inactive. Last I recall, Hiding left notices on quite a few comics-related wikiprojects concerning task forces. We may want to check on them as well (the Superman WikiProject, for example). - jc37 09:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I could try to do some work on the banner myself for task forces, but am less than certain about the results. There are a few banners, like Template:Film, which could probably be used as the basis for the new, "task-forced" banner. Personally, I'd like to see the existing Batman and Superman projects merged into a DC comics project, given the amount of overlap. If they were decided to stay separate, however, the only other individuals I can really see qualifying for a separate work group would be Spider-Man from American comica, and maybe some European characters about which I know little or nothing, like Tintin. John Carter 17:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The banner is almost near enough worked up in one of my sandboxes, um, User talk:Hiding/X6. Once the names of the task force/work groups are decided it will be fairly easy to set up. Hiding Talk 12:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge/turn into a "work group". MURGH disc. 00:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge it doesn't need to me its own project. - Peregrine Fisher 00:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Workgroups

I've spoken to Hiding about workgroups and in his reply he makes a good point which mirrors jc37 & John Carter's point above and I thought worth creating a sub-section on this.

We should resolve the workgroup issue across the board. The nominations seem to have got interest to get a number of them up and running - Marvel Comics, British Comics, etc. The Comic Strip Project merge above could just result in a move (rather than merge) and we can also merge the Batman and Superman projects to form the DC Comics Workgroup.

Doing it all in one go would greatly reduce the amount of effort and make the whole process simpler and easier. Given that we have discussed the various bits of this issue and the consensus seems to be that it would be a good idea I think we can probably broaden the discussion out to cover the whole area.

Things would break down to:

  • Move Comic Strips Project to a Comic Strips Workgroup
  • Merge Batman and Superman Projects into a DC Comics Workgroup
  • Create the others that seem to have interest Marvel Comics Workgroup, British Comics Workgroup, Comics Creators Workgroup, etc.
  • Then adjust the template to allow us to flag the relevant workgroups.

Thoughts? (Emperor 18:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

Fine by me. Please see new section below, though, regarding the webcomics group. John Carter 18:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Though, as I commented below, I prefer "Work group" over "task force". (Although... I could instead see: "<Publisher> task force", "<Creator> work group", and "<Character> work group", as well. When we're talking about an impersonal thing like a publisher or corpration, "task force" seems to work, but when it's people (or even characters) we should default to "work group". While the semantics of naming may seem a "small thing", I've found in discussions in this WikiProject, details are important : ) - jc37 00:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK cool. I'm happy with either, although thinking about it I seem to recall I argued for workgroup (as taskforce sounds a little too "SWAT" ;) ). (Emperor 00:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC))
I tend to favor the term "work group" as well. To me, "task force" gives the impression of impermanence as well, and I don't see any of these groups finishing their tasks anytime in the forseeable future. John Carter 01:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Merge these. I created the Batman project, and even I can't justify its continued independent existence. It just didn't catch on. Doczilla 06:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I think we should give these one more day (the 22nd), and if no further discussion, make it happen. - jc37 10:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
    Ok, It's fairly unanimous. I think we can consider the discussions "closed as nominated". I don't have time at the moment, but I'll start on the merges later tonight, unless someone else gets there ahead of me : ) - jc37 02:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
We probably should get expressed approval from the Superman project before merging/relocating it, however. John Carter 14:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - even if it is largely a formality I think we should throw some merge tags in so everyone knows what is going on and gets a chance to offer their opinion. (Emperor 14:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC))
I'm just pulling this all together now as best I can. It may be scrappy for a couple of days whilst I bring the template up to speed. Hiding Talk 14:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Created

Okay, the following workgroups have been created:

I'll now work on getting the banner up to speed. Hiding Talk 22:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Am making headway on the banner, but must now retire to bed. Hopefully I'll have it sorted in the next few days. Hiding Talk 23:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the efforts Hiding - let us know if there is any grunt work any of us can do to help. (Emperor 00:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
      • You're welcome. I'm off to bed again, it's coming along, it's just a matter of category creation now. I think I'm going to disable categorising by work group and importance for the time being, because articles will be more important to some work groups than they are to the project as a whole, and I need to source another banner adding that level of functionality in order to see how it works practically as opposed to how I imagine it does, which is rather complicated. It's near enough all sandboxed up, so maybe another day or so. Hiding Talk 23:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Just a note to say that Hiding has made the workgroups addition to the header live. I've dropped a few into the big articles in the hope it will trickle down. I think Hiding is looking into asking about a robot to remove the Webcomics banner and drop the workgroup link in. It'd be handy (in general) if we knew of those with bot-fu in the project, for future reference. (Emperor 15:34, 26 October 2007 (UTC))

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Webcomics work group has a Webcomics work group table with only two Start-class articles shown. The FA-class Megatokyo article is not counted, for example, neither are others. Is this due to the above "disabling of categorising" and we need only wait a few days or is something broken? I was confused by the instructions in the To-do to add the Web-work-group=yes to Comicspro and delete {{Webcomicsproj}} in Talk pages. I tried that first, saw no difference in the assessment table and nothing listed in the category class and then resorted to using {{Webcomicsproj}}. As I'm clearly confused, can anyone clarify this? -Wikianon 14:44, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Anything tagged with {{Webcomicsproj}} will not show up in the webcomics workgroup stats, only articles tagged with {{Comicsproj}} and the tag Web-work-group=yes will show up, after the bot has been run again. The bot to amend the stats runs about every three days I think, so really it is a matter of tagging and then patience. I'll try and manually run the bot and see if that amends the stats. Hiding Talk 14:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Should any existing class or importance tags be preserved? I assume yes, so I have changed Talk:Scary Go Round's {{Webcomicsproj}} to {{Comicsproj|class=Start|Web-work-group=yes}}. I have also made the work group Tagging and assessment section state what you wrote as there was a {{{2}}} there before. -Wikianon 15:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that - it makes sense to just switch the rating over to the new system (and I've taken the opportunity to rate things as I add the workgroup where it is needed). I have suggested we get a bot involved to run through and do the switcheroo automatically - I can't say I know much about bots so (if this isn't already in hand) if anyone has good bot-fu then let us know. Obviously, in the meantime, switching it over by hand seems a good idea although hopefully this can all be done less painfully than that ;) (Emperor 15:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC))
I'm going through to replace the Webcomics banner by hand. This way I can add the Biography banner and other work groups as needed as well. John Carter 16:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I just kicked the bot through manually and it's updated the stats as can be seen at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Webcomics articles by quality statistics. Sorry for any confusion caused. Hiding Talk 15:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger with WikiProject Superman

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was no consensus to merge the projects. нмŵוτнτ 16:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


Considering that the entire scope of the above mentioned project will be contained within the scope of the new DC Comics work group of this project, and given the substantial overlap between the two groups, it makes sense to me that the two groups might merge, with the appropriate content from the extant WikiProject Superman page being merged into the DC Comics work group page. I personally would Support such a merger. John Carter 14:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Merge to "DC Comics work group" (Emperor 15:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC))
  • Oppose - Although Superman is mainly a comic book character, the history of the character has gone beyond just the comic books, encompassing movies, radio and TV. The character's presence in other media might justify separate projects. But then again, the point of WikiProjects is to get people to work on the articles in a consistent fashion, so I'm not completely opposed to a merger. DonQuixote 16:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • This is a good point (and incidentally also applies to the Batman one) - there is no reason a DC Comics work group can't work with a Superman Project. Films and TV based on comics do fall within the projects purview so it wouldn't be pushing the envelope to bring the Superman Project under our wing. I suppose the question is would members of the Superman Project be happy to work within the DC Comics work group? If the merge causes people to feel it has diluted their efforts and they wander off and do other things then it'd be worth not merging (I'll change my recommendation) and reminding the DC Comics work group to work closely with the Superman Project on matters where they crossover (so alert them to any relevant discussion and vice versa). The point of creating the work groups is to help improve the quality of entries and I'd not want to think good editors were somehow put off (leading to less opportunities for improvement) by a merge. If that makes sense. (Emperor 17:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC))
      • In my experience the "other media" WikiProjects tend to defer to the comics WikiProject in such cases. See WP:NCC for examples of disambiguation. This is merely about organisation of resources. The goal is to work together, not be concerned who can do what. We're all Wikipedians here : )
  • Support, in that I think it needs to be part of the project somehow, although whether that is via a merge with the DC Comics work group or whether as a standalone Superman work group I am unsure. But I do support a merge of some sort. Hiding Talk 17:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Superman is larger than DC Comics, he made DC Comics what it is. He's too widely known around the world to be lumped into one general WikiProject. Most Projects share similar ground with other projects, but there certain things that make them disimilar, and necessary for separation. In this case, Superman is more widely known, considered a cultural icon, and been portrayed--and this is the key part--is vast amounts of media, from radio to film.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - Superman is not a sufficiently large topic to require its own WikiProject, and bringing it in under the auspice of an established project will improve coverage on the subject. Phil Sandifer 18:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • What exactly constitutes "sufficiently large"?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Generally, I've seen that we would like best to see projects have a scope of at least 500 articles. Right now, the Superman project has all of 168 tagged. Also, given that even the Smallville (TV series) had appearances by Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), Aquaman, Cyborg, Green Arrow, a version of Impulse, Martian Manhunter, and others, there is very good reason to believe that the DC comics group would be active in those articles as well. The only advantage of the extant separate Superman group that I can see is the fact that the project itself focuses exclusively on Superman, even though most of the members are probably also active in articles relating to DC. John Carter 21:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
        • They'd only be active in those articles if they were active in the show. Knowing the comic character means nothing on the show. Unless you are active in television articles in general, being a part of Project Comics wouldn't necessarily be helpful. Not saying that they couldn't work on the articles, because Wiki is open to everyone, but that being part of the Comic community doesn't help in that instance. Someone fron the Film, Novel, or Living People would have just as much ability to enhance the article. Since most Project Comic members are more active in that section, one wouldn't assume that Smallville would all of a sudden become extremely active in its pages. I don't believe they will be any more active there than they are now, considering the pages have been around for awhile and it isn't like Project Comic editors were not aware of them. Also, who is this "we" for 500 articles? I meant, where does it say that a separate Project needs at least 500 articles?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
          • To answer the question regarding number of articles, that is more or less a reference to the proposals at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals as more or less a reasonable baseline of articles for the creation and continuation of all the templates, pages, etc., involved in the creation of a separate project. And I do find the statement "They'd only be active in those articles if they were active in the show" to be probably less than fully accurate. A fan of a character is a fan of the character anywhere. They might not have earlier contributed to content regarding the show, but they may well watch the show and simply never have been previously motivated to contribute to those articles. Also, your statement that being active in the comics project means "nothing to the show" is perhaps objectively truly, but also almost certainly misleading. Based on my own experiences, those who are interested in the characters are most likely to work on the articles, as opposed to almost "random" edits by editors who do not have such already extant interests. Also, as already noted, this project does have substantial involved in the Marvel movies, the various novels based on the characters, and so on, and that the editors of this project on that basis probably have at least a passing acquaintance with the standards of other projects. Also, and I don't know whether this has been mentioned or not, it is already the case that work groups can be subprojects of more than one parent project. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history is related to several such multi-parent work groups/task forces. A similar arrangement could probably be worked out here as well. Ultimately, however, making the more central articles a higher priority to a larger group of people is probably everyone's objective, and I personally think merging as a work group would probably be the best way to accomplish that goal. Also, of course, as stated above, work groups are much less likely to be deleted when they become inactive, allowing continuity of guidelines, history of the group, etc. etc. etc. I could be wrong on some of these details of course, but based on my experience this tends to be accurate. John Carter 21:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - All of the Superman pages fall under the scope of the Comics Project anyway. There is no need to have 2 projects working on the same articles. Merge with the DC project per nom.-- 69.182.73.240 19:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Support of Superman WikiProject being merged to DC Comics Work group. I think that the number of articles is immaterial in this case. It has to do with grouping editors of like interests for collaboration. And "by publisher" seems to be a good way to do this. We could almost go with the general rule that "if a topic has a disambiguation phrase, a work group could be made concerning it." (See WP:NCC.) - jc37 22:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - This thing about not having enough articles is crap IMO. You say you need 500 articles to qualify there being enough articles to warrant a separate project? Well then, think on this. Wikipedia:WikiProject Final Fantasy has only 281 articles. You saying they don't have enough articles to warrant a separate project? Besides, I've noticed several articles that could be tagged as Superman articles, bringing the total up. Superman's status as pop culture phenomena and American icon warrants a separate project devoted to him. I can't speak for Batman, although I could guess it'd be similar for him, but it's definitely warranted for Superman. Anakinjmt 03:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Merge proposal

With the corresponding proposal that we would then work with the corresponding taskforces/workgroups within WikiProject films and television.

This will help reduce duplication and bureaucracy (hopefully). Especially considering that often information on comics and comics-related media are in the same article. So we should be able to streamline MoS concerns as well. - jc37 19:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Support merge, as nominator. - jc37 19:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support merge. Working as a task force within each of the relevant major projects (film, television, and comics) would probably bring more attention to the articles from all relevant spheres. John Carter 19:35, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - American animation, as a subject, is too far distinct from the interests of most of this WikiProject for that to be a useful merge. Phil Sandifer 19:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    Could you explain? - jc37 20:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    This project is pretty invested in mainstream American comics - little focus on the Undergrounds, little focus on comic strips, even. The vast bulk of American animation is not from that tradition - Disney and Warner obviously produce the two biggest important chunks, but the Fleischer Brothers, Messmer, the non-Mickey Disney stuff, things like Flip the Frog, etc. are really quite removed from most of what goes on in this project. I think they're a weak fit, and that animation is probably better served by the film people than by this group. Phil Sandifer 20:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    To an extent, I agree with the above. I do however think that this project would probably be well served by creation of maybe a few "topic" groups as well. I note that specialization in humor comics, western comics, romance comics, and maybe a few others is something that this project would probably benefit from, possibly by creation of devoted work groups, and much of the content referred to above probably falls within the scope of one or more of them. John Carter 20:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    (ec: response to Phil) - (thinking) Well... we're filling all those out in Workgroups. (See the threads above.) And as I look over WikiProject films' MoS they seem more equipped to deal with the films themselves, not the characters, locations et al. (Something that we've been dealing with for some time, and would also seem to apply more to what we are dealing with here: characters and locations and themes in various media.) They deal more with the in the "vehicle of conveyance", we deal more with the "content", if that makes sense. I just think that this WikiProject has grown beyond dealing with just the printed page. The media used shouldn't matter. - jc37 20:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    In that case, I think a general animation project would be better suited. I just don't see this as being very close to what the project has done up to this point, and I don't think it's the right Workgroup to add at this time. Phil Sandifer 20:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • <edit conflict, some of above unread> Oppose per Phil. Animation is and isn't related to comics, but I don't see any value in this merger. Some of the new work groups we've just set up are sparsely populated and developed, I think we need to bed things in with those first, they are much more of a natural fit. Let's learn to walk. There's nothing being lost by an inactive project just staying as it is for now, and I think there are better avenues for animation than here. Maybe someone will at some point revive the parent animation project, which would be a more natural fit than shoe-horning here. Anything we need to work through with other WikiProjects can be worked through without this merger. Hiding Talk 20:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - Actually, so far as I can tell, there never was a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation. It wouldn't be a bad idea, though. I've made a separate proposal for such a group on the Project Proposals]] page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Animation. Any interested parties should maybe sign up there. John Carter 20:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The project got moved there and back again, so they never really settled on their scope and wanted to differentiate from anime, hence the American in the name. I think it's best to keep this one separate given the logistical issues with overlaps between numerous projects. It would probably be worth letting WP:ANIME know about the proposal to drum up more support and sort out logistical issues, heck, at some point I should imagine we'll have to touch base with the anime and manga project, since one theory at least has it that it's a child of us and a notional animation project. Hiding Talk 20:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment (Let's hear it for edit conflicts : ) - Well the current project (that I proposed for merging) seemed to be only interested in comics-related media. And I disagree with the above. I think we've been dealing with comics-related media for some time. But how about this: I can see "comics-related media" being a rather clear workgroup for this Wikiproject. I'll withdraw this proposal and suggest that instead... - jc37 21:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - Sure there is some overlap but this goes way beyond the scope of the Comics Project. If you merge these you might as well merge every project that deals with fiction together. -- 69.182.73.240 05:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose--Both topics are vast, too vast to efficiently combine. While there is some small overlap in a few areas, they are different enough to attract their own types of experts.Konczewski 16:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Tagging?

To what degree should articles related to DC and Marvel also receive the US comics tag? John Carter 16:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point. The US comics tags is for other comics publishers other than Marvel and DC so I've removed that from their talk pages.
On the creators I have tagged Alan Moore as falling within the remit of British comics and the creators work groups which makes sense. However, I specifically tagged Stan Lee with a Marvel Comics work group tag as he is so closely associated with them.
There are other cases - should Timely Comics get both a US and Marvel Comics work group tag?
I think we can probably generalise for most but there are clearly some that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. (Emperor 16:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC))
I would think that those series, characters, and, to an extent, publishers who have been absorbed by Marvel or DC could be seen as reasonably falling within the scope of those groups. Regarding Alan Moore and the like, I can see him being included in the DC work group, given the amount of work he has done there. I also note that Military history regularly tags articles for more than one work group, depending on the nature of the article, and that we could probably do the same thing here. This would also be useful for articles like Peter David, who would probably be tagged for DC, Marvel, and American comics groups. John Carter 16:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
There will be some overlap, for example I think I tagged Superman as both DC and United States, he's just too big to be just DC, but the nitty gritty minor articles I'd leave to a minimum. It's going to be hard coming up with a hard and fast guideline, and personally I'd take a suck it and see approach, use common sense, but when we do that it always leads to arguments. :) If it's of historical importance or a major topic of a number of tags, tag it for all of them, otherwise just go with the best one. Like DC Comics should be both United States and DC tagged, but Kandor can be left to just DC. Hiding Talk 16:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
2¢ and a bit...
At the suggestion of Emporer, I'm adding this here...
In general, I can understand cross grouping creators under the Creator and British work groups. In general the project seems to skew towards American information. Having these articles cross grouped should result in them getting proper tone and completeness.
Cross grouping Creator and Publisher though... that opens the door for trouble. I concede that there are creators that have the bulk, if not all, of their professional output associated with just one publisher (sticking with the 2 we've got 'groups for). We can all rattle off a good list including the likes of: Lee, Kane, Gaiman, Moore, Schwartz, Fox, etc. But it's hardly a definitive list, or one that's entirely NPOV. And that's without addressing other "high profile" creators who can legitimately be lumped into all three work groups. People like: Kirby, Gurber, Miller, Jim Lee, Larson, Shooter, Perez, Johns, and so on.
My concern here is two fold:
  1. Potential for skewing articles. If a creator is tagged for Creator and DC, but also did work for Marvel as well as independent work, the non-DC stuff could get ignored, or worse removed, since it doesn't fall in the DC mandate.
  2. Overloading the 'groups. Since it's all but impossible to come up with a NPOV criteria for including just some creators in the Publisher groups ("Only worked for" is the only criteria I can come up with) most are going to wind up being tagged to all three.
- J Greb 21:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. You've definitely convinced me. So creators should only be tagged with creator and national tags, not publisher tags. Makes sense. Hiding Talk 21:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I could agree with that as well. But, for what it's worth, coming from the Biography project here as well, I think that the possibility of, for instance, Peter David's indpendent work being removed from the article because he's tagged for only DC and Marvel would probably be negligible. I hope anyway. You guys probably know more about the inter-company disputes here more than I do. The main thing the work groups have to remember is that tagging doesn't indicate any sort of "exclusive rights", but rather is just a way to help sort articles into various groups who'll hopefully be most knowledgable about them. John Carter 14:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
While I don't think anyone would remove say Neil Gaiman's small amount of Marvel work (compared to his main body of Vertigo/DC material) I'd want to try and avoid a comprehensive tagging of every creator with company tags, especially for people (like Grant Morrison for example) who have worked for both. This would end up making the whole thing pointless and I'd rather have no list (or a very restricted list - of which Alan Moore is probably on the edge or in the grey area) than go down that road.
A related issue is the nationality tags - the British one is to look at British comics and the US one is to keep the focus on other companies other than the Big Two. You could get into a bit of a bind when say using the US one as a proxy for American comic creators in general (as opposed to people who have ha major impact on other US comic publishers outside the Big Two, like Mignola). In some ways these are less nationality work groups and are more like a blanket publisher one - so the US doesn't cover all US comics, it covers, Dark Horse, Image, IDW and the others.
Taken in that light it could be argued against tagging most (all?) creators with publisher/nationality tags as they'd only confuse the issue, for example Alan Moore. Garth Ennis and Grant Morrison did a lot of important British work before jumping the Pond but Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis only had a small amount of work published in Blighty so their impact/relevance on British comic publishers is minimal. (Emperor 18:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC))
No disagreement with the above. The only question that comes to mind is what to do with creators who have perhaps had serious impact on more than one company. Jack Kirby comes to mind here. I could see him, and presumably people like Marv Wolfman, potentially being tagged with DC, Marvel, and Creators tags, given their significant impact on both publishers. Creators who have had less impact on the various publishers could just be tagged as creators, though. Another question is what to do with "world" creators of American or British comics, but I think that's probably a lesser issue. John Carter 18:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
See, I'd disagree with the impact Gaiman and Ellis had on British comics. Ellis was more important in British comics as a journalist than a creator, but his columns in the old Speakeasy and his role in a number of failed publications, Blast! springs to mind, as well as Lazarus Churchyard, had some impact, and Gaiman's Violent Cases is to my mind a very important British work, launching the careers of two creators and also being at the vanguard of the first wave of book publishers publishing graphic novels, Signal to Noise for example. That was back when Gollancz I think, had a deal with Dark Horse to publish for the UK/US markets respectively. Luck in the Head is the only other work I recall from the imprint, but that was the first attempt by book publishers to cash in on the graphic novel wave. Anyway, just my tuppence. So are we all thinking that creators just get tagged with the creator tag, to save any sort of arguments down the line? Hiding Talk 11:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Only question I would have would be regarding webcomics. Right now I'm going through them and replacing the old banner. They didn't seem to have a huge number of articles in the first place. Would it be appropriate to tag a web comic creator with the webcomics tag or not? John Carter 12:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Peer review

Could people perhaps chuck in their thoughts on the articles currently listed for peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Peer review, cheers. Hiding Talk 14:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Not what you intended, but I have archived two older ones which have since become a GA (while the peer review was to get some thoughts before it went up for GA). Still enough left to review... Fram 15:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I've reviewed two of them. I suspect that my review of one of those will be less than loved, though. Phil Sandifer 14:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Illuminati

The page Illuminati (Marvel Comics) has been moved to Illuminati (comics) with a copy and paste [25] which has left the edit history behind. This needs and admin to fix but given discussion at Talk:Illuminati (Marvel Comics) it seems that there are other groups going by that name in comics so perhaps this shouldn't have been done and not without consultation. I'm going to reverse this and take it to the talk page. (Emperor 13:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC))

Superman in this month's collaboration

A weird discussion has been going on about the exclusion of Superman from the Powers section of List of comic book superpowers. See Talk:List_of_comic_book_superpowers#Superman_not_listed_in_examples. This wouldn't normally strike me as something to mention here, but that page is our collaboration of the month, after all. Those in the disagreement clearly need outside input. Doczilla 18:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Comics and animation

Just stumbled across the above page, it lists afd's. Probably worth watching along with our noticeboard. Hiding Talk 22:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

GA nomination on hold

Jack (webcomic) is a current GA nominee. The nomination is being held for improvement of the article. Any assistance in improving the article would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter 01:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to have got GA now but I have expressed concerns about it on the talk page and I was curious if the standards for GA are lower for web comics - if that was a comic I'd not rate it more than a B (or even a good Start class).
As web comics are now firmly within our purview I just want to be clear about how high the bar is set. (Emperor 13:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC))
GA should be a pretty fixed bar. That said, I'm not sure I agree with you about the sourcing problems - certainly there are interpretive claims that can validly be sourced to the primary source in many cases. It depends on the level of complexity of those claims - in this case, it seems pretty superficial and straightforward. Phil Sandifer 14:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Snowbirds Don't Fly

I started the article on this arc. I think SDF one of the most important story lines ever in DC Comics, so any help is appreciated. —Onomatopoeia 17:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I never knew about this arc. It seems similar to what Marvel did with Harry Osborn and drugs. Any idea whether DC decided to do this arc on drugs after seeing what Marvel did? Anakinjmt 17:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, I see it did play some role. Nicely done on the article! Anakinjmt 17:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
You never knew about this arc? Really? Wow. But yes, it has a very important place in the history of comics. Doczilla 17:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it was mentioned on the Green Arrow bonus feature on the Smallville Season 6 DVD about Speedy being a drug user, but Marvel having Harry Osborn taking drugs is I think more well-known because that's what led to the CCA changing their policy on depicting drug use. Plus, I read that comic in a book of reprints of Spider-Man comics, and concerning DC Comics I've only read COIE and IC, whereas for Marvel I've read a lot of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Hulk. Anakinjmt 18:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I would have to say that the Green Lantern/Green Arrow story is much more famous than the Harry Osborn story. People who've never heard of the CCA have heard of Speedy being a junkie.--Drvanthorp 19:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Being old enough to remember the era in question, I have to agree. The social relevance stories of that era were very much noted by the broader population. The Spider-Man story, while very notable within the comic industry, was a bit more of an isolated and probably didn't generate as much reaction in the greater society (I never heard much about it at the time anyway), because it didn't run anywhere near as long. The crucifixion on an airplane image and several other points from the GL/GA era ran longer, and got more sustained attention on that basis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Warlordjohncarter (talk • contribs) 19:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Huh. Learn something new every day. Well, guess that's what this place IS for, right? Anakinjmt 19:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

52 (comic book)

52 (comic book)#Rip Hunter's lab has a massive list of black board notes. Is this needed? I havent personally read the books, so I'm not sure if all or some of it should be removed. The talk page wasn't active, so I posted it here. RobJ1981 01:57, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It's relevant to the story. Other stuff came true in the comics. Brian Boru is awesome 02:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I saw this when checking through that article and it struck me as a bad idea and it seems more like the kind of thing that should be transwikied to the DC Comics Database Project, if it hasn't been. (Emperor 13:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC))
I think transwiki and delete most of it seems the best way to go. Perhaps a prose describing some of the key blackboard notes would work. RobJ1981 20:57, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I dimly recall a Wizard article stating that some of the blackboard notes ended up being meaningless. Something to keep in mind. Lots42 10:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Template tags

Would it be easier to shorten the tags which we use in the Comicsproj template for work groups? I'm thinking of dropping the -work-group from each tag, to make it quicker for entry. It can be done in a way that allows the current tag to work as well, so we don't have to undo everything we've just done. I'm also thinking of deprecating the cleanup tag in favour of the attention one, and also adding a plot tag based on {{plot}}, which would categorise in a new Category:Comics articles with plot summary needing attention. Then the next stage from my thinking is to make the clean up categories also categorise by work group like the assessment does, that should help in cleaning articles up, fingers crossed. Hiding Talk 14:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure why not? I haven't had a problem once I picked up the format but anything that makes it simpler and easier for everyone has to be good. (Emperor 15:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC))
The only question I can imagine ever arising would be whether we would also use the relevant word for some other purpose in that template. For most of them, though, I can't see why anyone would, so I can't see any objections. John Carter 15:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The Third Kryptonian

Don't we normally frown on articles about single arcs unless they prove to be historically notable such as born again, death in the family etc. Views on Superman: The Third Kryptonian? I don't think there is anything notable about this storyline that requires a seperate article. --Fredrick day 01:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

An upcoming storyline does not warrant its own article. To judge that it does would be crystal balling. Doczilla 01:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually that's two separate issues:
  1. Notability - Which really either requires wither historical impact or massive amounts of hype from the publisher. It's hard for something that is just published, or about to be, to have demonstrable impact. Ad DC really isn't putting a massive push behind this arc.
  2. Crystal balling - Which is a bitch to deal with at this point. IIUC part one of the arc comes out in two weeks. Foot dragging, bitching, and/or moaning would stretch a AfD out past that point. I can almost, almost, understand having an article for a comic that is in the production stage if the publisher is giving it that massive push. But we really do need the latitude to down article like this off the hop, no debate. CB outside of film/TV (and I'd also say those, but that's a different project) gone. No tags, no category for the Project header, just gone. - J Greb 03:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
It can be two separate issues, of course, but I'm saying that people are anticipating that it will be notable in the future. That makes it crystal balling about future notability. Doczilla 06:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
The interest and coverage in both Newsarama and Comic Book Resources could certainly go some way to establishing notability. That said the solution to the issue is pretty clear. It appears they have retconned Kristin Wells into the role of the third survivor from Krypton and Superman: The Third Kryptonian should be merged there. (Emperor 15:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC))
Even merging it is CB, we would be assuming the end reveal of the arc. - J Greb 16:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Obviously there is no rush but it is Wells but it isn't the same character [26] - not sure what the procedure on this is but the article would clearly be better as part of the character article rather than standing alone. (Emperor 21:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC))

What about Gods and Mortals (comics) or Superman: Last Son or Who is Wonder Woman? or Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul or Superman: Up, Up and Away! - those (plot heavy) articles have all been created by a single author and while he's clearly put a lot of work into them, I don't think they are particularly notable. --Fredrick day 14:20, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

If we could get some real world context in and some of the PS out, most of those work. "Gods and Mortals" and "Who Is Wonder Woman?" are re-launch arcs (WWW also had notable production problems), "Last Son" was hyped over Donner and had reviews that played up its ties to Superman and Superman II, and "Up, Up, and Away!" was a pumped OYL arc. "The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" falls under the same category as The Third Kryptonian" -- it has not started yet.
One other thing to keep in mind: 52, Countdown, and Death of the New Gods. All three are series where we are reporting as the issues, and leaks, come out. "Ra's" is going to be argued as a notable Bat-verse development and just as deserving, if not more so, of an article like Batman: Cataclysm, and once it gets going editors are going to want to report on it as the issues, and leaks, come out. "3rdK" lacks that, but the argument is still going to be made and the attempts to report on it as well. - J Greb 16:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree - the WW ones in particular are important because of their status as the start of the new series. We can certainly get plenty pf reviews, interviews, etc. for those arcs. (Emperor 21:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC))

Mike Richardson (publisher)

He is the founder of Dark Horse and a DH IP has been editing the page. Neutrality issues have been raised and I've asked them to follow WP:COI guidelines although they seem to have started editing the page again.

Another editor is on point on this but I said I'd drop a note in here so other editors can cast an eye over things and make sure we have struck the right balance on the page. (Emperor 17:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC))

A while back I edited the entire Dark Horse Comics article because it was an obvious cut-and-past from some kind of press-release or corporate advertising document. Sounds like there is some mischief from Dark Horse.--Drvanthorp 16:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Webcomics Delete-O-Mania

The following webomics articles have been nominated for deletion:

The following webcomics articles have been prodded for deletion:

Maybe a few more too. I'll add to the list as I find any more. John Carter 20:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this - I flagged the earlier problems on the webcomics work group but this might need the full attention of the project. Seems to have arisen due a mass speedy deletion binge yesterday [27] (possibly because someone was trying to make a point - ironically, given the possible outcome, about the number of webcomics that have been deleted which has caused a lot of concerns [28]). Although these edits have been deemed as disruptive they have highlighted a lot of articles that are failing and need work. A lot of the PRODs have been reverted but I suspect a lot will return so stick them on your watchlist and see if you can help raise the standard of the articles.
One thing to note: WP:WEB has been changed recently and it lowers the bar on notability because of problem with press coverage so it might be worth going through them and making sure the changes apply. (Emperor 20:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC))
Webcomics have long been targeted for deletion... to cite the following article: http://comixtalk.com/terrence_markswikipedia_and_you ...I know one of my personal favourite comics fell under the ax back earlier this year. If the notability bar has been lowered, perhaps it's time to resurrect some of those articles? --.../Nemo 01:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Quite possibly but I think we want to work on the ones we've got or make sure the non-notable ones are cleared away before seeing what more we can add in or we'll be making more work for ourselves when I assume there will be various PRODs, AfDs, etc. It also might be worth sandboxing them first and seeing what we think before they get made "live" - that way we'll be able to make sure they are in a decent shape. (Emperor 02:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC))
I've merged and redirected Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles to the Neil Swaab article. --Dragonfiend 01:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
It appears Mr Wiggles is syndicated in a number of newspapers and collected into trades [29] which goes a long way to establishing WP:WEB - of all of them I think that one seems one of the most solid and getting that up to at least a "keeper" shouldn't be a problem. (Emperor 02:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC))
Yeah, that's why I merged it -- good topic but redundant with the Neil Swaab article. Smithson (webcomic) looks like another likely merge candidate; most of the others are probably deletable. --Dragonfiend 03:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
There is further discussion on the notability of these webcomics here. (Emperor 20:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC))

More for attention

I'm running through Category:Unassessed-Class Comics articles and I've bumped across these so far, that may warrant attention. I'd recommend attempting all other options other than a delete, redirects, merges and so on. I appreciate the stance taken at List of webcomics, but that may need to be rethought. Parts of our policies state that articles can be merged into a list when there isn't enough information to support an article; it seems to run counter to that to remove entries since they don't have an article. That said, I can see how a list could become unwieldy with any other criteria. There does need to be some way of squaring this circle. A transwiki would be good, if we can find an appropriate place, however bear in mind that we need to preserve the page history per the GFDL. I think it's okay to copy and paste the history onto the talk page of the new article.

That's it for now. I'll add more as I hit them. Hiding Talk 14:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

There shouldn't be a problem sourcing Achewood -- I know it's been written about in The Comics Journal and The Onion and elsewhere. The other one. not so much. --Dragonfiend 17:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice Board(s)

Well, under a flurry of moving paper, I think I've rediscovered our noticeboard : )

While it's not finished, it's mostly done. It now works by transcluded pages. The idea is to make archiving more intuitive, and to cut down on the number of things on a single page.

In relation to this, all the suggestions for cleanup/article attention are now listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Cleanup.

Also, as a request, if anyone would like to check through the past "action" discussions and see if any are already closed/resolved, that would be helpful.

(More to come : ) - jc37 09:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Just realised one small issue: edits to the sub-pages won't show up on your watchlist unless you watch the sub-page. There's a tool to set up a watchlist for grouped pages, I'll see if I can find it. Hiding Talk 16:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

More done. I've started preparing for 2008, as well. What's left is to go through the edit history of the notice board and restore the deleted entries for archiving. (Some people followed instructions, some didn't.) And once I've done that, I'll create the last two pages - RFC/User conduct, and RFC/Misc. The last is for policy/guidelines discussions, as well as other non-article discussions. I haven't decided if I should create a separate section for discussing templates, though I'm leaning in that direction. It's been one of the more debated things. Once done, the board should be pretty static, with all the "notices" transcluded.

One thing I realised in dooing this is that we can (and possibly should) start our own RFC page. Any thoughts? - jc37 10:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad Boy Trouble

Delete article on non-notable story not worthy of its own article. So what if it had a "more realistic style"? What does that even mean? Doczilla 06:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I know what they mean -- it was done in a style other than Archie's standard, cartoony house style -- but I certainly wouldn't say its notable for that reason. But for that reason, I would think, it deserves a one- or two-sentence mention in the general Archie Comics article, though I can't imagine anything more. --Tenebrae 16:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know. There's something about a novel as well. Is there an entry "somewhere" about the novel? - jc37 10:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Didn't it get a lot of press coverage when it was first announced? I seem to remember there being a big controversy. And I wonder if it got any mainstream press because they seem to take notice of changes to long-standing comics (like when Wonder Woman cut her hair). Maybe there's some sources out there we can did up to make the article notable... and cut down the plot summary. - Superlex 23:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

In need of neutral 3rd parties...

With regard to the infobox for Superman-Prime and the accompanying discussion Talk:Superman-Prime#Infobox image.

Thanks - J Greb 23:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Comixtalk AfD

The article Comixtalk was started today as a stub, and it is now at AfD. Is it worth pursuing? Is it notable? Can we get some help with the determination and research from some comic experts? My gut feeling is that this is worth an article, but I'm way out of my field. Good luck! --Kevin Murray 04:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I've added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Comics and animation along with a few other relevant debates. Hiding Talk 11:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I do think it is worth trying to make an article out of as it seems like a big deal in the webcomics world. It isn't helped by the link leading straight to a page that says "access denied", clicking on a link gets me a similar message until I eventually find something I can read. My understanding was the Comixopedia was shut though which I thought was its big claim to fame. (Emperor 13:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC))

Lists of characters

I've just stumbled upon List of DC Comics characters and List of Marvel Comics characters for the first time in years. In my opinion they are becoming far too unwieldy, and honestly I'm of the opinion they need to be deleted, to the point that I am prepared to list them for deletion. However, I want to get community input first. Is there a way these articles can be suitably policed and built, or are they simply too expansive? Hiding Talk 22:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Delete. One way or another, these characters are all categorized as DC or Marvel properties, rendering the lists redundant to the categories. Lists have many advantages, but it's not like these lists have been properly annotated. Doczilla 22:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I can accept that. The only other issue is that the categories need culling too, and I don't want a sort of circular, hey we need the articles in the categories because the list has gone, hey we need the list because the articles have gone runaround. I'm aware I'm hitting WP:BEANS, but I'm noticing the number of articles we have on characters who appeared in the odd issue a few years ago. My instinct is to merge where possible, but I guess at some point we have to draw a line and say that Wikipedia should not have articles on every single character. Which we do, if you take the manual of style, notability guidance, Wikipedia not being a plot repository, verifiability and no original research together. Hiding Talk 22:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Just a note... but at least one editor went and divvied the DC list over 26 alphabetic lists... - J Greb 22:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
That's just another sign that they're getting too big to handle, if you ask me. More to tag, I guess. Any input on squaring the circle? Hiding Talk 22:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I seem to recall being that editor : )
I'd oppose the lists deletion. Perhaps a better name would be to call them indices? - jc37 09:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Why do you oppose the deletion? Doczilla 09:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
A complete (or as near complete as we can make it) list of characters is definitely cyclopedic, which makes them inclusively encyclopedic. This isn't useless trivia by any means. - jc37 10:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
See List of DC Comics characters: A for an example of what I would consider a rather useful page (which still needs work, obviously). - jc37 10:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Can you define the inclusion criteria for me? For example, is Professor Zee, the villain from The Giants of Professor Zee, a story published in Superman #8, 1941, suitable for inclusion? How about Hank and Don Hall's dad? Or Roger, Animal Man's manager and neighbour? How do we decide? I'm looking at List of DC Comics characters: A and I can see a lot of red links. Is it suggested that articles which meet the manual of style, notability guidance, Wikipedia not being a plot repository, verifiability and no original research can be written on all of those characters? If not, should they really be linked? And if not, should they really be listed? What's your goal, to list every single character that has appeared in a DC comic? Every single character to have been named in a DC comic, that might narrow it a little? I just can't see how such lists can work. Lists of team members, yes, but not lists of every character ever created. That's impossible. Hiding Talk 14:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I think we'd have to keep the list (but possibly not in that form). The approved solution to minor characters failing WP:FICT is to create a list of characters and merge in the failing entry into it. Granted that even breaking down the page by individual letter results in a big page but half of those there are redlinked and most of these can probably go. What I'd like to see is the list cut down, the characters get their own section and if they have their own entry then use {{main}} to link to them.
On the reference front the Comic Book DB allows you to specify characters [http://comicbookdb.com/browse.php?search=Character} and the template ({{comicbookdb}} allows you to quickly drop in a link so we should have the basics covered. Comparing their list to the character list does show quite a lot aren't there - which might be a sign they are failing to have registered as little more than a blip on the radar and could, potentially, be seen as a sign they shouldn't be included (not that actually being on the list is a criteria for automatic inclusion). (Emperor 15:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC))
I'm still baffled as to which characters are allowed on the list. I know what the approved solution is, but at which point do we draw the line, and how. Is Professor Zee a minor character? How are you going to cut the list down without creating some sort of criteria, and what is it going to be? I know it when I see it will not work. We've got the following policy wording there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic at WP:NOT, which would indicate we only pick the famous characters, but then how do you define fame? We're a general encyclopedia, so we're aiming at the general audience, not the fan. Also, we should consider the guidance at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) which states Lists should begin with a lead section that presents unambiguous statements of membership criteria based on definitions made by reputable sources. This is particularly important in the case of difficult or contentious topics. Beware of those cases in which the definitions themselves are disputed. Many lists on Wikipedia have been created without any membership criteria, and editors are left to guess about what or who should be included only from the name of the list. Even if it might "seem obvious" what qualifies for membership in a list, explicit is better than implicit. So do we have unambiguous statements of membership? The DC list states "This is a list of characters owned or published primarily by DC Comics". Now that's very far reaching, and also a little ambiguous. Also note that our guidance on lists asks that we consider characters for entry based on the following:
  • If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance?
  • Would I expect to see this person or thing on a list of X?
  • Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X?
Can we see how they might be ambiguous? At this point I think this is a debate we need to have in an afd. Hiding Talk 16:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
A few thoughts:
  1. These lists should, by intent, be all inclusive. Bluntly, we've all seen both companies bring back characters that only appeared once years, if not decades, ago. The Oolong Science Squad is an example of this. Should there be a notation for "Cameo/Walk-on/One-shot", "Minor recurring", and "Recurring", maybe. Most likely in fact.
  2. The lead does need work since it reads as a Category lead.
  3. "Red links"... The sad fact is, if the lists are still in the same state they were when I last took a crack at one, most of the links are wrong. Some of the reds should be pointing to existing article, either for the character or for a team. Some of the blues are pointing to real world items.
  4. There is stuff that should be culled. There are, or were, entries for teams and nicknames.
- J Greb 17:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I feel like there's an important point being missed here. Is everyone else happy with the fact that at the moment the lists will allow people to add every single character ever to appear in the Marvel Universe to the Marvel list, and every character owned or primarily published by DC to the DC one? Is everyone thinking through the implications of those criteria? I haven't read superhero comics for a long time, but I'm assuming they still have named characters appearing for one issue appearances, you know, people like Bobby, the man killed by a swordfish in Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. People all seem to be agreeing that Bobby can be added. If that really is the case, I'm taking the list to afd. Hiding Talk 18:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
We definitely should not have every "Cameo/Walk-on/One-shot" character ever published. At that point the lists become useless, as important characters will be lost in a sea of unimportant ones. --Dragonfiend 18:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I can see Hiding's point... there are specific groups of characters that will be problems, mostly historic personages and "Extras" (for lack of a better term). And I can see nixing them from a main list. Historic/real life personages could reasonably be its own list, and "Extras"... "Bobby" leads into a good example: how many different "Bobby" listings would we wind up with?
There is a caveat there though, the one-shot, named villains and heroes. Those are, IMO, reasonable to include. But without a link on the name, of course.
Last though. As pointed out, the leads need to be clarified, and part of that should be explicitly excluding characters DC or Marvel used under license from some one else. Best to eliminate the Shadow, Star Trek, Star Wars, Transformers, etc. These may warrant a separate list though. - J Greb 19:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
But then if we include oneshot named villains and heroes, do we include other recurring charcaters, like people mentioned at Spider-Man supporting characters? Now that's a list I can understand, at least it is clearer who is and isn't on the list, and maybe that's the way to go forward. Forget over-reaching lists of every character published, let's go for List of supporting characters appearing in the Fantastic Four and so on and so forth. Let's start with the big gun characters and relate everything to them; build the web, inform people and explain the relevance of these characters; what it is that makes them of interest. They are not of interest because their name begins with b and they are owned by DC, they are of interest because they appeared in this issue or issues in this role or these roles and impacted upon notable character in this way. That sort of thing. All annotated, all verifiable, all imparting meaning. Hiding Talk 20:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think I "get" Hiding's point. This is partially why I think that these should be renamed indices. (Index of...) They are not "lists" as Wikipedia defines lists AFAICT. For example, minor character articles shouldn't be merged to these, but to some "List of..." page, which will then be linked to from these complete index pages.

Second, of course we shouldn't list every Bobby, Sue, and Stanley (though his monster may complain : )

However, "supporting cast" characters (besides the more common immediate family, best friend and girlfriend) have become more and more important. (Though it probably wasn't the first, Peter Parker/Spiderman's comics seem to be the initial impetus to really bring this to the fore.)

How about having a "two name" rule? In general, characters that haven't been given a "last name" in their real identity ("bobby"), or those who are only known by their last name (like some villain's thugs), probably shouldn't be added. Though there are exceptions to this "rule", and that should be noted as well. - jc37 21:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Other projects have lists of minor characters without running into problems. If a commonsense approach won't work (where editors of the list can come to consensus on who is and out without some legalese as a lead) then insist on WP:V - characters are only allowed on the list if there is a reliable page on them or the team they are a member of. As mentioned the Comic Book DB has a solid list of characters, as does the Catalogue of International Superheroes, etc. If no one else has bothered to create something on the character then I don't see why we should. That'll provide a handy cut-off point which can be easily and consistently applied. (Emperor 21:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC))
I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. Surely the primary source will verify the character exists, what more detail does the Comic Book DB give us? As to legalese in the lead, it's what guidance calls for to solve problems that are already endemic, to my eye. I'm also unclear as to what Jc is referring to regards an "index", since Wikipedia is not a directory. At the minute this is causing me an issue precisely because I am merging characters to these lists since I can't see anywhere else to merge them to and I'm not really a deletionist. I don't want to create yet more lists, I'm of the opinion that we may well have more than we need already. As to the two name rule, it's pleasing to know Bobby Correlli will appear on the list. Don't under-estimate Alan Moore. ;) Hiding Talk 22:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Rofl : )
I meant that as a starting point for culling : p
And Wikipedia does have indices to organise linking to articles. See: Wikipedia:Quick index (linked to the Main Page), and Wikipedia:Contents#Wikipedia's indices. - jc37 22:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not following you. The indices mentioned there exist in the Wikipedia namespace or the category namespace, apart from the two which reproduce real world index systems. Are you suggesting our lists become lists of characters for whom an article can be created based upon guidance, or a redirect to a suitable article where they feature prominently? Because I'm hitting characters I've never heard of which the articles just don't help explain. For example I just redirected Bounty (comics), a character I have no knowledge of, and from reading the article, am even less informed. On the one hand I could prod, but on the other I tend towards merging, and so going for the big list was my best guess. I'm not convinced Wikipedia needs an article on this character, but I'm not convinced my opinion is the be all and end all either. Hiding Talk 22:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, we're also dealing with the typical problem that contribution is typically heavier on "current" events than history. Just because the average comicbook reader may not know who Timely's Mr. E is, or Mr. America's sidekick, the Fatman is, or even George Morgan of the Daily Star, doesn't mean that they shouldn't be listed, with links to whatever subsidiary "list of" article that their description may be listed in (if it exists). I think a great example is Sodom Yat, which appeared originally as a mentioned character, but has become a rather "current" one of late. And I'd have argued for his name to appear on such a list even before that, as possibly important to the Green Lantern stable of characters. I just don't think it's a bad idea to have a list of all "notable" (I really dislike that word) characters indexed in a central location, whether they become stubs, or a part of a "list of", it should just increase navigation. (For example, how is the average reader going to know which "list of" page has such-n-such character listed? This dives deep into what categories are just not good for. (WP:CLS).
Now after saying all of that, I just went and clicked on Bounty (comics), see your redirect, and I think I understand the confusion. The character (if it's genuine, sigh at the stub-like lack of references) should be merged to List of Spider-Man enemies (though it could use some cleanup as well) or some such, and that list entry be linked to in the "index". Does that make more sense? - jc37 23:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's almost my take on it, I think, apart from I can't quite see how the index list will read. See, my approach would be to delete what we've got and start again from scratch, but I had no idea how many articles there were on bit-part superhero related characters. Like you say, there's no way to work out who is real. But it feels like we're moving towards some sort of criteria, based upon, as Emperor notes below, mentions in a reliable source. However I think me and Emperor are on a similar page with regards the shape of the list, and I'm not sure it is compatible with your index. Here's another character, Arcademan, for whom I'm almost positive we simply should not have a mention, but the list seemed to accept him. I can see no way of verifying the character's existence beyond watching the episode in question. Hiding Talk 23:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking at that example what is there to say about him? A couple of sentences of summary in the animated series episode list (probably the best place to merge it to by the way) would cover the bases. Even on some specialist wiki, I can't see editors bothering.
On a sidenote remember you can categorise redirects to things like a list of characters so you could in theory have the best of both worlds - the category holds the names and those not notable enough to warrant their own entry can still be listed in there (their names are in italics). (Emperor 00:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC))
My reasoning is that if a reliable third party source hasn't bothered noting they exist then that seems a reasonable measure of how notable they are (I went down the list at Comic Book DB and it seems to measure up reasonably well on that front). The bottom line is we need list of characters to merge minor characters into (the solution WP:FICT give) and having a third party reliable source seems like a reasonable line in the sand. Trimming the list down would allow us to also flesh them out to a paragraph (as the best lists of characters are). (Emperor 23:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC))
See response to Jc just above. We're in broader agreement than we're not. :) Hiding Talk 23:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Quite possibly ;) As an example I was thinking of the Batman villain Agent Orange who I remember from his one (or two?) appearances [30] and I found him on a list of obscure comic characters. Looking for him on here instead I find Agent Orange (comics) which is also troubling as it looks like they only appear in a couple of issues. Note that neither of them has their own listing on the Comic Book DB. Both characters don't warrant an entry on the DC Database Project (although they get a passing mention on Wildcats and Batman & the Outsiders) which I think has to be a sign. So just working on that example I am unsure if that character would even rate inclusion on a list of Wildstorm characters and I'd vote for the entry to be transwikied (a better option that just deleting as we can still include them in a list and link through to them like other wikimedia sites). (Emperor 00:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC))
This may be a foolish question, but why would we use whether an entry exists on another encyclopedia as a rule of thumb? I look over "created articles", and see many monthly, I might presume the same elsewhere?
As for the lists/indices, I think you're both getting caught up in the word "list", and what it means on Wikipedia. I'm not sure if we have a mistake in naming, or just a confusion about implementation of guidelines. I'll see if I can more clearly present what I'm tring to say about these pages and navigation, shortly. I'll do a bit more research into how Wikipedia does such things in the places it does. - jc37 10:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
So what are you suggesting for our rule of thumb? I can understand Emperor's broader point, that there needs to be mention of the character in a secondary source. I'm fairly sure we're all agreed Bobby Correlli is not acceptable for the list, which implies we can't use primary source as the sole identifier, namely the appearance itself. Jc, are you suggesting that such a list, by being an index, contains only entries which are blue linked? By index, you mean it is an index of all characters mentioned on Wikipedia? If so, that would again imply that the character needs mention in secondary sources, since that's the base for most of our information. You're saying that this list is not a list with annotations, just a list of names, and that character articles shouldn't be merged here. The list does not serve to detail anything about the character, only to index their mention on Wikipedia somewhere? If there is no suitable merge target for the character other than this list, then Wikipedia should not have an article on that character, would that be a summation of our thinking here, and have we developed the start of a criteria? That the character appear in a comic published by the company, so we exclude other media characters, and that the character must be discussed in a Wikipedia article? Hiding Talk 14:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
But the mere presence of an article here doesn't imply notability and a lot of minor characters are failing WP:FICT and should be merged into some kind of list of characters (notability in fiction suggests this as n example of a good quality article on those lines Characters of Final Fantasy VIII), if we can show they meet some kind of standard (I'd suggest verifiability via a third party source). An index of names that have an article is pretty much what the category does and I am unsure we need to just replicate that. As it stands the lists of characters are on the edge of getting nominated for deletion and while I'd vote to keep them (and rework them) I am unsure they'd make it so what I'm looking for is a way to preserve the characters lists in some form and help establish some kind of criteria for inclusion. (Emperor 15:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC))
If we allow sources to be an episode of a television series, why is a reference to a specific comic book a "bad thing"?
See Wikipedia:Television episodes:
  • "An actual episode may be used as a source for information about the episode and constitutes a primary source. Such use does not constitute original research if it is used to verify a fact. However, the episode cannot be used to justify an interpretation."
Incidentally, as I read over that guideline, I think it would be a nice starting place for writing/re-writing something similar for comic books (which are typically episodic in nature). - jc37 15:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Um, aren't we going round in circles here? Didn't Bobby wotsname show why using only primary source was a bad idea? As to the guidance there, I agree to the point I mentioned it on your talk page the other day. ;) Hiding Talk 17:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
You did? (rubs eyes) - looks like it's time for some sleep soon. - jc37 17:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) I would prefer getting rid of these long long lists. Such lists may exist for all characters which have or should have an article (a navigational list), or as a separate article for some minor characters which have a common origin, still have enough importance and information (from reliable independent sources) to be included somewhere, but which, if made into separate articles, would be eternal stubs anyway. Characters which lack even this minimum of independent info should not be included in any way or form. We don't list the extras in a movie (or at least we shouldn't, I'm certain you can find exceptions), why should we list the extra's in a comic? And if someone wants to show that I say one thing and do another: yes, Characters in The Smurfs should be seriously trimmed down (and sourced) as well. Fram 15:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Sourced, yes. Trimmed down? Why? Lists are a good thing. - jc37 15:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
So Bobby Wotsname is okay to add? That's why they need trimming down. We aren't here to provide indiscriminate information. Wikipedia policy states that we discriminate, that trimming down is a necessary evil. Hiding Talk 17:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
While I agree to a point (and have said so above...), I'm strongly shying away from that. It just feels like there just too many ways in which making this the "rule" can turn around and bite us later. (And I think that the smurf example above is a prime example.) If you doubt it, please feel free to join the never-ending circus of discussions around WP:TRIVIA : ) - jc37 17:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Template help

I want to use template:Supercbbox in an article, but the size of the image keeps making the template HUGE. How do I reduce the image size in the template box? --Knulclunk 02:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Currently it set up so you have to format it as [[Image:Example.jpg|250px]]. The 'box is set for a 250px image, max. Any caption goes at the caption line in the 'box mark-up. - J Greb 02:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. I think I had an extra space :@ --Knulclunk 03:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Nightcrawler (comics)

User:Arcayne has added citation tags to pretty much the entire article and posted on the talk stating unless it is cited in a week they will be removing most of the article. If anyone would like to help fix it they are more than willing. –– Lid(Talk) 10:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, he is right in the way it sounds crufty. There is a huge ammount of detail about his pre-X-Men years. But the citation tag is definitely overused. The fictional character biography should be rewritten IMO, and the bit about the character having been conceived for the Legion does need citation. --Pc13 11:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I've pulled a few tags, the lead doesn't have to be cited per WP:LEAD and in some cases the issue or series was mentioned in the text. But I agree with a lot of them. Hiding Talk 11:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
A litle a pro pos, is this redirect [31] kosher or should it be fixed somehow? MURGH disc. 11:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Can't really fix it, it's either leave it as is or take it to WP:RFD. I suspect you'd get a consensus to delete. Hiding Talk 12:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
OK, no admin magic there.. Yes I thought that sort of types were greatly discouraged. MURGH disc. 12:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
This was a badly inappropriate use of the cite tags. On the other hand, the article is bad too. Phil Sandifer 12:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice Board

Ok, I have one of the most important questions of our time, of course requiring immediate response : )

  • Notice Board
  • Notice board
  • Noticeboard
  • NoticeBoard

Which do you prefer? - jc37 12:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Isn't "Notice board" the lawful thing? MURGH disc. 12:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Lawful? - jc37 12:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I would go with "noticeboard" given the convention elsewhere on Wikipedia, and would be forced to kill you for either Notice Board or especially NoticeBoard. Phil Sandifer 12:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, please restain your homicidal tendencies for a moment when you look at this : ) - jc37 13:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Looks fine to me. :) Phil Sandifer 13:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Ugh. While I appreciate the boldness, part of my question is due to the various transclusion sub-pages I'm working on. I have them currently at "Notice board", though they can easily be moved (again). I'm just not sure that the unified word is the best way to go (since the admin's "noticeboard" is likely a single word due to previous CamelCase restrictions, and not so much being a "convention".) - jc37 13:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, my intention is to wait until the end of the year to make the name change, turning the current page into an archive. - jc37 13:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that "noticeboard" is not a proper noun in any sense, and so the "board" should never be capitalized. The question is whether it's one word or two - both are justifiable, though one word gets more Google hits suggesting wider use. (Merriam Webster, however, puts the entry at "notice board, though it redirects "noticeboard" to it). The only justification for "NoticeBoard" would be if we were using a NoticeBoard brand noticeboard, as the capitalization is not correct for any English word. The CamelCase doesn't seem to me to have any justification.
In any case, the preponderance of indicators seems to me to point towards "noticeboard" with "notice board" being an acceptable default. Due to our capitalization of the first word of a title that would become "Noticeboard" and "Notice board," but the capitalization of "board" would make sense only in the case of a proper noun, which this is not. (See also the "Village pump.") Phil Sandifer 13:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood my camel case comments. At some point in the past, all CamelCase page names were renamed. When that happened is (I think) when NoticeBoard became noticeboard. So I think it's was just someone doing a quick rename, and left out the <space> - I'll do some more research and find out though. - jc37 13:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedia noticeboards clinches it for me: Noticeboard. Although I'd imagine the world will keep turning if we kept it as notice board. So not something we need to rush off and "fix" right now but if there is going to be a batch of renaming done and a decision is needed then I'd say go for Noticeboard. (Emperor 17:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC))
This link suggests that it wasn't a CamelCase rename at all, but just a seeming mistake in naming. Note: "messageboard" - jc37 13:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Be consistent with everything else in Category:Wikipedia noticeboards -- one word which isn't capitalized when it's not directly after a slash. Plus, merge our Notice Board with our Notice board. Doczilla 18:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Two proposals

  1. For superhero characters and other characters with extended (appearing over many years) narrative histories, I think we should make the project convention be to identify plot arcs/issue numbers in plot summaries. I was looking at the Nightcrawler article above, and one of the big problems it has is that it gives Nightcrawler's fictional biography with no clear relationship to his publication history. Even the convention used on an article like Barbara Gordon is unsatisfying, in that it does not give clear guidance as to how much time passed in the real world between two events. This would also lead to better sourced plot sections, more out-of-universe perspective, and would, if we enforced it, make adding cruft considerably harder as it would be obvious when someone adding the latest plot arc has added far too much. Obviously this would be a huge transition, and we would have to be patient in demanding improvement from our existing articles.
  2. "Alternate versions" sections should be eliminated or heavily scaled back. In almost all cases these document one-off appearances of characters that are not notable. In a few cases such sections are useful - Superman and Batman are obvious ones - but in these cases it seems like the alternate versions sections should actually be substantive sections, not lists. But for the most part, with a character like The Flash (comics), the alternate versions are all utter trivia. (And that's far from one of the worse alternate versions sections.) In general, we should look at all of the sections of these articles that are basically lists, but alternate versions seem to me to be the worst.

Thoughts? Phil Sandifer 12:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Broadly agree. This was the intention in writing the exemplars way back when. The practice however, seems to have been something different. Hiding Talk 13:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I tentatively agree with the first point (if I understand it correctly), though I disagree somewhat with the second. If Wikipedia encompasses a cyclopedia of comics (which I presume it does), then I think that such characters should be noted, at least. - jc37 13:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I think there's noting them and then there's describing the ins and outs of what shoes they wear and who phoned them asking for help. Especially not for a version who made one appearance. They can be noted in a sentence, "Alternate versions of the character have been depicted in such comic books as Why This #54 and Multiple Crossovers of Fictional Universes #7."
      • I'd rather not get into the business of deciding which character references get included. (waves at WP:ALLORNOTHING with a smile.) We'd be arbitrarily deciding what's "notable". Plus, "alternate versions" needs defining. DC's 52 "alternate earths" are going to make this a "fun" prospect, especially since these "alternate" characters now re-appear, and now can interact with each other. (Something that's been happening more and more with Marvel's "alternate" worlds as well...) And what about successors, or "possible future" versions? (And that's just looking over Flash (comics), let's have some real fun and talk about Superman : ) - jc37 13:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
        • Well, this gets at what I would use as my test for an alternate versions section - is it possible to write a decent, if short, article about alternate versions of the character? For Batman and Superman the answer is clearly yes (Due to the flood of Batman Elseworlds titles and to Superman's importance in the concept of the Multiverse). But for other characters, this section will be a list where most of the entries are fairly silly. That is appreciably less productive. Phil Sandifer 13:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
          • Well, I dunno. I'd consider Flash #123, or Green Lantern #40 to be "important" to the concepts of DC's multiverse. But that aside, why should Robin 3000, Ironman 2020, examples from The Kingdom, or Squadron Supreme not be included? See, I really think we're just inviting debate (read that as disruption) if we start drawing such arbitrary lines. - jc37 14:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
          • I agree with jc37 - often alternative characters can be important and worthy of mentioning. We are going to have to deal with this on a case-by-case basis not just calling for the sections to be eliminated. They have to be held to the same principles that the rest of the article is - if they only made a minor appearance then they don't warrant more than a quick sentence but some may be much more important. (Emperor 14:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC))
            • What if we went with "Alternate versions and other media sections should not be formatted as a list." That necessitates including only what can be fit into a reasonably discursive and narrative structure. Phil Sandifer 14:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
              • I can go with that. As to arbitrarily deciding what versions to include, I think that's actually how Wikipedia works. We discuss what to include and what not to include, and as people note above, it can differ depending on the situation. I think there have probably been a lot more versions of The Flash than those listed in the article, but so far Wikipedia has arbitrarily decided they are the ones that get covered. I don't see why we can't, as we slowly get articles cleaned up, start discussion as to which ones are worth adding, and then, using our watchlists, ensure those decisions are revisited when contributors add material contrary to the established consensus. Superman has remained relatively stable since it emerged from FARC, through the watchlists of editors, so its just a question of getting articles to a gold standard. I would love to deprecate the exemplars, since I don't feel they represent the gold standard of what an article should be. It's going to vary from article to article. Hiding Talk 14:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
                • I think this goes back to a question of: "Why are lists bad?" Noting that WP:LIST has been undergoing quite a bit of editing over the last couple weeks... - jc37 15:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
              • I'd agree with that - lists tend to separate such things when it might be that some of the versions can be discussed in the same paragraph (for example evil versions of Superman and even versions of versions. Although not all lists are bad (as they can be used to present information quickly and easily) they might be overused in some places and bulking up some entries (see the discussion in the US comics work group about moving the lists of publications off the main article into their own article). I think this is one place we'd benefit from making it less listy and it should flow better. (Emperor 15:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC))
  • Mentioning issue numbers is good, but please don't redlink them, since it would encourage people to make articles about individual issues, which with very few exceptions is a bad idea. (Action Comics #1 is a good one, the different star wars comics issues are bad ones) Fram 13:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree that redlinking would be a terrible idea. Phil Sandifer 13:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Thoughts... on both and a bit more...
    1. In text references: I like the idea, at least for broad strokes. I've seen enough of the articles where the references wind up in the reflist. And that works, but some of the fundamental points should have the ref in the text where it can be read and remind the reader that the article is about a work of fiction.
    2. Red linking the issues: By all means NO. Yes there are some extremely important and notable issues out there that deserve articles that are more than just plot summaries. But Wikipedia is not, and should not become, a comic book index.
    3. Alternate versions: In general the section does have its uses. First, it offers a place to collect information. Second, it does go a way to showing real-world context, either by the publisher feeling the need to replicate the character, or competitors to mock/mimic it. Last, it does give a home to items that cannot support their own articles.
    4. Lists: They are very useful things, but depending on how they're structure they can be limiting. Think of it this way, an AV section is going to be presenting similar, but unrelated things. Listing gives a structure for doing that, but... If it's a table, the information is going to be edited to fit that. Same with bullets or paragraphs. That means that either information will be squeezed out of more detailed items or less detailed ones will be omitted for consistency. I'd rather bulleted lists for AV and IOM sections since, IMO, it's the least prejudicial format: easy to ID the separate items and allows for expanded descriptions.
    5. Sequencing: This is something for me that follows from formatting the AV an IOM sections. I've seen a lot of the sections and article types forced into more or less alphabetic order. I don't think this follows with the intent of writing an encyclopaedic article. The variants happen in a chronological order, that is what should be reflected. The same holds for media, start with the earliest adaptation and move forward. As an aside, I'd also prefer to see this treatment applied to the multi-character articles as well. Yes, it may lead to a Western version listed after a 1980s one, but that's how the publisher introed them, we shouldn't be using in-universe chronology distort that. - J Greb 23:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
If an 'Alternate Versions' list -does- exist, it should be alphabetized. Not many people remember if Age of Apocalypse came before Ultimates or if Joe Blow Superhero was made before Jane Blow Superheroine. They remember the name, not dates. As for the rest of the points raised, I'm thinking. Lots42 03:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's the problem with that: An encyclopedic article should not rely on your, my, or the reader's memory. It is to present the information within a real world context and in the order it happened.
Remember, we are talking about sections, or sub-articles, that flesh out how publishers have used, or abused, characters. One of the pieces of information the article has to communicate is when these things occurred. - J Greb 04:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

RFA/Emperor

I think everyone should know. (I'm thinking about adding a section to the notice board for it. This should be no different than noting XfD disussions.) - jc37 17:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't be, but be supercautious. I seem to remember an instance when a fairly innocent notice became a full-blown canvassing scandal. MURGH disc. 17:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, um, that was me. After someone pointed out to me not to contact other editors to notify them (not even advocate -- just notify), I went back and undid the notifications within about a half-hour. And the admin-application groupies still zeroed in on me like sharks to chum. You'd think that when a federal court can say, "The jury will disregard that last statement" and let them go on to make life-or-death decisions, that the same would apply here. I guess this is more momentous.  :- )  --Tenebrae 23:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Right, but (1) that was an instance of notifying people about your own application whereas jc37 is reporting someone else's, and (2) jc37 is making a broader notification to everyone, so no one can accuse jc37 of selective canvassing. Like I said when your situation arose, those of us who will be most affected by a new administrator must receive notification and an opportunity to weigh in on that person's RfA. So it is prudent of you to mention this, but I don't see it as a problem this time. Adding a section to the notice board makes sense. Doczilla 01:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comic Book characters in film

A new article, and I'm not certain what to do with it. First, it looks like we probably have a list or so which already covers the topic. Second, do we want such an indiscriminate topic for a list? I can imagine a good article about the comics that have been turned into movies, but what is the importance of a list of which character is played by which actor? Fram 13:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the look of that. The topic of comics made into films is a big one and we have a number of articles that cover this: List of films based on comics. The article you mention could clearly get huge (especially in films based on teams!!) for little benefit - people who have played Batman in film are mentioned in the "in other media" sections of his article which puts it all in context and is the place people would go looking for it.
So I don't see the point or use when the information is covered elsewhere better. (Emperor 13:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC))
Been bold and redirected to List of films based on comics unless someone has a better target. Hiding Talk 14:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Fram 14:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Any time I see an incorrectly capitalized article or category about comic book films, especially the Spider-Man movies, I look to see if that same person is into celebrity articles, reality TV, and Days of our Lives. In what I've seen for more than a year, it always turns out to be a certain persistent vandal and block dodger's latest sockpuppet. Watch for articles and categories that are redundant to existing ones, and for hastily populated categories. Doczilla 05:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Marvel Zombies (homage covers)

I just nominated this for deletion. I figured I'd annouce it here as I will admit there is an argument to have this information included on Wikipedia somewhere and that there would be people who would disagree with me. Stephen Day 07:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for being conscientious enough to announce a deletion nomination. However, a WikiProject's noticeboard (see extensive discussion about it higher on this page) is the place for such an announcement. Doczilla 08:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Actually, I see now that you did post that on the noticeboard. That's great, and unless there's already some big controversy, that's usually sufficient notice of a complete AfD aside from perhaps notifying the article's creator. Doczilla 08:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Nick Cuti

I found this article, which was just a big unreadable block of text, all in one paragraph, with a contributor's name at the bottom of the page like a message-board-post signature. I added some line breaks to the text to make it a little more readable, but it could use some more editing.--Drvanthorp 19:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Not one femme FA

We have only eleven – count them, 11 – Featured Articles listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comics.

We have only twenty (20) Good Articles in comics. We've discussed the need to develop more. Holy cow, do we need more. Looking over these lists, something else occurred to me: Almost none of the GA's are about female characters, and not one FA is.

If anybody thinks that's because there are more male superheroes than females, that's a little hard to back up because, to my own surprise, the list of male superheroes is actually shorter than the list of female superheroes. One can easily argue that male characters have generally been featured more prominently (Woman Woman debuted as the all-boy Justice Society's secretary; Sue Storm was hard to see in more ways than one) and have starred in more titles. Nevertheless, they've been important enough that it's just wrong that nobody ever gave a single female character's enough editorial attention to warrant a single superheroine FA. Doczilla 06:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This post is in two parts. The first is a bit of complaining. Feel free to ignore it and go to the third paragraph where I put forward my idea.
FAs and GAs are a lot of work. Our project has the same problems as other large projects. It's easy to find editors to do pretty good work, but it's difficult to find editors who will/can do what it takes to bring an article to FA/GA status. I've tried to bring two articles up to GA status myself, but by the time I nominate them I'm tuckered out and haven't followed through. Other editors don't jump in and finish it for you, that's just how it goes. Ultimate X-Men (story arcs) was my comics related attempt. It did OK in a peer review, which didn't catch what I now think were about 15 non-reliable sources. Anyways, I don't have any suggestions about improving female superhero pages. I'm not really shocked by our lack of female FAs, I'm just waiting for whatever plan wikipedia comes up with as a whole to improve our articles. It's sad to say, but wikiprojects don't really create FAs. It's mostly individuals who just go crazy on whatever article they decide to. The tropical storms (although they've slowed down) and military wikiprojects seem to crank out FAs, but I think it's mostly due to a few dedicated editors that they have, not their group. The obvious solution would be our collaborations, but they don't seem to work very well. It's like herding cats (unpaid cats). So again, no clue what the solution is, but wikipedia has a general problem organizing people to create FAs/GAs and we can't really concentrate on female articles until we deal with this. I'm not saying that female articles aren't important. Just writing this makes me want to work on Rogue and Magik, who are close to my favorite characters (I'm a late 80's X-Men/New Mutants guy myself).
A shot in the dark: Maybe the few of us who frequent this page could decide on a collaboration (not collab of the month) and pledge maybe five references each towards some agreed upon article. Instead of putting it on a template, we could talk about it here so it isn't so impersonal. I keep seeing Tenebrae, Doczilla, Emperor, J Greb, Phil Sandifer, and Hiding on this page. If we each added five refs to an agreed upon article, we might get close to a GA. Not to be cynical, but 30 refs isn't going to turn a famous character into a FA; but 30 refs will finish off a medium level character. My preference would be to work on Magik (comics), but I will now pledge five refs to anything we decide to work on. In my experience, the editors who frequent the wikiproject page tend to be wikignomes, so maybe only a few of us actually add content. In light of this, we might think about doing someone less famous (but still notable) than Magik, I don't know. That'a my two cents. Basically forget the CollabOM and talk amongst ourselves. - 06:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks to me what is being proposed above is maybe something like a comics version of WP:ACID, which is what the collaborations page currently basically already is. Maybe it might be possible to get some of the editors mentioned above to nominate a few of the articles they think might be most important though. If they, and, maybe to a very little degree, me, were to be willing and/or able to contribute to one or more, I think that might help a lot. However, I do know that many of them, like me, have a lot on their plates already, and that might be a reason why they aren't as actively involved as they might like. John Carter 16:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
On the second point see the Comic Project Improvement Drive (and especially the talk page. I've been fighting off a bit of an infection recently and not felt up to the task of getting stuck in (as it is a lot of work - as noted above) but am now feeling fine and will be getting things rolling there and hoping to go point on From Hell (as I have quite a few sources to hand). Obviously, "the many hands make light work" applies here and experience on non-comics FAs shows that even if one editor is on point (which seems to be the way to drive things to GA/FA - which can lead to unevenness as it does depend on an editor being enthusiastic and staying interested for the duration) it does need others to help with minor work, feedback, throwing in sources, etc. It is the last bit that is critical and you'll see that the ones on the list have sections for people to add in sources to be worked into the article and the talk page has a more general discussion on what people have access to (and an idea about creating a page specifically to include sources - which I think is a great idea).
On the first point there are female characters that have been discussed in relation to the Improvement Drive and there are plenty just on the brink of GA, so if we can clear a few off the lists obvious pick for adding to the ID next would be Wonder Woman and we can throw in a Marvel female character for balance (we currently have Storm and Barbara Gordon as GAs so that'd fit). (Emperor 17:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC))
I'm not sure I really want to mention this, but I have to think that Jean Grey would probably be the best Marvel alternative, giving her prominence and rather unique, almost incomprehensible character history. John Carter 17:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
As far as getting a female GA/FA article, Wonder Woman would probably be one of the easiest to find info on. I'd love to help any way I can, but I don't have the money to buy the comics, nor do I know where to get them. I suppose I could look online, but I wouldn't know where to look or what to look for. Anakinjmt 18:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Wonder Woman makes sense historically. She's the most famous superheroine, and she has had arguably the greatest cultural impact. Incidentally, she's the only one of DC's "Big Three" not to have a Featured Article. On the other hand, she doesn't even have a GA right now. Storm does. So does Barbara Gordon, but without a lot of repair, I get the impression that article might soon lose its GA status.[32] Doczilla 18:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah that article looks like it needs a comprehensive rewrite - there are no quick fixes. It might be that an knowledgeable editor would be interested in moving this to their sandbox and hammering it into shape there? Probably best to continue the discussion on the talk page over there. (Emperor 19:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC))
Well, I listed Wonder Woman as a collaboration candidate. I can get the Fleisher book if it'd be useful, and can at least try to get any other sources which may be relevant. John Carter 20:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

(reset) While WW is probably most deserving and has the most the most sources, she would also be the most difficult. 30 refs would finish off a minor character, but WW would need about 150 refs to cover. It depends if we want to create a bunch of GAs or create GAs for the most important characters. We could easily do two minor characters with less effort than it would take to finish off WW. - Peregrine Fisher 06:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but I think people want WW to become an FA, due to the fact she is the only member of the Big 3 of DC that is not an FA, and furthermore because she is historically the first and most important superheroine. It's not a matter of productivity, simply people want to give the character the elite status she is believed to deserve, along with the respect owed to her. Anakinjmt 15:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Superhero team members

Some team member categories are still around. Does anyone feel free to put them up for cfd?Brian Boru is awesome 02:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Which ones? Doczilla 08:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The Authority members and Gen 13 members.Brian Boru is awesome 20:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Sodam Yat

User:Killingthedream and an IP user who I strongly suspect is the same person, keep trying to add unsourced speculation that Sodam Yat is "the most powerful Superhero in the DC Universe"; If someone could help me keep an eye on that page, it would be greatly appreciate. Similar things have been happening at Superman-Prime, but there are others watching that page. Dlong 11:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Superhero pastiches

A new category has been created - Category:Superhero pastiches. While this could be potentially useful, I worry that it will lend itself to unsourced speculation as to who is a pastiche of whom. Already we've seen arguments about this for certain characters. --GentlemanGhost 19:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Categories for a look before CfD...
Both Category:Superhero pastiches and Category:Supervillain pastiches have recently been created with the creating editor going on a binge of adding articles to it.
At a cursory glance it looks like the editor is adding articles that have cited information that the character(s) are rips of other characters as well as articles where it is only an assumption that the character fits with in that group.
Is this something that can be fixed, or should it get put to CfD? Also... I've got a sinking feeling that a pastiche cat had already be deleted through CfD... anyone know if that's the case?
Thanks - J Greb 19:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
(Beaten by 3 minuotes...) - J Greb 19:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
We have deleted "Category:Homage superheroes" and "Category:Homage supervillains" [33] and the pastiches cats are those by another name surely? (Emperor 19:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC))
This really needs to be a list, if anything.
For one thing, this illustrates a weakness of categories in that the listing doesn't show what/who these are pastiches of. - jc37 19:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly - you have tricky inclusion criteria that could be based on original research (as you'd need a reliable source to prove that it is a pastiche and who the pastiche is of). I would wonder about the usefulness of it as a list but at least there it could be policed and referenced. (Emperor 19:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC))
Actually, I already nominated this for deletion. I just now discovered that people are talking about it here. Doczilla 20:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
In that case Doc, you may want to catch the supervillain cat as well... - J Greb 20:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Done. Doczilla 21:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ultra-Humanite image

I was looking to update the licensing on Image:Ultrahumanite1.jpg in the article Ultra-Humanite. It's taken (I think) from the character's appearance in Action Comics #13. It's currently licensed under a deprecated public domain tag, so I was wondering whether it ought to be switched to a current PD tag (in which case, I'd need to know why it was considered public domain), or whether it should be considered fair use instead. --Plangent 15:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Is a comic book published in 1939 public domain? I lose track on US copyright, it's at about 1918 I thought? That's the only reason it would be in the public domain. Hiding Talk 15:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

1923 for the US according to this from Commons:Licensing:

Anything published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. Anything published before January 1, 1964 and not renewed is in the public domain (search the renewal records for books and maps here). Anything published before March 1, 1989 with no copyright notice ("©", "Copyright" or "Copr.") plus the year of publication (may be omitted in some cases) plus the copyright owner (or pseudonym) is in the public domain.

There's more at the Ordinary Copyright section, but it seems that it is not public domain, unless it had no copyright notice or had a copyright but was not renewed. But copyright is a labyrinth to me. -Wikianon 16:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Googling for news on Superman and copyright suggests Action Comics #1 won't be public domain for over twenty years. I'm going to assume the publishers didn't screw up any notices or renewals for #13, and retag it fair use. Thanks. --Plangent 08:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

List of DC Multiverse worlds seems to be largely guesswork and original research

List of DC Multiverse worlds seems to be contain an awful lot of OR and guesswork - for example it claims that Earth-1938 is An Earth where Clark Kent died to save the world from the invading forces of Mars in the year 1938. as shown in Superman: War of the Worlds. Yes that elseworld tale happened - but was it every given the number earth-1938 and considered to be part of the original multiverse? I don't think so. there are numerous other examples of this over there. --Fredrick day 20:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • The list was split from Multiverse (DC Comics), but the split was not mentioned in the edit summary in violation of GFDL. It's going to have to be history merged back into the article. Hiding Talk 20:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
It appears that with 52 and Countdown a number of Elseworlds stories are now considered part of the DC Multiverse but I wasn't aware that this was one of them and Earth-1938 seems suspicious to me (I can't think DC would be daft enough to name the Earth after the year - but nothing is impossible). I am trying to find good sources for these changes but it has proved tricky so far and I'd be naturally suspicious about such claims without some good sources. If anyone finds such a source then do let me know. (Emperor 20:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC))
1st... Hiding... it looks like you nuked the original article which contained the non-list material.
2nd... Fred, if you had looked at the full line in the table you would have noted that the designation was given, apparently, in the Absolute edition of COIE.
3rd... The tables, as a whole, need to be revamped to make it clear here the designations first see print, just as the universes have a clear "First appearance" cell. It really doesn't help that the Elsewoelds and "Imaginary stories" were all back filled into the original multiverse.
- J Greb 20:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems that's true for some of the earths but it's not clear if absolute mentions all of those earths this table claims. --Fredrick day 21:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
At least the absolute exists as a physical, published book, making it reasonably verifiable. If an editor is going to place "Designation as per Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths", I'll AGF that said editor 1) wither has the book or has access to it, and 2) that the text pieces in the book contain the information. I would prefer it also have a page number so it would be easier to verify, but... Another editor can come along to refine or refute the claim base on the source. To point and say "OR" and ignore the ref is counter productive. - J Greb 21:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Fine - I'll not fucking bother bring concerns here for discussion in future. --Fredrick day 21:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh for the love of...
Please, stop and look at how you brought the concern up: That uncited information that smacks of OR is in the table. When it was pointed out that, yes, there is a ref provided for the information, albeit poorly presented, you stated disbelief that the source has that information. At that point you have to provide why. Either put forward why the book is unreliable for sourcing. Or state from you review of the source that the cited information does not exist there.
The only other option is for you to be bold and remove it, and watch editors scream bloody murder that you are vandalizing the article by removing cited information. - J Greb 21:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I had to perform a history merge, that involves nuking the original article. It's back now, note the "brb" in the deletion log entry. Hiding Talk 21:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this should exist at all unless a secondary source deals with the topic in an out-of-universe fashion. Like, why do these Earths exist (and I don't mean the reason presented in comics)? WesleyDodds 06:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Josef Rubinstein

Someone, possibly Rubinstein himself, recently created this article. Just a heads' up, as it could use a lot of work if it's to be kept at all (COI and all). BOZ 00:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

As suggested

Since everybody seemed to like the idea, unless anybody strongly objects, I'm going to rework our MoS stuff to call for writing character histories with a clear sense of when things happened in real-world chronology. I'll also create a template or two (probably two - one based on Template:fact for "what issue?" and one for tagging sections as total messes) to employ on articles to start prodding this into an actual cleanup. Phil Sandifer 14:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

  • We've got, um {{issue}} already, so that's one out of the way. :) Hiding Talk 14:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
See, I love this project. We may not have fixed all the comics articles, but at least we consistently have unused methods in place for doing it. :) Phil Sandifer 14:38, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
What template do you want for articles in a complete mess, by the way? Have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Cleanup#Templates, although I think there's a couple I haven't got around to adding yet. And you're right, we're very good at doing a half arsed job around here. We're firm believers in the second rule of Wikipedia. :) Hiding Talk 16:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking something like "This article or section does not explain when and where the events it describes were published." Then I'll go fire up AWB on my wife's Windows machine and, erm... ask for some cleaning up of a couple hundred to thousand articles. :) Phil Sandifer 16:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

If we do have that comic template, maybe we should set up something to replace all the comic references with that.Phoenix741(Talk Page) 15:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Category confusion

There appears to have been standardisation of the categories to the point where I feel they are now becoming meaningless. It looks like someone has stripped out all references to comic books, and some categories are now not doing what they should be. For example, Category:Comic book magazines is intended to be for magazines about comics, like The Comics Journal, but European comics magazines are being categorised there. I think we need to work out a better categorisation structure, for example I think the Category:Comics titles by country subcats are where European comic magazines are supposed to be categorised, but the category name isn't quite clear. Is the intent to categorise publications containing stories in the comics form? I admit the nebulous meanings of the term comics is damn near impossible to pin down across the variations of English we all speak here, but would Category:Comics publications by country be a better title? We could also look at Category:Publications about comics rather than Category:Comic book magazines. Just a starting position, I think this needs to be looked at in real depth. Hiding Talk 13:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have been baffled lately at how I keep seeing numerous CfD discussions in which editors who don't edit comic articles seem to think they're enforcing some kind of consensus by changing everything to comics. I asked where this supposed consensus originated, and nobody could tell me. The one person who gave much of an answer seemed to think this had come from WikiProject Comics. There are good reasons for saying comics instead of comic books to avoid systemic bias with regard to American versus European usage of terminology, but it really grated on me to see numerous CfD regulars pushing a supposed "consensus" when they can't even tell me where it came from. Doczilla 05:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Comics vs comic books

And RFD has been posted on Talk:List of television programs based on comics about the use of "comics" instead of "comic books" in the naming of articles and preumably categories.

A bit of background: They moved List of television programs based on comics to "Talk:List of television programs based on comic books" and requested an "uncontroversial" move of List of films based on comics to "List of films based on comic books." I had them reversed as the move wasn't uncontroversial. The rest is on my talk page - my trying to explain that comics is more general than comic books and some of the things listed aren't comic books but that was clearly inadequate hence the RFD.

Obviously, this broader implications for the naming of articles and categories across the project so it'd be handy to help resolve this (either way as changing the names is clearly a waste of people's time). (Emperor 02:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

Comics is more encompassing. Sure, the most common form is comic books, but what about the comics in newspapers and magazine? Garfield (movie) is definitely a movie based on a comic, but not a comic book. Comics is the appropriate word. Anakinjmt 03:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Technically comic strips are distinct enough and large enough that they can usually be dealt with in their own section - in that case List of films based on comic strips. More specifically is where films are based on graphic novels - as there are only a few of them we merged them. Perhaps the solution is to remove the links between the two from the hatnote but it seems to be helpful so I'd rather not. (Emperor 03:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC))
Exactly how many films have been based on comic strips? Sure, comic books is easy. Just look at all the DC/Marvel films, along with films like Sin City. But how many are based on strips? Only one comes to mind: Garfield (film). Anakinjmt —Preceding comment was added at 03:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
About 50.--SeizureDog 03:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
...we have an article on, and many more without an article. Many popular American comic strips from the 1910s and 1920s got at least a few films made, including Bringing Up Father, Gasoline Alley, Buster Brown, Little Orphan Annie, and Winnie Winkle. Other comic strips not included in that category are e.g. the Flemish classic Spike and Suzy. What do we do with the regular European comics like The adventures of Tintin? Not comic books in the American sense, not comic strips in the newspaper sense, and not graphic novels. Which article will they be included in? Fram 08:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
List names have been discussed previously : )
See WP:NCC for what came of those discussions. - jc37 17:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The issue is the way you we are presenting the information, you we're making them seem like separate lists. The comic strip ones should not be presented as see also but as a child of the top list. Hiding Talk 10:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
    "you" = ? - jc37 (talk) 11:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Not me. ;) Sorry, that was bad phrasing on my part, I was in my head thinking, that's not the way I'd do it, you've done it this way and it's coming across wrong. My apologies to all involved. I've stricken and rewritten to suit. Hiding Talk 15:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Makes sense. Hatnoting is probably not the way to go (and here I think you=me ;) ) and possibly neither is see also as they imply a different kind of relationship. (Emperor (talk) 16:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC))

More images

I've noticed that a surprisingly small number of the images on articles related to Jack Kirby's Fourth World are actually using images by Kirby himself. Yes, other creators did things with these characters from time to time, but they're so indelibly associated with Kirby that it seems like a very poor choice to use images from other creators for them. I mean, why on earth is Mister Miracle or Orion (comics) illustrated with art from somebody other than Kirby? This strikes me as another example of the unfortunate presentist bias in our image selection. Phil Sandifer 23:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The other side: Using Kirby only art smacks of elitism.
What it boils down to is 1) the guidelines we have for the 'box image and 2) is the 'box image currently sable or the result of a discussion. In both article you cite, they fit the guidelines, and are relatively stable. And it's damn hard to argue "recentism" since the New Gods cover is almost 2 decades old, and the Mister Miracle cover 3. If they were from Death of the New Gods or something similar, or being change regularly, I could see the argument.
Orion could use a better image, even though that is the "iconic" look the art is real busy. If a new image pops up and it fits the guides and happens to be Kirby, fine. If it's Byrne, fine too.
The Mister Miracle one is a classic example of what the 'box image should be. That it isn't Kirby frankly doesn't matter, the article isn't about Kirby. It's about Mister Miracle. - J Greb 03:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but we're also tied down by the desire to avoid excessive fair use. To my mind nothing about the Fourth World can be written without having a Kirby image in the article, since the Fourth World is, critically, so tied up in Kirby's vision. (With the later stuff, in every case except maybe Darkseid, being far less significant) Given that every article pretty much has to have a Kirby image, then, if the Kirby image is an acceptable main image it should be the main image, as nothing is added by having additional images. Phil Sandifer 03:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
And "excessive fair use" is going to be a hair splitting phrase. IIUC the goal is this:
  • With in an article, free-use images are to be used whenever possible. - Not going to happen in an article about a character owned by DC.
  • Fair-use images are to be used with in an article to support specific points within the article. If it does not pertain to the article, or the information it abuts, it can be seen as "just decoration" and get yanked. (This also kills galleries made up of fair-use images....)
  • An article can only have a reasonable number of fair-use images based on the article's size. I believe this is where the no "excessive fair use" mantra comes from. That section seems to read that we shouldn't go over board with relevant images, not that we should try to reduce and limit the article to one or two images.
Using Mister Miracle as an example, length-wise it can justify more than just two image. As it stands the Rogers ('box, meeting the guidelines), Kirby (first issue, an important thing, though I'd rather it be with the PH), and Ferry (indicative of Shilo's stint in the costume) work. Change for change's sake, or for what amounts to a POV reason, isn't needed. - J Greb 04:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
We should use as few fair use images as possible has always been my interpretation. And so one has to ask what is added by a second Mister Miracle image by a less significant artist in the history of the character. If it does not cover anything that the Kirby image doesn't already cover, it ought to be removed. Phil Sandifer 04:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Then, based on the current images, the Kirby cover can be trimmed out.
And before the conniption, think it through:
  • The article is focused on the characters, mainly Scott Free, not the comic book series, the Fourth World setting, or Kirby's works. And the last two have separate articles to handle them.
  • For purely character driven images, Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/editorial guidelines#Superhero box images is a good place to start with what such images should have. Looking at the three images, The Seven Soldier... cover easily passes, as does issue 22. Issue 1 gets hum up on "Pictures which hide significant areas of the character in shadow should be avoided..." The restrain/trap obscures a good part of the costume design. So we have two solid, character ID images in place right now.
  • "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Since the infobox image meets the guidelines, does what the project is looking for, and has a valid FUR, there is no solid reason aside from an editor's personal taste to change it. In this, changing it to a like Kirby image is no better than editor's swapping out 'box images for "same costume, but just published" or "costume de jure". And to my mind it is worse than those cases since it isn't just "newer makes it better" but "My opinion is that this article is only served best with art by only one artist." That's elitist, strongly POV, and verges on the blatantly fanish.
And just to be clear on a point: I wouldn't see this as an issue if either A) the article didn't already have a 'box image; B) the image it has didn't meet the guidelines; or C) the article was just being written. In cases A and C any image would be reasonable to flesh out the 'box. And in case B, up grading to meet the guidelines is part of why the guidelines are there.
- J Greb (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
In general, I agree with your analysis. But I think it fares poorly for this particular case, just because the characters in question are so widely recognized as being so idiosyncratically Kirby's. I certainly wouldn't make any argument like this for Fantastic Four or [{X-Men]]. But we're talking here about something that has always been viewed through the lens of Kirby, and always viewed in terms of Kirby. You never saw Fantastic Four sold as "Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four" even when done by somebody else. A portion of that is also the critical response - the Fourth World was always viewed as an artistic high of Kirby, and is what comics scholars point to when they point at Kirby's genius. Whether or not that genius existed, the Fourth World is still exhibit A. And that's the significant thing here - moreso than for any other comics characters I can think of, the Fourth World does not seem to me to be able to be illustrated separate from Kirby. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Naggingly, the FF analogy falls a little flat since the present Marvel editorial and creators have noisily gone to the "Lee and Kirby" well.
And I still have a problem with pigeonholing the character articles the way you're suggesting. Again, as they are written, they aren't extensions of Kirby or treated with critical review as only his toys. As for the bio article on Kirby and the general article on the Fourth World, at least the last time I looked, those should default to Kirby art since both speak to his carrier as a whole (the bio) and what is seen as his magnum opus (4th World).
But articles on the elements of the Fourth World that have been added and changed by other hands, articles which are not written to promote or focus on just Kirby's contribution to the elements... The dictum doesn't hold. If the articles were structured to flesh out, with critical commentary, Kirby's original material and how that was retained, revised, and revived over the decades by his and others hands, then it might hold. But even then it smells of slanting those articles. - J Greb (talk) 03:41, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
They're credited to Lee and Kirby, but there has never been a book released by Marvel called "Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four," which is telling. I think, in the end, most of the Fourth World material is critically treated as a single-author work, more akin to Maus than Superman. Yes, other creators later played in the sandbox, but it seems to be universally viewed as Kirby's sandbox no matter who plays in it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

(←dedent) Stop Phil.

This sentence: "I think, in the end, most of the Fourth World material is critically treated as a single-author work, more akin to Maus than Superman." Please re-read it.

The minute an article would have that line included, or used to justify a section of commentary, the text would be yanked as OR. It would need to have an independent, reliable, verifiable, secondary source cited that reviewers', critics', and comics professionals' act in that manner.

Using it to position a particular artist's work prominantly or exclusively in a set of articles feels like the same thing. It is one editor drawing a conclusion and selecting what is included in the article to support that conclusion. That's part and parcel of doing research for a magazine article or a book, or an encyclopedia that has a specific editorial POV. This one is supposed to strive for an NPOV. - J Greb (talk) 04:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Good point but a thorny one. If most of the published criticism on the Fourth World does indeed discuss the work as being Kirby's, then presenting an article in frames of reference other than that would actually violate NPOV. It's a very tricky minefield, and something we don't consider enough with regards comics articles in my opinion. WP:NPOV has this to offer: NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now, if we've got no reliable sources on a given work, anything we write is pretty much written from a point of view, usually our own interpretation of a comic or character's importance, or the importance of a specific event. If all the sources do discuss it as Kirby's mythos, then we have to reflect that, I would think. I think you're right that we need to focus on the sources, but I think that needs to apply to everything. Speaking to the issues of images, what critical points within the article are the images defining? Hiding Talk 20:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
With regard to the 3 articles Phil originally reffed:
  • Jack Kirby's Fourth World uses:
    • Image:New Gods 1971 1.jpg more or less for initial identification as it's placed where a 'box would go. The image is also notable as the initial appearance and start of the concept; and
    • Image:Mister miracle (1971) 1.jpg with in the The original comics section. Honestly, I'm not sure how it relates other than being the first issue of one of the other 3 parts of the Fourth World arc.
  • Mister Miracle uses:
    • Image:Mister miracle (1971) 1.jpg as well, but in conjunction to the character bio of Free. I'd prefer to see it used with the PH as the initial issue of the original series;
    • Image:Mister Miracle 22.png in the info box for identification of the character. Part of the contentious point here is that the image meets the project editorial guides for the 'box image, but it is not by Kirby; and
    • Image:7 soldiers miracle.png for identification of Shilo Normon in the role and in connection with the section referring to the separate article for Shilo. (Of note, the same image is used for the 'box in that article.)
  • Orion (comics) uses:
    • Image:Oriondcu0.jpg for the 'box image. As pointed out, it is a cluttered image and could likely be replaced on those grounds instead of the "Not Kirby" one;
    • Image:Oriondcu1.jpg for a spot to kick off of the FCB. At best it is an illustration of the alternate costume used for Orion during the first revival of the New Gods, though this is not mentioned in the article;
    • Image:Orion1.jpg for a spot in the "Powers" section. It fits there showing a common use of the Astro-Harness. It also is an illustration of the character parentage; and
    • Image:OrionCartoon.jpg illustration the animated version of the character from the DCAU.
Looking at these three... All of them have image troubles. Fourth World and Orion each have one tenuous image, Mister Miracle #1 and the powers section respectively; and Mister Miracle has two, Mister Miracle which is in the wrong place, and Shilo, which repeats on the main article. - J Greb (talk) 21:08, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
This doesn't really help the issue, but the article on Jack Kirby's Fourth World could be so much more. This is a series that has seen a lot of coverage, if only in the fan press, and it should be able tp write a better article than that. The Mister Miracle article is pretty poor too. I can't think where we went wrong in drafting the exemplars but they should never have guided to that sort of framework. What is it that's being attempted in the publication history, "This series did this, this series did that?" Ack. I'm shocked there's not even discussion on stylistic changes to the character, or even discussion of Maguire's Mister Miracle from the JL. Part of the vitality of superheroes is their four color appearance; that we don't comment on artistic interpretation seems odd. Whether it is sourcing issues, timing constraints or something else I don't know. But that's all beside the point. To my mind all the images are pretty much in the articles for decoration. Hiding Talk 21:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

In need of general feed back.

I need to know what the general etiquette for disputing an image's FUR entails.

The reason I ask this is that I've recently gotten a pair of notes from an editor, Phil Sandifer|Phil Sandifer, disputing the FUR I had placed on some images. Here and here.

I broached the topic with him here, along with the though that as part of the tagging process, he should have started a discussion on the talk pages of the articles where the images are in use. Based on how 'bots are being programmed to tag, and the boiler plate on the tags used IFD, including {{di-disputed fair use rationale}}, it seems that the intent is for some sort of notice to be applied to the article so that those watching the page have a clue that there is a problem.

The responses I got are here.

The frustrating part is that it looks like those are not the only two image so tagged since I've noted a swack of like notices on DrBat's talk page, and I've started to run across images where Phil isn't even bothering to notify editors who have either uploaded the image or placed the FUR. For example Image:52weekthirtynine.jpg which was tagged here but no notice was placed on the Lex Luthor talk page, DrBat's (the original uploader by the [{Revision history of Image:52weekthirtynine.jpg|history]]), mine (uploader by the image page, and the editor that FUR the image), or Tragical Comedy (last editor to tweak the FUR). That means that if I hadn't happen to look at the image, it would have been deletable on the 22nd, and most likely gone with no one having been informed in any way that the FUR was in dispute.

I can understand the base reason for questioning the use of images in the articles, since we do have articles that push, or exceed the reasonable use of non-free images. But my understanding is that if there is a dispute of the way an image is used, and it isn't a cut-and-dried FUR-vio (ie comic book covers in a gallery), then the editor disputing that use is obliged to follow through on the steps to make other potentially interested editors aware of it. - J Greb (talk) 05:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

With thousands of these images to tag, I'm notifying the uploaders as they display on the image page. Occasionally those uploaders get erased by a re-upload - I was actually unaware they still appeared in the history (though I should have thought of it). But when the person listed is obviously not the uploader, I don't generally notify.
I also, some time ago, made mention here that I was going through and tagging images, and created User:Phil Sandifer/Last image looked at for people to follow when I had done a batch. I did have a lengthy gap between two batches a while ago, and that may have led people not to follow. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Phil, as I've said elsewhere, I can understand why you're doing this, as reiterated above. But... and this is a biggy... as you're doing it right now it is presented as others have to dig to find out what is going on. You are making it incumbent on all other editors to check an unofficial list separate from their watched lists, and which they may not even be aware of, to see when articles they care about have issues. And yes, an image with a missing or incomplete FUR is an issue for the articles it's used in.
And frankly, "Easier on yourself", which is how using that list as a defence reads, is a poor attitude when this is supposed to be a collaborative effort. The act of tagging in-article uses or adding a note to the article talk pages may slow you down, but it is, based on the templates itself, the right thing to do. - J Greb (talk) 15:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I suppose there are 2 issues:
  • FUR on the use of images on a page and whether theimage helps improve the page more than a simple text explanation does
  • How alerting of image disputes is done - my understanding was that general practice is to inform the uploader and the article talk page.
It seems that the use of the talk page is the best way to go for resolving this issue as it alerts all the editors of the page to the issue and allows them to thrash out the problem. I know this is extra work but if you set yourself a big task like that it needs to be done properly or you will end up with images being deleted out of the blue which can be frustrating for the editors and detrimental to Wikipedia if the issue can be easily addressed with the right notification. (Emperor (talk) 16:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC))
  • Phil, I'd concur that a talk page message might be better than an uploader massage. Talk pages of related articles are most likely watched by the uploader, and a few more to boot. Yes, it could lead to more discussion, but that's part and parcel of the collaborative encyclopedia. I have looked at a few of the images you've tagged, and broadly tend to agree with what you are doing though. That is until you hit an image I disagree with. :) Hiding Talk 16:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
There's a little more of a rationale concerning the image of Renee Montaya and the Question over the image of Steel, due to the fact that in the background, there is a picture of Black Adam and Isis. I don't remember the specific storyline, but I'm guessing the image is either from the celebration when Renee kills a suicide bomber kid, or from when she and the Question get ambushed at an apartment shortly before the wedding (I've only read the novelization, I haven't actually read the comics yet). I would argue concerning the first image that it represents Renee, the Question, Black Adam, and Isis as they are depicted in 52, but even that is a bit of a stretch. I do agree concerning the Steel picture; while it is a very cool picture, I doubt whether it meets FUR. Anakinjmt (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately I didn't bring this here to debate the FURs on the three images, but that the images were tagged and the tagger didn't start discussions on the talk pages of the affected articles. - J Greb (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited

I'm not a member of this project, but I just wanted to let you all know that I started the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited article. It's a little stubby right now, but it is very referenced. Please edit it to your delight. :^) — Frecklefσσt | Talk 20:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It's written like an ad. -- Wryspy (talk) 22:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I did drop a note about this into the Marvel Comics talk page [34]. My thinking was we start it as a paragraph, see if it deserves its own section and then possibly look at splitting it off. Seems like we skipped right to the third part, not that this is necessarily a bad thing (esp. as i has good news coverage) but I do wonder if it needs its own article. As far as I'm aware they are a subscription service that provides electronic versions of back issues that you can read online. No unique content is being added and I'm unsure how much bigger the article can get. I'm happy to leave it be but in this case it might have been worth letting this evolve naturally and then assess if it needs its own article slightly further down the line. (Emperor (talk) 15:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC))
I don't see how it is written like an ad. It is NPOV and everything stated in the article has numerous references. But I think these issues should be discussed on the article's talk page, including whether or not it should be merged back into the main Marvel Comics article (sorry, I didn't see the note about creating a section on it). Thanks for taking a look at it. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 13:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Amalgam Comics entries must die.

List of Amalgam Comics characters got deleted because it was full of hundreds of unsourced character listings, very few of which provided any source to indicate that each character was anything other than an error, hoax, or fan fiction pulled from the Internet. At least two users have gone through adding Amalgam characters to DC and Marvel character articles without providing any sources. Cleaning this up will take a massive amount of work. I have deleted a few such entries (e.g., to Whizzer) to be consistent with messages I've left those users to say they need to provide sources for every one of those entries. One user provides a geocities page as a source [35], and the other one won't reply to me. Worse than that, the person just keeps adding Amalgam sections to superhero and supervillains articles, compounding the problem. Citations need to be provided for every character's first appearance. Descriptions of those that never actually had a first appearance need to be deleted from their articles. With so many articles, the amount of work just to delete all those entries will not be the best use of time because people would have to turn around and restore them all. Here's what I think is needed:

  1. People other than me need to ask those who keep adding Amalgam characters to stop doing so without references. Many hearing from more than one person would help.
  2. Someone is going to have to go through those users' edit histories to see all the articles they've edited this way, double-check each character, provide references for those that really appeared in the comics, and delete those that did not. This will take multiple people to split up the work into manageable groups of articles to research (or one who'd like to direct his/her OCD into this endeavor).
  3. Providing those references will take some research. I read the DC vs. Marvel issues, but I don't personally own any Amalgam Comics publications. We need some reliable sources that can tell us when each Amalgam character first appeared.

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

I have all the Amalgam issues, though I must say, my desire to read them is negligible. That said, we're dealing here with versions of characters that appeared in one or two issues at most - surely the most expedient decision is to pull all the Amalgam stuff as non-notable in the larger scheme of the subject. Phil Sandifer 18:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with Doc here. I don't really see the point why Amalgam character need their own entries since they haven't been used in years and I doubt they will be used again. StarSpangledKiwi 19:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree as well. It is certainly possible that articles on the issues themselves could be the best place to place such content. I wouldn't mind seeing some images in more of those articles, though. John Carter 19:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand everything that's going on here but here's my thoughts on Amalgam. 1) The issues that were -Produced- should have feature articles, like 'Bullets and Bracelets' and 'Dark Claw' and 'Super Soldier'. The -characters-, if verifiable, should be put into the 'Alternate Versions' section of each character's webpage. The mix of Catwoman and Electra (Catsai) doesn't deserve a seperate article but should be mentioned in the Catwoman article and Electra article. If the character by itself is important enough to have an article, it's Amalgam version deserves a mention. P.S. Pardon if this duplicates, my computer is being odd. Lots42 19:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Would you agree to have references with links in the articles of the more frequently appearing "source" characters, with content in the articles on the individual issues regarding the "Amalgamated" versions of those characters? John Carter 19:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
For those where we can cite when they first appeared, we can add those citations to the information about them under "Alternate versions" to satisfy Wikipedians who want to mention the Amalgam characters somewhere. Otherwise, every Amalgam mention should be removed from those many, many entries in characters' AV sections. Doczilla 19:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Few ¢...
I can see the reason for an article on "Amalgam Comics", it was a joint project by DC and Marvel and had a serious sales push behind it. Such an article should also cover what was published, both the actual book and the primary characters.
I can almost see a rationale for characters headlining solo books of the event. Almost. At best the articles are going to be 90-100% plot summary and/or speculation, the stuff that minor character articles are made of. Teams, team members, and minor characters from the event don't even really have that.
IIRC, there was just a handful of characters where we were shown or told "Marvel 'him' and DC's 'him' were blended to get Amalgam's 'him'." And all of those were the "major" characters. The rest are "reader's best guess". It doesn't matter if it's the editor adding the AV or the 3rd party fan0site they're sourcing, it's OR of "I think this because of these visual elements." On those grounds alone the material should be stripped. And as pointed out elsewhere, most of the lists out there include bunk characters. Without a pair of cites, one for the character's published use and one for an official "M+D=A", none of the AV adds are defensible.
Lastly: the fictitious comics... I've seen these added to things like Detective Comics where the editor is adding the comics from the "editor's notes" in the Amalgam books. This is something else that doesn't belong in the articles, much less passed off as "alternate versions". - J Greb 23:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I mostly agree - I think having an article on the various one-shots that made up the Amalgam run is ridiculous. These issues are not notable in and of themselves - the Amalgam crossover is a logical place for all of this information to go.
I am skeptical of the value of even including these in "alternate versions" sections, but this is mostly because I am skeptical of alternate versions sections. Phil Sandifer 00:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah J Greb is right - we basically face two problems with Amalgam characters:
  • Some of them are metafictional so haven't, strictly speaking, appeared in comics (the ones that have are all listed on the list of Amalgam comics).
  • Only some of them are explicitly described as being a merging of two characters.
If they fronted their own comic and you can provide an official source (from the comics or creators or an official company statement of some sort) then I feel you can include it in the alternative versions sections. If there is even a whiff that these can't be met then take the section off to the talk page with a note - that should help give other editors the idea they should keep an eye out for this to avoid them ones we've removed from sneaking back in. (Emperor 01:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC))
For the most part, I agree with Lots42 and J Greb. Major things should have their own article; minor things should not. Amalgam itself should definitely have its own article. As for characters that we're not specifically told what Marvel and DC characters made up an Amalgam character, I can't comment on it too much due to not owning the comics, and I believe I read them once from the library. However, if something is pretty obvious, does that really constitute OR? I can kinda see how it is, but I can also see how it isn't. Anakinjmt 01:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Basically, the rule of OR is, if they didn't say it explicitly, it's OR. So, yeah, even if it's obvious, but they never said it explicitly, to say that the character was an amalgamation of X and Y would be OR. John Carter 02:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that's right. I remember hearing that concerning a whole debate about what titles constitute the WWE Triple Crown championship. Like then, it's matters like this one that make me wish that wasn't the case with WP:OR, but then I think about what would happen if that wasn't the case. However, and I'm just asking, if it is pretty obvious, could that be grounds for WP:IGNORE? I don't ask it lightly, but is going by the letter of WP:OR hindering us from making better articles? I'm just looking for opinions here, as I don't know myself, but I feel like I should at the very least bring it up, so please don't hate me for it. Anakinjmt 02:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
A better article is one that informs readers by summarising external sources. Is adding our speculation likely to better inform readers and create a better encyclopedia, or is it possible we could misinform people and reduce the value of our encyclopedia? If there is even the hint of the latter, then WP:IGNORE states we avoid it at all costs. WP:IGNORE wants the best encyclopedia possible, above all else. Hope that clears the OR position up. As to the issue with the characters, I agree with the emerging consensus. There's no need for every character to be written up here, we need sources and we need to integrate them into accepted article format. Where the information doesn't meet policy, it needs to be removed, and editors need to be coached on the relevant policies. Hiding Talk 10:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm relatively split here. On the one hand, I tend to think that obvious synthesis is not OR, and that this is an important policy to maintain. On the other hand, I don't see how a thorough list of Amalgam characters is terribly useful here - one can get the general thrust of the concept in relatively few characters, and that seems sufficient for our purposes. Phil Sandifer 12:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I just don't have the ego to announce my textual readings as being obvious. Not only that, I think it's intellectually honest to couch anything which is "my best guess" as being "my best guess", and for me policies dictate "my best guess" has no place in Wikipedia. ;) If we're at the point where we're debating whether trying to work out which two characters were merged to form x character who made one appearance in one panel is violating OR or some part of WP:NOT, I'd rather sidestep the debate and broadly agree. :) Hiding Talk 13:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's my thinking about it. Amalgam was a unique historical event in comics. The two largest comic companies in the world, for a period of, what, a few months? They produced joint comics that were a combination of their titles and characters. Their big characters they told use what they were merged into -- Capt. America and Superman into Super Soldier, etc. But, it wasn't just their major characters. It's their smaller characters too. Characters that aren't hugely big but are bigger than a lot of others, such as Green Arrow. And, the characters that are considered minor, like Shining Knight and Atom. Now, I don't know if those characters ever appeared in an Amalgam form, but I feel as though we should try to really let the reader of the article know that this was a major event that affected both universes. I get that it states it in the article, but naming Amalgam characters that are, at the very least, quite obvious what they are an Amalgam of that we weren't explicitly told would, I think, help the reader truly understand the scope of it. Does that make sense? That would be the only rationale I could think of for WP:IGNORE. Anakinjmt 14:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Heading left... I think you overstate the importance of Amalgam by a great deal. It had no impact on the individual universes, and is most interesting, honestly, as an example of the 90s in comics (Note that we had the much demanded Gambit/Nightman crossover in 1996 as well, as well as a bunch of other mind-wrenchingly stupid comics). The in-universe coverage here is worse than ridiculous, and could readily be handled with one or two sentences - "The merged characters ranged from the two company's top stars (Batman and Wolverine becoming Dark Claw) to deeply obscure characters (fill in example here)." That's all that's really needed.

Honestly, looking at the Amalgam articles, I see about one paragraph of one article worth keeping. This is some of the worst writing in WikiProject Comics - sprawled over an inappropriately large number of articles, virtually all in-universe, lacking context - this is shameful. Someone want to mass AfD the individual character articles? Phil Sandifer 14:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

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

Well, when I added the Amalgam characters, I went by the geocities site, which seemed like a good source to me.

The thing is: isn't Wikipedia supposed to be about EVERYTHING? The way I see it, Wikipedia contains the entire knowledge of humanity in webpage form. Every piece of knowledge from past, present and future is included here.

So, going with that, Wikipedia includes every single piece of existing information about comic books.

Logically, that would include the Amalgam Comics.

If you want to delete information on Amalgam characters, you should also delete information on Ultimate Marvel characters, rebooted 52 DC characters, Age of Apocalypse characters, etc.

Also, I use the geocities page to see which DC and Marvel characters were used to form which Amalgam character. However, some of the times I go with common sense (ie. if a character is called "Sinistron"; then he would logically be a combination of Sinestro and Ultron, Death from Amalgam would logically be a combination of Death of the Endless and Mistress Death, and so on).

I don't know why they deleted the Whizzer's Amalgam version entry. The Whiz is a documented Amalgam character; He even has his own page here! Bluecatcinema 12:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Ah, no, Wikipedia isn't "supposed to be about EVERYTHING". The Wikimedia Foundation, the legal owners of the Wikipedia brand, have stated that their purpose is "bringing a free and accurate encyclopedia to every single person on the planet" and have stated that their goal "is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge". So from that we learn that we have to be a freely licensed, accurate encyclopedia. It is those ideals which have informed content policy, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. The latter policy states that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; merely being true or informative does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia." So from that we can see that Wikipedia is not designed to be about everything. There are limits, and current consensus has it that some of those limits are dictated by assessing notability, with fictional works and characters assessed using this this guidance. So we have to determine whether it is Wikipedia's place to detail every almagam charcater. We also have to detail whether the geocities page you are using constitutes a reliable source, so as to demonstrate verifiability and thus meet the stated goal of accuracy. Now, Wikipedia works by consensus, a process reached either by discussing an issue or through editing, where a rough acceptance of a decision will emerge. If you read through the above debate, the rough consensus is that Wikipedia shouldn't have articles on every amalgam character, which is why people are removing them. I hope that helps clarify the situation. Hiding Talk 13:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I am responding to Phil's response to me from above, as much as been posted since then and I was unable to add more yesterday due to other commitments. While I do agree with you Phil that Amalgam is in important in that it does show the bankruptcy comic companies faced in the 90s, it's also important because, for the first time (at least that I know of), two major comic companies produced months worth of comics that both companies own. Access is the first character that is trademarked or copyrighted (someone btw want to explain to me the difference between those? Because I don't get it) and owned by DC and Marvel. Both companies can use him however they want. And the Amalgam comics were co-published for months by DC and Marvel. Amalgam was different from previous DC vs. Marvel comics. DC vs. Marvel comics were co-published by the two companies, but DC still owned their characters and Marvel still owned their characters. But, both companies owned (and still do, I believe) Super Soldier, and Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I feel as though the dual-importance of Amalgam should be prominent. Yes, concentrate on it being a fine example of the near-bankruptcy comic companies faced prior to the release of the X-Men film. But also concentrate on the significance of two major comic book companies, who you could even say are rivals, working together in such a manner. It is in that sense that I feel we should cover it as it relates to the individual companies as well as the general trend of comics in the 90s. Does that make sense? Anakinjmt 17:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Let me also add, in going off of Hiding right above, that it is Wikipedia's job to cover everything that is notable. If it's notable, we cover it. If it's not, we don't. Bottom line. Anakinjmt 17:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
But the fine details about the Amalgam characters are not themselves notable. The story details have no long-term impact on anything fictional or real. We can mention them in a single Amalgam characters article without cluttering every DC and Marvel character article with this stuff, especially when editors are usually just guessing as to which DC and Marvel characters' articles they relate to. Doczilla 17:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
But, isn't their Amalgam counterpart considered an alternate version? That would seem to suggest, for example, alternate versions of Batman should have Dark Claw and Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. mentioned as being alternate versions of Batman. And, again, I would say only if it is readily obvious who a character is an amalgamation of could we put it down, if we weren't told by DC or Marvel. If it's readily obvious, I don't know if that would be considered OR, and if it would be, that could be a case to invoke WP:IGNORE. If WP:OR is interfering with us making the best article possible, then we should ignore it, and this would be the only case I could really see it. I'm not pushing to ignore WP:OR, as it's one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia, but if we ultimately determine WP:OR is preventing us from adding something that is highly obvious and anybody with a basic knowledge of comics could see, then IGNORE should be invoked. Best way to determine this: is there an Amalgam character that DC or Marvel did not tell us what two characters made up the Amalgam character but is readily obvious what it is? It would have to be highly obvious, with practically ZERO doubt about it. If we can find one character which fits that profile, then I will call for a survey of opinions to establish consensus to invoke WP:IGNORE concerning that character, and ONLY that character. It may be a tall order, but I don't consider invoking WP:IGNORE to be anything but. Invoking it requires a tall order. Anakinjmt 17:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't get what the problem is. Marvel has a character called Izzy Cohen. DC has one called Ice Cream Soldier. They were merged into 'Ice Cream Cohen'. We don't need Dan Didio sending out a mass email telling us what the two original characters are. It's obvious. And any article for 'Dark Claw' will state 'Batman' and 'Wolverine' in the intro paragraph. Lots42 18:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, according to WP:OR, because DC and Marvel didn't explicitly state which two characters composed Ice Cream Cohen, saying that they were an amalgamation of Izzy Cohen and Ice Cream Soldier is considered original research. It is things like that that have led me to pondering the idea of invoking WP:IGNORE. If we find more characters like the one you mentioned, then I will establish a survey of the idea of invoking WP:IGNORE on the grounds of being hindered from stating which Marvel and DC characters created an Amalgam character due to WP:OR. Thanks to you, we may have one character already, but I would prefer an entire list. This way, we reach a consensus once and then apply it to all the other similar cases. Anakinjmt 18:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
WP:OR means you shouldn't insert Ice Cream Cohen into the articles on Izzy Cohen or Ice Cream Soldier. In an Amalgam characters article, you might make a flat observation about the obvious relationship without telling readers what to think about it -- e.g., "The DC Comics character Ice Cream Soldier and the Marvel Comics character Izzy Cohen are both World War II characters with . . ." whatever else was similar about them. You're not telling readers that it explicitly means Ice Cream Cohen = Ice Cream Soldier + Izzy Cohen. If other editors let the flat statement of fact stand, it's probably okay. If anybody argues and says, "No, it must have been the Ice Cream Ghost," then the statement has to be altered or removed. But you still can't insert that into the articles on Izzy or either Ice Creamer without flat confirmation. Comparable example: We keep reverting people's assertions that the multi-armed clone in Ultimate Spider-Man was Ultimate Tarantula because the source material never confirmed it. However, we eventually compromised by keeping someone's flat observation that the character's costume has the Tarantula's symbol. Doczilla 01:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I've never heard of Izzy Cohen or Ice Cream Soldier. However, to people that do know them, if it's obvious that the two combined to create Ice Cream Cohen, that would be a reason to conduct the survey I mentioned. If anybody else can think of any other characters, post them here. I don't want to do a blanket survey, to avoid it being abused, so I need specific examples. Anakinjmt 03:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts

Whew - this was a lengthy read : )
In response, I think:
  • The amalgam stuff shouldn't exist in "alternate versions" sections of articles, since they were "amalgams" of two separate characters, owned by separate companies. (This is unique, and shouldn't be compared to "alternate" composite characters, such as Superman (Bruce Wayne).)
  • There should be at least information on the publishing event and its history.
  • There should at least be information on the "amalgam universe" and its history.
  • There should be information on the character "Access" and his history, as well as the character's uniqueness in ownership/copyright/whatever.
  • There should be a list of "amalgamised" characters and settings (and objects?), and their (albeit abridged) history. It should be clearly referenced, to prevent the very concerns that led to this thread.
What gets its own article? See Wikipedia:Summary style. - jc37 18:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm very much in agreement with jc37, not least of all for the practical and pragmatic nature of it. Amalgam Comics is a publishing entity that by Wikipedia notability standards deserves its own article. But that's all.
And that would simplify matters by — rather than having us pore over each of a hundred or more entries — allowing us to simply delete the "Alternate Version - Amalgam" section in each, quick and surgical, and concentrate our citation energy on a single article where all the relevant information will be in one place. --Tenebrae 20:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
That really is the easiest route. An article on the Amalgam "event" would cover its publishing history: the real world context, and main reason for the article - DC and Marvel working on it, writers and their comments, reviews (if any), set up series, etc; its plot: the secondary reason - Cliff's notes version of the in-universe history and plot points; and ideas that played out or were unique to the series - Access, an abridged list of the Amalgam characters, explicitly cited examples of the types of mergings, etc.
That's it. Beyond that article the characters and comics are not notable. And any standing articles that are currently up for Amalgam characters or books should redirect to that article. Everything else really belongs in a Wkia tailored to the fictional universe. - J Greb 23:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't agree at all. I think that if a character is noteable enough to have their own article, then he, she or it's Amalgam version deserves a mention. I do not understand the opposition here. I can understand the need for citations ("Joe Blow appears in X-Dudes #35-89") and links (which would help the problem of 'Who is so-and-so?'), and to make sure they are real (I got fooled by 'John Jones Vampire Hunter') but the sheer, rampant opposition to any -mention- baffles me. Feel free to explain your opinion on my talk page if we are cluttering up this page, I may not agree but I'll be civil. Lots42 03:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, but you seem to miss the last sentence of my post : )
Basically, let's work on what's described above, and per Wikipedia:Summary style, we can decide later if any section merits it's own article. I hope this helps clarify. - jc37 11:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Just one of those minor things that drives me nuts -- and come to think of it, should probably drive all of us editors nuts since it's one of those recurring editorial things. "It's" means "It is". That's all. Nothing else. The possessive form is "Its" -- no apostrophe. "The lion's fur" = "Its fur". Not "It's fur", which means "It is fur".
Sorry. Just one of those things that make editors and journalists weep for the fall of civilization. (Like "literally", which get misused all the time and is being destroyed as the only word that means what it means, which is "actual, physical reality" and not "really, really". I saw a book review recently that said, "The words literally sing off the page". No, they didn't! Not unless the pages had recorded music and speakers and the text was put to song!)
But, as PAD says, I digress. "Amalgam Comics" is a notable article. Minor, one-off combinations of particular characters, given the proven penchant for fake entries, makes policing each and every one of a hundred or more articles unwieldy and impractical. With respect to Lots42, do we otherwise have consensus on removing each Amalgam section in other articles, and keeping all the Amalgam information in one place? Given the length of this discussion, can we take this action today? --Tenebrae 16:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Survey

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

Amalgam character = Character 1 + Character 2

  1. Ice Cream Cohen = Izzy Cohen + Ice Cream Soldier

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

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

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

  • polls are evil. We don't decide much on Wikipedia by having polls, we do it by creating a consensus. This isn't an issue we can poll on, especially not with such a broad question. I'd also add that WP:IGNORE should never apply to WP:OR; the two are completely contradictory. Wikipedia's first rule was to ignore all rules, Wikipedia's goal is to produce an encyclopedia. That's not a rule, that's a goal, and the definition of an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, one that summarise other sources. Therefore the goal takes precedence over the rule, since the goal is the embodiment of the rule. What you're asking for is that you be allowed to add speculation to an article. Now that's a completely different question, and needs to be answered on a case by case basis. The best place to do this is on article talk pages where relevant. Hiding Talk 10:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Note that I did not say this was a poll. This is a survey to see what the general consensus is. And, this is a blanket survey for characters that FIT the criteria. Not all Amalgam characters will fit in here. It MUST be a character where it is generally agreed upon which two characters created said Amalgam character. I'm not saying it should be for all. And, I realize NOR is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. Here's what I'm coming at: from my perspective, if it is blatantly obvious (and I mean BLATENTLY obvious) which DC character and which Marvel character created an Amalgam character, that should not qualify as original research. Speculation would be "well, it is implied this," and I'm saying that for the one character listed so far, it's not speculation, it's a matter of fact. It should be completely obvious who and who make who for the one character this survey concerns. However, people say that it does because it's not explicitly said. Fine. Hence the survey. Now, does it appear to be a poll? Sure, I suppose. But really, what's the difference between a poll and a survey? They would both show consensus. Consensus, according to Dictionary.com, means "1. majority of opinion 2. general agreement or concord; harmony." You tell me how to get consensus without doing a survey. It is the easiest way to get consensus. All I'm asking is for people to say what their opinion is. If the majority of people think it should be done, fine, we do it. If the majority of people think we shouldn't do it, fine we won't. The only reason I thought of doing a blanket survey encompassing all the characters that fit the criteria, as I feel you guys keep skipping over that important fact, is so that we would not have to do it on a case-by-case basis. If several characters fit the criteria, why do it case by case? Seems more logical to me to do it all at once. It's also logical to do it here, at the project talkpage, because this is where the issue first came up, and this is the place that is guaranteed to get the most people to voice their opinion. All I'm asking is for people to state their opinion via Agree or Disagree so as to establish consensus. This kind of thing, doing a survey to establish consensus, is done all the time, and surveys are what is done in the consensus decision-making process. So, please don't talk about how Wikipedia does not like polls, when this is anything but. Anakinjmt 15:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
First off, there is blatantly obvious and then unequivocal. As an example: in the Countdown teaser images it was "blatantly obvious" that the Kingdom Come Red Robin and the "Return of Superman" characters were depicted. That is up until Didio sated that the Red Robin was Jason Todd and preview images surfaced with Superman-Prime wearing the black and silver costume. Right then, the OR guess as to who the characters were was shown to be wrong, blatantly wrong.
This applies to the Amalgams as well. If there is an unequivocal source, "The writer stated...", "The editor stated...", "The publisher stated...", "The art team stated...", or "Panels A through C on page D show Amal splitting into/being formed from DC and Marv.", then you have a citable statement on how the characters were used. Otherwise it's still a guess, it's still OR.
As for suggestions, they've already been made, and the general consensus seems to fall along:
  • Remove the blurbs from the character articles as they are a blend of OR and non-notable trivia.
  • Focus on a solid, real-world grounded article on the publishing event.
  • Remove the fully in-universe articles related to that event.
  • Remove the articles for one shot books related to the event that lack notability or are majoratively plot summary.
And with polls... Sorry, but straight "either or" polls are bunk since they can be worded to force a particular answer. The closest thing I've seen that works is when multiple options have been presented in a rambling thread and it needs to be drawn to a close. In those cases a re-statement of the options with a "Here's what we've come up with, which do we use?" suffices. Not an "I think we should do this one thing, who agrees or disagrees." - J Greb 16:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • We have a whole page which explains what consensus means on Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Consensus. We detail why polls, sorry, surveys can be a bad idea there too. Hope that helps. Hiding Talk 16:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
@J Greb: If you can think of a better way to word it, by all means, feel free to change it. @Hiding: I read that section beforehand, and I didn't see anything there against the use of a survey. I have seen surveys conducted elsewhere that was able to establish consensus, so it, to me, seemed like the best idea. If people can think of a better means to establish consensus (which I don't think has been reached), by all means, suggest it. My single goal is to get a definitive consensus, whether it be by survey or other means. I'm also trying to become a better editor by getting involved more. For so long, I just watched for vandalism on certain pages, and I'm now trying to use all the tools given to me as an editor; hence why I've started archiving talk pages and nominating images for deletion. I guess you could chalk this up to just another good faith intent, although until another means of consensus is presented, I still think this is the best idea. Anakinjmt 17:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

So what are we doing?

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

I say go(ing) for it. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Going twice . . . Doczilla (talk) 04:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • And sold - to the large lizard with the certificate on his wall : ) - jc37 (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Gone. But not all. Man, I can't believe how many hundreds of articles (more than a thousand, I think) these guys added these Amalgam mentions to, especially in the last two months. I really am going to take a wiki-break soon to finish something I need to get written for the real world. If anybody wants to start removing Amalgam entries Agustinaldo made September 25 and earlier, please feel free. (I hate picking on anyone by "name", but this is proving to be one of the most tedious tasks I'm ever embarked on in Wikipedia.) Doczilla (talk) 07:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Hey, question: I recently restored the mention of the "Anti-Beyonder" to the Anti-Monitor page with a source but then it was deleted anyway. Thanos6 (talk) 04:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
      • *coughs softly* Hello? Thanos6 (talk) 04:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Gotta give it patience, man. You waited 36 minutes. Wait like a day or two. Anakinjmt (talk) 16:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
      • I'll look into it, I'll look into it. Give me a day or two. Or maybe someone else in the project will look into it first. Damn real world, taking me away from this!  :-)  --Tenebrae (talk) 04:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
    • A trading card is not a comic book. There was no source stating when the character appeared in the comics -- and if you know what the Infinity/Crisis thing was about, you know why. Doczilla (talk) 09:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I know that. I also know that the trading cards are an official Amalgam product, and I sourced them. Cards or comics, the difference shouldn't matter. Thanos6 (talk) 15:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I'll give a help, Doc, in the next couple of days after I make sure to read all the background on it. Rest easy. --Tenebrae (talk) 04:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I think JGreb's comments say it all:

That really is the easiest route. An article on the Amalgam "event" would cover its publishing history: the real world context, and main reason for the article - DC and Marvel working on it, writers and their comments, reviews (if any), set up series, etc; its plot: the secondary reason - Cliff's notes version of the in-universe history and plot points; and ideas that played out or were unique to the series - Access, an abridged list of the Amalgam characters, explicitly cited examples of the types of mergings, etc. That's it. Beyond that article the characters and comics are not notable. And any standing articles that are currently up for Amalgam characters or books should redirect to that article. Everything else really belongs in a Wkia tailored to the fictional universe.

Couldn't have put it better myself. I've been chipping away at these phantom mentions for months so it is nice to see some action. Thanks to Doczilla for his conscientious pitch.

Asgardian 09:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)



Creator infobox MoS - Flags

After a meeting with an advocate of WP:MOSFLAG and the use of "nationalistic flag icons" in pretty much all uses of Template:Infobox Comics creator, I thought I'd put it to you all, what is actually the consensus? It obviously isn't a deathly necessary feature, but I've come to consider it a MoS feature of the infobox, and have figured we either have flags on all of them, or none. I think we ought to have a philosophy to go with the template, and stick by the flag use, or petition a bot to remove the lot. What are your opinions? MURGH disc. 17:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

6 of 1...
I'm not especially married to it, though it is a nice ancillary point to the nationality field. And since we are categorizing by nationality, having that field in the 'box makes sense. Considering that, I'd prefer to have the flags there.
That being said, I don't want to see them added in the place of birth/death fields. I've already run across cases of that, and removed them as per the "Not for use in locations of birth and death" section.
Also, there are a few groupings that I've got qualms about:
  • Ireland and like "contested" nationalities - I've sidestepped adding flags to creators from Northern Ireland since it really needs a "self identification" from the creator since it is a touchy issue. Taiwan is a similar case, though I've gone with the logic that Taiwan is international recognised as a separate country to a degree.
  • British/English/Welsh/Scot - Similar case, though there is a stronger argument of "nations within a nation" here. Again, I've been going with the way the articles are written. If there isn't a clear indication of the specific, I use the general.
  • Ethnicity markers - For purposes of the 'boxes, I'm not a fan of the hyphenated nationalities. In the article, yes, in the cats, maybe, in a "keep it basic and simple" 'box, no.
Some other thoughts... I'd prefer that the information be included consistently across the articles, period. That does open up a few points of debate: inclusion based on assumption or cat only, placement/order, and legal status (yup, I'm the editor sticking in "Naturalized/immigrated from based on the article text). And then there is the notability/NPOV questions... Frankly, IMO, nationality, immigrant or otherwise, is an important point with in a neutral biography. It gives the reader a frame of reference just like gender, age, and profession. - J Greb 19:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes as you point out, nationality is easily sensitive. It certainly isn't our job to make judgements on the national identities of naturalised immigrants and other hybrid destinies. Featuring a visual flag in addition does seem to provide some extra incentive for controversy too, as there have been editors who want to change a flag to a time-specific emblem. This in addition to blatant flag-vandalism, "no flags per WP:FLAGCRUFT!" and "flag on left like other infoboxes!". I feel more and more like removing them all, but would really like to see some more opinions on this. MURGH disc. 15:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Don't go too wide with that: yes, nationality can be a sensitive issue, but it most cases it's also a factual one. When I'm putting them in, I'm also looking at the article as writen. If it specifies nationality, that's what I place. If the region specified has an internal split where the self-identification differs from person to person, I leave nationality blank, no flag, no words.
And as much as it maybe a distateful thought, removeing the flags wn't really remove the problem. The closest we could come to that would be to remove nationality from the articles entierly: no mention of it, no mention of place of birth, no mention of place of residence, no categorrization by nationality, none of it. - J Greb 03:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Not at all. Of course the nationality is a matter of verifiable info just as any other sensitive issue. The point is that there is a distinction between flagging and plain print. As a mere word it's simply a matter of referring to a source and it is settled as undisputable fact, but the visual add-on can spark unnecessary dispute, one in the case of WP:MOSFLAG-concerns I find it a bit difficult to argue against. So please, what is a good argument for having a flag next to an already evident bit of info? MURGH disc. 14:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm with J Greb on this - we are including nationality so in most cases a flag is just a visual accompaniment to this. I think including nationality is important as it can inform people's work - a lot of the 2000 AD writers are Scottish and it can be an aspect to their work and knowing their nationality helps inform people's interpretations of their body of work. For example, so much of Garth Ennis' work draw on Northern Ireland (even with things like Hellblazer and The Authority when the link isn't so obvious) but note that there is no flag given there as it is a controversial aspect (some would go for the Irish or British flags or even the red flag of Ulster and getting it wrong could be an issue) so it is best avoided. (Emperor (talk) 14:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC))
By all means, I'm not against J Greb here, but I need a good reason for opposing their removal from WP:CMC infoboxes. I certainly never meant to infer we scrap informing of a creator's nationality. As in the Ennis example, a direct visual representation of person's passport, their "given badge on a space suit", is avoided as there is reasonable cause to suspect the "correct" symbol wouldn't be harmoniously received by all. This could be applied to Spaniards from Catalonia and a host of other examples. It's fair, cautious practice, but the question stands unanswered, why are we flagging at all? MURGH disc. 15:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I am probably the advocate of WP:MOSFLAG Murgh mentioned. :) I just think using flags causes unnecessary difficulties, and per Murgh, I don't really see a good reason to use flags. One of the reasons I don't like using flags, I use this example often, is this edit. Completely correct and totally stupid. Garion96 (talk) 19:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I can't see a need for the flags, personally. The text is enough. Hiding Talk 20:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I tried posting this earlier and crashed out, but it seems more relevant now so I'll try again.
I've gone back through the flag MoS, especially the sectioned Appropriate use and Biographical use and have drawn a few conclusions.
First is that it looks like the MoS is moving towards limiting flags to 3 or 4 article types: Military, predominantly battles, for IDing combatant nations and associated units/commanders; Sports, predominately international events for IDing teams and players as part of the team; and maps/articles on nations. And I do mean moving, the MoS implies this, it does not flat out state "No flags outside of..."
Second, since there is no indication within the MoS to bar the use of a flag icons in conjunction with the identification of nationality in an infobox, it seems reasonable use is allowable. That is, the use of the flags is consistent with identifying nationality, it does not need to be justified. If there is an underlying problem requiring a cited ref for citizenship, then the entire concept of including nationality needs to meet that standard. Both the words and the flags convey the same information, both should have to meet the same standards.
Concerns about things like Northern Ireland and the 3-in-1 case of the UK are specifically addressed in the MoS. These seem to boil down to "Use common sense, especially if the subject of the article self IDs."
As for the Schneider examples... Actually use of that flag in that way runs up against three points in the MoS:
With that example, if the "Nationality" fiend were to be added, the removal/replacement of that particular icon would still be valid under a common sense approach: "Nationality, not political movement." And that common sense should also prevent such a placement from happening in the first place. (And I know, common sense is not a universal thing.) - J Greb (talk) 20:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
True, the Romy Schneider one was before WP:MOSFLAG. But what exactly is the benefit if having the flag there? Does it add anything to the article/infobox? Or does it just creates difficulties. Common sense is rare. People reverting on whether the flag should be on the left or right side... Even with this infobox I encountered some problematic usage. Should in Zoran Janjetov the Serbian flag be used, or should it be the Yugoslavian flag? Same for all the Belgian artists, what if Belgium becomes two countries, from current news that is not even THAT far fetched :). What about people with dual citizenship, should we use two flags? it jut seems so unnecessary. Garion96 (talk) 20:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I haven't seen any text on it (noone's advocating), but every other wikiproject's infobox I've noticed applies it on left except ours, which since J Greb implemented it in January, has been distinctly to the right. Visually there's absolutely nothing wrong with this decision, it is better at right, feels slightly less of spoonfeeding, but it agitates those that want it to be a match to the quite similar-looking 'Template:Infobox Writer'. MURGH disc. 11:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

I'm partway through reading The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. When I'm done I'd like some help cleaning up the page (and no, we don't need a five paragraph plot summary or bulleted lists). I'd particularly appreciate help tracking down interviews with the creators and reviews of the book. WesleyDodds 06:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I've added an interview with Moore to the external links and will keep an eye out for more (no pun intended) and drop them in there. You can then take that and mix it in with things as you go. I can't be any direct help for now as we aren't allowed nice things like this over here #sniff# (although The Emperor always finds a way - like ordering from Amazon.com or something). On that note we should be careful what is said. When we discussed reliable online sources the general feeling was that while Comic Book Resources was solid for reviews, interviews and general announcements we should be careful about using Rich Johnston's LitG as a source and here what he is saying about DC's motivations (while possibly true for all I know) are very much flying against what DC are saying. So just be careful out there. (Emperor (talk) 14:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC))
CBR has posted a long interview with Alan Moore, so that's a good source to use. I'm hoping that Time and The New York Times have reviews for the book (they usually do for a high-profile comic by a critically acclaimed creator). Does anyone know if The Comics Journal has reviewed it? WesleyDodds (talk) 06:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Not if it has only just been released. I wasn't aware it was out yet, to be honest. There's a mania interview with Moore, [36], which discusses the publication delays in great depth, Skinny look at it here, [37], useful for the copyright digression, New Zealand newspaper discusses the publishing embargo here, [38] and MTV review it here, [39]. Hope they help. Hiding Talk 09:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Healing Factor

The healing factor article, I believe, it starting to get a little out of hand. It's starting to this indiscriminant list in which any fictional character that has ever demonstrated, or has been written as demonstrated, some degree of advanced healing. I'm not entirely sure when the term was coined, but it really got its first mainstain in comics published by Marvel I believe. The term itself is rather vague and is being applied quite liberally, so much to the point that the term is losing whatever meaning it has. For instance, one editor keeps adding the witches and wizards from the Harry Potter series as having healing factors. Since the term is rather vague, maybe some guidelines should be set for inclusions into the article? I'm looking for the day when someone adds the Looney Toons characters to the article. Anyone have any thoughts?Odin's Beard (talk) 00:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Wizards from Harry Potter? I suppose people could think McGonagall has that considering she took a lot of Stunning Spells to the chest, and she's quite old, but I'd chalk that up to good magical medicine. I would say that characters that are either actually stated to have a healing factor, or characters that consistently demonstrate it would count. Wolverine, obviously, does, because it's stated that his healing factor is part of his mutation. I haven't looked at the article in question, but assuming Superman is there, that would depend on the version you're talking about. In Smallville, for example, Clark is shown to have a healing factor if he's been hurt by Kryptonite and the Kryptonite is taken away from him. Whether that's true in the comics I don't know. Honestly, you may have to get tough and be very specific. Anakinjmt (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Superheroes and their superpowers

Is there any consensus in what detail superpowers should be portrayed in superhero articles? My focus is Storm (Marvel Comics). Currently some anon users are trying to dump huge loads of uncited cruft into the article. I try to enforce WP:CITE and WP:NOR, but the problem is that I don't know where hard info ends and cruft starts (WP:WAF). Any help? Thanks. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 09:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you give us examples or a link to a version of the page showing the cruft? That would help. Anakinjmt (talk) 13:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
This is the current version [40], and compare it to this, a bad version [41]. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 13:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
The current version looks acceptable to me. If I'm not mistaken, the "bad" version is composed of speculation in some places, contains stats taken out of older versions of the OHOTMU, and original research. Also, the "bad" version goes into great detail on exactly how the weather itself functions, talks about pressures, lighting and so on. All of those topics have their own articles and are definitely not needed. It would be analogous to going into minute detail on how the human body heals itself during injury or disease while describing Wolverine's healing factor.Odin's Beard (talk) 15:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

the good version does work, stick with that.Phoenix741(Talk Page) 15:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is to keep power descriptions as basic and straightforward as possible, with detail added as necessary per reliable secondary sources (ie. an academic paper that discusses Superman's powers). The unfamiliar reader will be overwhelmed if a ton of power fancruft is included ("In issue 265 Storm used her powers to sense an incoming invasion blah blah blah . . ."). In the case of Storm, I think the approach should be as simple as "She controls the weather and can fly". WesleyDodds (talk) 02:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually she does not directly have the power of flight. She uses her weather control to lift herself with wind. Doczilla (talk) 13:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Expert Request Sorting

I've just discovered this project, I'm not sure how active it is, but they are sorting pages needing attention by WikiProject. The pages get categorised to Category:Comics articles needing expert attention through the use of {{Expert-subject}}. Just a FYI, a category worth keeping your eye on. Hiding Talk 11:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Healing Factor again

Due in part to the holiday of Thanksgiving and the page being archived, this discussion never really got off the ground. The healing factor article is nothing more than an indiscriminant list without any sources in the slightest. Also, ridiculous claims are being made as to which characters qualify for the list. I've removed, yet again, the same edit by the same anonymous editor that adds that wizards and witches from the Harry Potter book series as possessing healing factors. What's next, the cast from the Looney Toons cartoons? The term healing factor itself is applied quite liberally by the comic book industry, along with other words like invulnerable or omnipotent. Comic book characters like Wolverine, Sabretooth, the Hulk, Deadpool, Lobo, etc. and a few others are among the most famous characters whose accelerated healing rates are referred to as healing factors. Those characters specifically have been consistently depicted as being practically immune to disease and able to fully heal injuries on a massive scale. Perhaps those characters could present at least some idea of what might qualify as a "healing factor". At the very least, their accelerated healing is actually part of their physiologies and not dependent upon an outside force, such as a machine or magic wand or something to that degree. Thoughts?Odin's Beard (talk) 00:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I stated it before; I'll state it again. I would have only characters that either have specifically been said have healing factors, or consistently show healing factors in all forms. Superman would not qualify because he's invulnerable, and wounds from kryptonite heal because of his invulnerability. Healing factors really mean you can be hurt, you just heal really fast. Anakinjmt (talk) 02:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed to what Anakinjmt said.Phoenix741(Talk Page) 02:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd go a bit finer and leave it at "have specifically been said have healing factors" coupled with cited references from the comics, critics, and/or the writers (preferably that latter two and avoiding the OHOTMU like books). The second option, "consistently show healing factors in all forms" is OR, we would be drawing and inferred conclusion from the primary source. - J Greb (talk) 03:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, "considerably show healing factors in all forms" is for those that have consistently shown it in the comics. I think it being shown again and again and again in the comics doesn't count as OR, as long as the multiple comics where a character heals are cited. One comic alone wouldn't do it. And, I don't even know if there are any characters that have consistently shown healing factors that haven't been stated to have healing factors, but that's just to cover all bases. Anakinjmt (talk) 05:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd go with J Greb. I think Anakin is right in that there aren't any that are shown to have it but haven't had it stated, and if we do turn some up, then discuss and build a consensus on whether to include. Hiding T 10:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Some of the characters listed are somewhat obscure and have only made a handful of appearances. In fact, some haven't been used in years or have appeared once or twice over the past 5 or 10 years or so. As a result, their healing factors have only been mentioned maybe in one or two comic book issues. I'd prefer to avoid OHOTMU type books myself, but it will be difficult to do so with some of the more obscure characters since finding the back issues for a good deal of them will be difficult. For some, the OHOTMU type of comics are going to be the easiest to find and list. The listings for characters from other media forms, I don't think, are going to be as difficult since there aren't decades worth of material to sort through.Odin's Beard (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Rio Rita (disamb) does not reference comics character

The character Rio Rita is mentioned on the page Femforce, but is linked to a disamb page (Rio Rita) which does not include this character. We either need to create a stub article for this character or include an existing article on the disamb page. I'm not competent to do this myself. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I've removed the links in the article to avoid redundancy, and added a note to the dab page so that readers get directed to where they want to be. Hiding T 11:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


Amalgam comics characters needs a bit of cleanup

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

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

Modern Age of Comic Books

Modern Age of Comic Books Chock full of original research and personal judgements not back with sources - the "key issues" sections/tables are particularly bad. --Fredrick day (talk) 21:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Jungle girl (stock character): Always barefoot?

(Operating in full nerd mode here with a pedantic quibble. :-) ) Jungle girl (stock character) says "The jungle girl is depicted as wearing a scanty animal skin as a dress or bikini and is always barefoot." --- I believe that there may be a few exceptions. See that article's Talk. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 11:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your welcome to the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I feel that the quality of Wikipedia articles is very significantly improved when they are edited by people who know what they are talking about, rather than by ignorant fools. (On this subject, I am an ignorant fool, and y'all are the experts.) Have a good one! -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 11:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm even more of an ignrant fool than you, trust me. All I'd do is change "...or bikini and is always barefoot" to "...or bikini and is typically/generally/often barefoot. But I can't work out which. I'll try often. Hiding T 11:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
At this point, without the numbers, "often" probably sounds best. So, is the new name an ad for your next movie or what? John Carter (talk) 16:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer "typically" because that would still be right whether she has sometimes worn shoes or user 201.37.229.117 turns out to be wrong about a "few exceptions". Words like "often" imply that we know there are exceptions when, in fact, we do not. Doczilla (talk) 09:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, there's a still from a Tarzan film with Jane wearing something on her feet,[42] and she's listed as an example of jungle girl, and the anon placed another example on the article talk page. But I'm not fussed either way. Hiding T 10:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
True, she is listed, whether she really fits or not. Either way, some jungle girls are always barefoot and have never been depicted wearing shoes, so I just don't think "often" fits them. "Typically" will fit them all. Doczilla (talk) 10:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, you've convinced me. It's typically until someone else chips in. Hiding T 11:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Please note that an editor, using mutliple sockpuppet accounts, has gone around adding "barefoot" comments to a number of articles about fictional female characters. User:WLU seems to keep an eye out for this guy in particular. Not saying this was the same person again, but it may well be. The original account seems to be User:Creepy Crawler. See [43] BOZ (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Concur with BOZ — this is the work of a fetishist vandal who returns ever so often. The "barefoot" point is trivial in any event; we don't discuss Superman or Clark Kent's shoewear. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
We could. I remember a story when Superman didn't have his powers while dressed as Clark Kent and didn't get them back in an emergency until he finally removed the last item, a shoe. And don't forget those famous red boots... Doczilla (talk) 02:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
LOL! --Tenebrae (talk) 03:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)