Talk:Marvel Omnibus

Missing books

Ultimate Spider-man: Death of Ultimate Spider-man Omnibus is missing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:130C:8045:2588:8FC:3B04:EF0D (talk) 15:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Resolved. Bonferroni (talk) 17:18, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Years covered

A column "Years covered" should be added like I just did for DC Archive (took a few hours). --Leocomix (talk) 13:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A lot of the dates are wrong...

For example, Astonishing X-Men, The Golden Age of Marvel Comics (wrong name listed as well), and X-Men v 1 all have the wrong publication dates.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

OOP

An indication of which titles are out of print would be nice, a simple OOP in the ISBN section would cover it. 24.190.34.219 (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Deadpool Minibus

I am a great fan of Omnibuses (or Omniboo, as someone might call them) and Deadpool, but I can't find a mention that the Deadpool Minibus is in fact an Omnibus and not just a funny Deadpool-ish wordplay with the word Omnibus. Of course, we will be sure when the book comes out and it's spine says "Marvel Omnibus", but until then, I shouldn't call it an omnibus, but just a hardcover book named Deadpool Minibus. 85.23.228.230 (talk) 14:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Guardians of the Galaxy Solo classic

The name of the omnibus links to Guardians of the Galaxy (2008 team), but every issue included in the book is from 60's to 80's, which means that the book covers an earlier version of team. So which is it? 85.23.238.234 (talk) 06:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Not an Omnibus

The Wedding of Phoenix and Cyclops is not an omnibus. It is an OHC, I bought it and there is no indication on the spine of the word omnibus nor is it in the liner notes. This is erroneously marked as one on Amazon. See marvel.com, IST or similar comic shops for appropriate verbiage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.16.96.9 (talk) 01:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Wrong contents

Under Namor The Sub-Mariner by John Byrne And Jae Lee the contents listed match exactly with what is listed just above for Ms. Marvel. This is most assuredly an error. Someone has to look up the actual contents of the Namor volume to list them accurately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.24.34.62 (talk) 11:11, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

New column suggestion - character/group

With the number of title changes lines have over the years, and the large number of books released this table seems to be getting very messy in its ordering. I suggest adding a column on the left for character/group. Within that grouping I would then put the books in chronological order, with spin-offs at the end.

E.g. Spider-man is currently extremely spread out. Under the new suggestion all Spider-man titles would be listed together under "Spider-Man". All the books where the main focus is ASM would be listed in chronological order, followed by books where the focus is largely or exclusively other titles like Untold Tales.

Another suggestion: multiple tables. How about splitting the tables into something like main 616, other superhero universes, Hypborian/Howard, Star Wars, Aliens/Predator, other properties. Events could either be in the main 616 table or a separate table

Would like a column or a note if LETTER PAGES are included. In general, if it was Masterworked there are letter pages included in the Omnibus. Not sure if that is 100% consistent — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C50:17F:71B4:9E2A:D9EB:DA5B:54C0 (talk) 22:19, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis Omnibus seems to be missing

Can someone add it to the list

Issues: Secret Invasion #1-8, Secret Invasion: Prologue; New Avengers (2004) #31-32, 39-49; Mighty Avengers (2007) #7, 12-20; New Avengers: Illuminati (2007) #1, 5

Page Count: 952 pages

Date: August 7, 2018

ISBN: 978-1302912154

108.46.192.116 (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Resolved. Bonferroni (talk) 17:18, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Invaders Omnibus

I had just changed the information for the contents of the Invaders Omnibus back to the correct info. Someone changed it to the information from the original solicitation for the volume, but this is incorrect as the published volume omitted content that it was advertised as containing.

In all fairness to whoever changed this, the original solicitation does still appear on a number of online sites, including Amazon (although the current top review on the Amazon UK site points out that the contents are not as advertised). I believe the Amazing Omar noted the omission of the material in his YouTube review.

However, when I originally posted the correct info I did take the time to include a footnote explaining the discrepancy between the two. Oddly the footnote was left when the information about the contents was changed, making the footnote nonsensical!

Please do not alter this without discussing it on the Talk page first. many thanks.

82.16.121.150 (talk) 18:26, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Table of Contents?

Not sure if possible with the current table format, but this page desperately needs a TOC/quick links to the items in the Subject column. 2601:283:4A00:EE40:901E:ACA1:E914:947E (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Could do with splitting into multiple tables:

Main 616

Golden Age (pre-FF)

Ultimate

Max

Howard (Conan, Kull, Kane)

Other licensed properties

This would then give something to attach the TOC to. And make the table more manageable 90.241.206.81 (talk) 09:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Would love to see title-specific shortcuts like on the page Marvel Ultimate Collection, Complete Epic and Epic Collection lines 2601:283:4A00:EE40:4823:AB8A:DE54:EDBC (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

This can by done by adding an id at the top of each section, such as:

-id "Acts of Vengeance"

And then at the top of the page adding a link to that id such as:

Acts of Vengeance

However, it becomes less useful if someone changes the default sort order of the table. Because of that, I haven't attempted to implement. 2601:283:4A00:EE40:89AE:E62B:C7B9:344F (talk) 23:02, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Oops, the reference at the top of the page would be like this (remove backslashes):

\[\[#Acts of Vengeance|Acts of Vengeance]] 2601:283:4A00:EE40:89AE:E62B:C7B9:344F (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

One more correction, the id would be on the row start line (the |-) like this:

|- -id "Acts of Vengeance" 2601:283:4A00:EE40:89AE:E62B:C7B9:344F (talk) 23:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Reorganisation by Vanto7 undone

The major changes to the table, which make it unfilterable and unsortable, have been undone. The changes were discussed on the Omnibus Collectors subreddit and people were horrified by the new table format. The previous version is sorted alphabetically and can be easily filtered and sorted. This table is a major resource for omnibus collectors who need to find information quickly and easily. It is not a history, chronology, or character timeline of the Marvel universe. 90.199.79.82 (talk) 07:38, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The page is a mess, though. Everything you say it needs to be is also true of the Marvel Epics page - but that's actually sorted in a way that makes it useable.

For instance, this page isn't something from which a person can "find information quickly and easily". You can't simply click one thing to find the Daredevil omnibuses, for instance. It needs a proper contents section.

I don't mind doing that sort job - but there's no point if someone is going to arbitrarily undo it. Peterspeterson (talk) 01:53, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Full reorganisation

With a bit of help from @Pagina18, I have reformatted this page to make it manageable and, to be frank, less of a list and more of a Wikipedia page.

As part of that, hundreds of new ISBNs and DM covers have been sourced, checked, and added to this page. There are now very few that are missing. It is as complete as this page - or any other Omnibus archive - has ever been.

I have arbitrarily made some decisions re: categories that don’t necessarily have to be kept. That is especially true in regards to things like the ‘Series omnibuses’, ‘Anthology omnibuses’, and ‘Creator omnibuses’. These could be combined into something like ‘Misc omnibuses’, if there is a consensus to do so. Or renamed. Etc. I have no particular strong feelings on this, other than that they should be separate from the main character/teams section.

Another point of contention could be the ‘Events’ category. Should something like ‘Dark Web’ be included the ‘Events’ section, the ‘Spider-Man’ section, or both? Ditto for X-Men events, and so on.

My thoughts are that if the ‘Event’ omnibus doesn’t contain a significant chunk of issues from one particular team or character book, it should stay, solely, in the Events area.

To illustrate this, in the case of something like Devil’s Reign, I’ve put a ‘jump to’ link within the Daredevil section. That’s because it’s a useful read for completion, though contains no actual issues of ‘Daredevil’. BUT Shadowland *is* in the Daredevil section, because it contains 12 issues from the main comic.

To be clear… that’s just me. There is no right or wrong answer to this but there will not be another situation like last time where a Reddit thread leads to large reversions of this page. Please use *this Talk page* to discuss things like that ahead of any major changes. We can try to find a consensus.

Next, I’m unsure where some things should go. Werewolf By Night… is it 616, or a separate ‘series’? If anyone’s confident, then feel free to move it. Ditto on other similar series. I’m not pretending to know everything.

Lastly, there are bound to be mistakes here and there. Hopefully small but that’s what comes from transferring 19 years of information from one format to another. Obviously, feel free to fix any minor issues you see.

Cheers Peterspeterson (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A suggestion has been put to me to reorganise into 3-4 sections. Namely, main universe, alternate universe (which is now there), and licensed. Possibly a creators' section (that currently exists)... but that could be folded into the main universe section.

Does anyone have any strong feelings? I'm not against this - and can do the sorting. Peterspeterson (talk) 17:35, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Seeing as I have received a death threat (wtf?) for working on this page, plus numerous more minor insults, here is a partial set of criteria for why this page is structured how it is. You can read these guidelines and many others here.

“As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a directory, repository of links, or means of promotion, and should not contain indiscriminate lists, only certain types of lists should be exhaustive. Criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence.”

The fact omnibuses exist is not a reason that this page has to. That's the starting point for any discussion on this issue. This is especially true because the previous version of this page was unquestionably "indiscriminate" in the sense that it was missing at least 500 books that I added. Since my update there have been at least two more.

“Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of objective criteria: Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article in the English Wikipedia”

This is patently not true of this page, even now - however I have gone some way to try to address this and will attempt to do so in greater detail over time.

“Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources.”

This did not exist on this page until I edited it.

“A stand-alone list should begin with a lead section that summarizes its content, provides any necessary background information, gives encyclopedic context, links to other relevant articles, and makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title.”

Again, this did not exist in any meaningful manner until I edited this page.

“Use proper wikimarkup- or template-based list code”

There is a degree of subjectivity to this - however wikimarkup includes creating a TOC (which didn't exist), as well as headings and subheadings (which didn't exist).

From this page:

Tables can also make a page much more complicated and difficult to edit, especially if some of the more complex forms of table coding are used, so even if a table is used some consideration needs to be given to the table structure.

This was unquestionably true of the old version. That had more than 1000 entries in a single table, meaning a single section could not be edited without changing the whole thing. The column structure also made adding a single entry (ie a DM cover) difficult because one entry would shift the entire table itself.

Table captions and column and row headers should be succinct and self explanatory

Somewhat subjective, however using the "notes" as an entirely separate column in a 1000+-entry table absolutely failed this point.

...overloading tables with too much detailed statistical data is against policy. Careful thought should be given to how a reader would use a table, and what level of detail is appropriate.

Well, yes. More than 1000 entries in a single table absolutely breaks this.

To conclude (ish), I'm happy to discuss these points with anybody on this site. I'm also very happy to work with any users on clarity for the various sections and categories currently in use. Sending me insults is unacceptable, let alone death threats. Peterspeterson (talk) 04:01, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

In order to reach a consensus, I vote in favor of the full reorganization. Now this Marvel Omnibus page functions as a proper Wikipedia article. If anyone disagrees, the matter should and needs to be resolved here on this related talk page. If consensus is not reached, then we will proceed with a request for comment (RfC).

To be clear, an edit to enforce certain overriding policies is not considered edit warring, especially when the reasons have been thoroughly indicated. Such is the case here. Any revert back to the article's previous state could be considered edit warring if the person responsible does not provide legitime reasons.

Talk page discussion is a prerequisite to almost all of Wikipedia's venues of higher dispute resolution. Pagina18 (talk) 05:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

It’s been a few years since I’ve edited on Wikipedia and I don’t remember my login information. But the changes to essentially make this page one that editorializes with subjective criteria to match the preferences of one editor were substantial enough that I decided to create a new account to weigh in.

The changes do not actually do anything to “enforce certain overriding policies.” The editor seems to have repeatedly misstated these policies in an attempt to justify his changes.

For example, they write:

“’Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of objective criteria: Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article in the English Wikipedia’

This is patently not true of this page, even now - however I have gone some way to try to address this and will attempt to do so in greater detail over time.”

That’s not actually what the policy says. If you look at the common selection criteria page for a list -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Common_selection_criteria – it states that a list can either contain information where “every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article” or “every entry in the list fails the notability criteria.” Notwithstanding the fact that these edits did not actually make changes in this area, the page clearly doesn’t need to be changed to meet the criteria.

One of the more noteworthy change made by the editor was based on his claim that “over 500 books” were missing from the list. That’s not true at all – what was missing was the ISBN numbers for alternative printings of the books.

Everything I’ve seen is that it is not standard practice to include ISBNs or similar information for every version of a book that’s printed – if you look at this page, for example, the only information that is contained is the ISBNs for the original hardcover printings -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King_bibliography .There’s no separate ISBN listing for things book club editions, paperbacks, fifth printings, or deluxe first printings with alternate covers – which is essentially what the editor added and claims is evidence of hundreds of missing books. If there’s a concern that the page is getting unwieldy, the edits seem to have made this an even bigger problem.

But I’d say the biggest problem is that the new layout is clearly based on the editor’s personal opinions and guesses rather than any objective criteria that should be used in making a list.

The editor notes repeatedly the page for Marvel’s Epic Collections as something they’re trying to emulate. That page includes a number of separate lists – for example, there’s a list for “Avengers” epic collections.

That’s made possible because epic collections are printed in specific lines – each book, for example, will be labeled something like “Avenger Epic Collection 12,” and grouping them as such is based on how they’re categorized by the printer.

That’s not true at all with omnibuses. Yes, there are a few formal lines out there. But the majority of books are stand-alone titles. And there are dozens upon dozens of them that can’t be sorted easily.

I won’t provide an exhaustive list, but just a couple of examples: 1) “Spider-Man 2099 Omnibus Vol. 2” as an “alternate universe omnibus” even though that (unlike Spider-Man 2099 Omnibus Vol. 1” takes place in the same universe as standard Spider-Man books. 2) “Savage Avengers” is a licensed property title – albeit one like Rom that takes place in the main continuity. The editor has decided to put that with the “Avengers” books rather than “licensed omnibuses.”

There’s no good answer for objectively sorting these or any of the scores of other books that have similar sorting problems. The editor has noted elsewhere on the internet in the face of widespread criticism -- https://www.reddit.com/r/OmnibusCollectors/comments/1gioeyy/marvel_omnibus_wikipedia_page_has_changed_thoughts/ -- that the changes were based on how he’d personally prefer to have the books sorted rather than what the community wants. He seems to have made a few posts in the past that have asked for recommended changes, only to be met with an onslaught of responses saying what he wants to do is a bad idea, and now blames the lack of concrete suggestions for the unsolvable problems with the sorting.

If there are concerns that the page isn’t encyclopedic enough, then I’d suggest it could be updated to include a new “history” tab that includes the information the editor made to the introductory section. But demolishing a list – removing functions such as the ability to sort by date or page count -- to better match the personal preferences of one editor seems to be a huge step backwards. I am more than happy to help with any reworks that might be needed to bring back the functionality of the erased page. Towelgum (talk) 17:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

You have not addressed a single point in relation to tables in your reply. Here's the style guide.

...overloading tables with too much detailed statistical data is against policy. Careful thought should be given to how a reader would use a table, and what level of detail is appropriate.

The previous version of this page had over 1000 entries in a single table. Where else is this common on Wikpedia?

Tables can also make a page much more complicated and difficult to edit, especially if some of the more complex forms of table coding are used

This was absolutely true of the old version. It was so big it took a very long time to load for even basic edits, with the column and row function entwined to such a degree that it was incredibly difficult to make even basic changes.

This is something you would be familiar with if, as you say, it hadn't "been a few years since I’ve edited on Wikipedia" and you'd forgotten your login details.

How would you like to address this?

On your examples of books in the wrong section, nobody is stopping you moving individual titles, certainly not me. Peterspeterson (talk) 17:11, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"On your examples of books in the wrong section,"

My point is that there's no "right" section like there is with a page like Marvel's epic collections. My objective decision to move something to one section rather than another isn't any more valid than your arbitrary guesses to place them as you did.

On your only two specific complaints about the tables -- I'd say if you're concerned about overlongevity of the previous table, a simple solution might be to remove some columns containing information like ISBNs that are readily available elsewhere and not something I imagine many people are going to Wikipedia to look up, or the "additional notes" one that contains limited information that could easily be placed elsewhere, or simply collapsing reprint information into the "publication date" column. Those simple fixes, which I'd be happy to undertake, would reduce the amount in the original table by half, and bring back all the functionality lost by your random changes. Towelgum (talk) 18:04, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

You haven't addressed the major point.

For very long tables, manageability and maintenance of the page may be better served by breaking information up into several smaller tables instead of one extremely long one.

and

...overloading tables with too much detailed statistical data is against policy. Careful thought should be given to how a reader would use a table, and what level of detail is appropriate.

"Removing columns" does absolutely nothing to deal with the length of the table. The width wasn't particularly the problem.

The previous table had more than 1000 entries! Unless you want to find a lot of other pages on Wikipedia where this is common, then it is clear this counts as "extremely long". I have adhered to Wikipedia guidelines by separating.

And it's true that I've removed a small amount of functionality in being able to sort that enormous table by page count - but I've added far more functionality by being able to quickly and easily navigate to character and/or sections, without having to negotiate something that's so long.

To be clear, it is not only me who has done this. @Pagina18 worked with me - and @WarriorsArmy has helped with other edits. Go into the logs to see that we are among the people who partially maintain this page. We're the people who know how unwieldy, difficult, and long-to-load the old version was.

On your older point about direct market variants and ISBNs, this page already had a hundred or so. I didn't begin the trend of adding. I simply completed (more or less) the data that was already there, alongside @Pagina18 and @WarriorsArmy. Why have something that's 20% there, and 80% not? Is this page supposed to be an information resource, or not? It's supposed to be an encyclopedia, with as much sourced knowledge and information as possible.

Lastly, it isn't only those covers that we added. Between the three of us, we found around a dozen books missing completely from the previous page. Peterspeterson (talk) 18:35, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, to add, while this:

> removing functions such as the ability to sort by date or page count

is true, I've also added the function to immediately be able to jump to a section, say Wolverine, without having to scroll through 1000 titles to find it.

This quite clearly fulfils the style guide request of:

For very long tables, manageability and maintenance of the page may be better served by breaking information up into several smaller tables instead of one extremely long one.

Source Peterspeterson (talk) 17:35, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"You haven't addressed the major point."

I've literally offered a suggestion for trimming the length of the list dramatically by collapsing reprints into the date published category, and not having separate rows to break down the different ISBNs -- the "1,000 titles" number is not the actual number of titles, just the number that exists based on your personal preference of how to sort them in a way that makes the table length twice as long as it needs to be to convey the same information. Towelgum (talk) 19:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

> The "1,000 titles" number is not the actual number of titles

It is!

There were 89 this year, 93 last year, 87 in 2022, 66 in 2021, 45 in 2020. That's almost 400 in the last five years, which includes a year of pandemic.

Even 400 is too big for one table. Where else on Wikipedia is there a table with 400 entries, let alone 1000? Peterspeterson (talk) 19:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Those numbers are not accurate at all, as you would have been able to see in the version of the table you deleted. There were only 57 new omnibuses in 2023, for example, not the 93 that you're citing.

The only way you can get anywhere close to the 1,000 figure you're citing is if you think the table should be made artificially longer than it needs to be by giving every book that's reprinted a separate row. You're basically saying that each of the five printings of Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 deserves its own row, which is a bizarre approach if you're concerned about the length. I'm suggesting simple changes like addressing reprints in the publication date column which would solve that problem.

And yeah, there are hundreds if not thousands of tables on Wikipedia that are far longer than 400 rows. One example that quickly came to mind -- this is 1,400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Illinois Towelgum (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Jan 2023 (13): Avengers by Busiek 1, Captain Mar-Vell, Daredevil by Miller, FF Byrne 2, Hulk David 2, Spider-Man Spencer 1, Wolverine 3, House Of M, Secret Wars, Ultimate SM 2, Conan 10, SW Legends New Republic 1, SW: Doctor Aphra

Feb (7) Avengers Hickman 2, Captain America Spencer 1, Guardian Bendis, Planet Gulk, Immortal Iron Fist, X-Men Animated, Spider-Verse

Mar (8) Savage Avengers, Moon Knight Spector 1, Nova (Richard Rider), Silver Surfer Slott. Squirrel Girl, SM vs Venom, Aliens 4, SW Rebellion 1

Apr (5): Adam Warlock, Deadpool & Cable, FF Millar, War Of Kings, Planet Apes

May (6): Avengers Hickman 2, Captain Marvel Thompson, Daredevil 2, Hulk David 5, Thor 4, Thunderbolts 3,

Jun (7) Loki, July 63, Superior SM, Amazing Sm Beyond, X23, Uncanny 5, New X-Men

Jul (6) Avengers 1 & 2, Black Cat, Cal Coates, Defenders 2, Zombie

Aug (6) Avengers 3, Immortal Hulk, Invincible Iron Man 1, Miles Morales, Secret Warriors, Spider Gwen, SM 4, SW: Doctor Aphra

Sep (7) Avengers 4 & 5, Cap Lives, Hulk Maestro, Phoenix 2, What If 1, Wolverine 4

Oct (7) Alpha Flight, Trial of Cap, Genis Vell, Marcel Age 1, Zombies 2, Thor 2, SW Empire 2

Nov (4) Blade, Return Winter Soldier. daredevil Waid 1, Hulk 2

Dec (9) Hawkeye, New Mutants 3, Ben Reilly 1, SM Zdarsky, Thunderbolts Uncaged, Wonder Man, Sig, SW High Republic, Arthur Adams

13+7+8+5+6+7+6+6+7+7+4+9 = ...85. Oops. I miscounted. But 85 is a hell of a lot closer to 93 than it is 57.

Unless you're suggesting removing all reprints completely? Because I didn't add most of the reprints, nor give them their own row. They've been here for years. And, on those, isn't the date of release the most important part anyway? Do you really think Fantastic Four Vol. 1 (2005) should be the only version of that book acknowledged on this page? The fact it's been reprinted so many times shouldn't be acknowledged at all? Because that's another conversation entirely. What's the point of the page if all that information is removed?

As for the Illinois page, I don't really know anything about the state but I'd imagine there's a reason for having it that long. We can definitely take this to an admin for a final, binding decision and you can absolutely explain why you believe a table with around 1000 books in it is the best way to display the information. That's what @Pagina18 has said all along, and I'm fine with that.

I can't imagine anyone, anywhere, would be too happy that you seemingly want to remove all the reprints(?) Peterspeterson (talk) 21:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Yup, you're citing plenty of reprints there. Right from the get-go, three of the first four are reprints, and it's bizarre to say these need to be treated as unique books necessitating 1,000 rows. I'm not aware of any other page on Wikipedia that lists reprints of books in separate rows, and if you're concerned that the page contains a table that is currently nowhere near one of the longest tables on Wikipedia because you have decreed that it is too long for Wikipedia, then condensing them is an easy solution.

And I'm really not sure why you're failing to understand what I've spelled out at least three times by now, but where in the world did you see me suggesting that reprint information should be entirely deleted? As I've repeatedly suggested, you could simply account for reprints in the "date published" column -- rather than having separate rows for each printing, you could just have one row for something like "Fantastic Four by John Byrne Vol. 2" (which is a book you're suggesting needs to be split, based on the math that got you to 1,000); in the date published category, you could then say "4 Dec 2013; 24 Jan 2023." And bam, that right there will get you back to a table length like existed a few years ago, well before anybody began to complain about overlongevity, and do so without the subjective criteria you've applied. Towelgum (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

But everything you're suggesting is essentially 'let's remove information'. At various points you've suggested removing ISBNs, DM covers, and now condensing all reprint info into a single space that unquestionably makes it more difficult to find.

But... why? Because somebody will be interested in that information, even if it isn't you, even if it isn't me. And if it's supposed to be a community page to collate information, what benefit does removing that offer anyone?

The only reason you'd be doing that is to keep a single table that allows people to sort by page count? Unless I'm missing something?

I genuinely don't understand how your suggestions improve anything. Peterspeterson (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"But everything you're suggesting is essentially 'let's remove information'. "

Just to review how we got here: You’ve posted throughout the internet repeatedly in recent months about how you found the design of this page unattractive in an attempt to build support for changing it. You found that the overwhelming majority of people who frequent this page disagreed with your proposed changes, saying they make it much tougher to navigate.

You then declared that the existing page ran afoul of guidelines for tables, making false claims such as the existence of a nonexistent requirement that every item in a table needs to have a Wikipedia page of its own. So according to your decree, that meant that the world had no choice but to accept your changes.

When it was pointing out to you that your understanding of the rules was false, you declared that the table was too longer, and suggested it was longer than any other table on Wikipedia. That’s objectively false – I could send you hundreds of other counterexamples, but I’m confident you’ll do the same as you did when I sent you one and brush them off.

But sure, you have the personal opinion that the existing table was too long to make it easy for you to read through, which is just as valid as the personal opinion held by a majority of users that it wasn’t. So I’m trying to find compromise and a way to make the table more manageable and suggesting ways it could be trimmed down. These of course involve condensing information or removing information that isn’t found on other comparable Wikipedia pages, because yeah, there’s no other way to make a table smaller.

What we have now is a complete mess. Even after complaining about overlongevity, you’ve managed to turn what was a 24,000 word section listing the books a month ago into 38,000 words while adding little of substance about the books themselves – even the blurbs you’ve added for a handful of the books tend to be more about the characters or series involved rather than the collections themselves, which would be the equivalent of burdening down a list of the movies of 2019 with bios of the actors involved. And as I’ve noted repeatedly, the biggest problem with this sorting that you’ve deemed necessary is that there’s no obvious way to sort, since so many of the books cross titles and genres.

I’m sorry if I’m longwinded with this. But I’ve been using Wikipedia for over 20 years now, even if I haven’t contributed as much as I should have in recent years. And I’ve never seen an article that I frequent be subjected to such an arbitrary overhaul made by somebody who misunderstands the rules for a page, acknowledges they’re not an expert in what they’re writing about, and declares that there’s no option but to accept their personal preferences for style. I’m more than happy to contribute to a way to make the old page better. But this ain’t it. Towelgum (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

> I’m more than happy to contribute to a way to make the old page better.

So... why didn't you, especially as you're declaring yourself such an expert, who has so much experience?

Because this:

> a 24,000 word section listing the books a month ago into 38,000 words

is only true because the old version was incomplete and, in many places, outright wrong. Of course it's shorter when the page is a spreadsheet, with barely an explanation of what anything is, no citations, no TOC, no sections.

In regards to the variant covers, which has also expanded things, the fact it now contains information you, personally, might not find interesting is largely irrelevant. Is it suppose to be a resource, or not? Because variant covers have been a feature of the omnibus right back to the very first one. Isn't that worth documenting?

> What we have now is a complete mess

Based on... what? This page now:

- Is easy to navigate

- Is broadly 'complete' in the sense that there's very little missing information

- Is incredibly easy for anyone to edit

- Breaches no site rules, as far as I know - including, and especially, in regards to table length

because this:

Tables can also make a page much more complicated and difficult to edit, especially if some of the more complex forms of table coding are used, so even if a table is used some consideration needs to be given to the table structure.

and this:

For very long tables, manageability and maintenance of the page may be better served by breaking information up into several smaller tables instead of one extremely long one.

is an important point in the style guide. The other table you linked to yesterday is also long but, crucially, is coded in a very simple way. It doesn't look as if it needs regular updates, either. I would assume the data is also best presented in that form, but I'd trust the editors on that.

On this, as far as I can tell, the only downside is that a small minority of books don't neatly fit into a single category. But if that's a massive problem, duplicate them and put them in two. Or leave them in one and write an introduction underneath the sub-section header to explain. Or suggest something else.

Why is it such a issue that a minority of books don't neatly fit, but you see no issue with around a thousand books in one table that has jumbled, complex coding on an almost otherwise blank page?

Are there any other problems I'm missing?

If the small introductions in various places are such a problem, lose them. I don't particularly mind. Although the section explanations about 616, etc, are a requirement.

This

> You’ve posted throughout the internet repeatedly in recent months about how you found the design of this page unattractive

is completely false. "Throughout the internet"? Where? One website as a courtesy? Bear in mind, on the main Reddit thread, for which you seem to have taken offence, easily the most upvoted reply doesn't address this, the second says 'it's fine', and my own explanation is one of the most upvoted first nest responses, despite a vocal minority taking offence. IE: It was obviously downvoted a lot *but upvoted by even more people*. Not that any of that matters, even though you keep raising it.

Even on this very Talk page, three of the posts (New column suggestion), (Table of Contents?) and (Reorganisation by Vanto) have some relation to sorting the page. This isn't a new issue, it's simply that the table had become so unwieldy and difficult to manage that doing anything about it was a challenge in and of itself.

> When it was pointing out to you that your understanding of the rules was false, you declared that the table was too longer,

Is also untrue. I simply pointed out that you'd ignored the vast majority of what I actually wrote, while focusing on a single part I might have misinterpreted. That didn't negate any of the other issues you chose to ignore at that time.

Finally, if you actually want to contribute:

- How do you want to sort this page that allows for a full, navigable TOC, so that users do not have to scroll a long, unsorted, page to find information?

- How do you want to have tables that are *easy to edit* for anyone, including novices, that don't involve complex colspan coding, meaning that single additions cause large knock-on effects?

- How do you want to maintain information that might not interest you personally but will be of interest to others? Peterspeterson (talk) 14:44, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

"That’s not true at all with omnibuses. Yes, there are a few formal lines out there. But the majority of books are stand-alone titles. And there are dozens upon dozens of them that can’t be sorted easily."

The former version of this article was not sorted as stand-alone titles: it was sorted by character or series omnibuses as well. The only difference between then and now is that now there is a table of contents that was missing before, because this article used to be a monumental, unbroken spreadsheet.

The table of contents allows easy access to the different parts that make up the body of the article. With the previous format, the only way to achieve this was by using the search feature of your browser of choice. But this isn't practical when a single word is repeated hundreds of times all over the place.

We could revise the information in order to better adjust the table of contents (e.g. placing the Spider-Man 2099 titles among other Spider-Man titles), but the formatting cannot go back to the previous unnavigable spreadsheet that it used to be.

"But demolishing a list – removing functions such as the ability to sort by date or page count -- to better match the personal preferences of one editor seems to be a huge step backwards."

And this is why I call it a "spreadsheet". The need to sort by date is a matter of personal preference by some users that do not use this page as a Wikipedia encyclopedic article, but rather to check on upcoming omnibus releases for their potential future acquisition. I can't stress enough how this does not count as a legitimate argument against the current reorganization.

"The editor has noted elsewhere on the internet in the face of widespread criticism -- [link removed] -- that the changes were based on how he’d personally prefer to have the books sorted rather than what the community wants."

Neither here nor there.

We are not going to conduct a poll across the Internet to reach consensus on the matter. This being a Wikipedia article, it needs to be resolved here on this related talk page as I said before. If you want an unbiased opinion, we can proceed with a request for comment (RfC). Pagina18 (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I never suggested a poll -- you're the only one who's done that, by soliciting feedback elsewhere on the Internet and making changes based on what you've heard. If you read the part you're citing, I'm pointing to that discussion as evidence that the decision was clearly made based on personal preference and led to a design that was far more arbitrary. Towelgum (talk) 18:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

If you scroll up to my initial Talk post, you'll see I used the word 'arbitrarily' to describe myself. It's not some gotcha and you're not telling anyone anything new. I'm more than happy for anyone to move books around if it works better. I literally wrote that they should. There are more than 1,000 books on this page and I'm obviously not an expert on all of them.

But what is not really up for dispute, unless you really do want to ask an administrator for a request for comment, is that the old version of this page consisted almost entirely of a single table with more than 1000 entries. That was it.

Among the other issues I've fixed, that breaches the Wikipedia style guide on tables, to which I've linked multiple times. You've never once addressed that point.

Just to add, I obviously agree with @Pagina18 - but on the point that some users want to "check on upcoming omnibus releases for their potential future acquisition", that's still possible anyway. The link is right here. It's a non-issue. Peterspeterson (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"You've never once addressed that point."

Oh I've addressed it plenty, including by correctly noting that you misunderstood the part about the contents of a table by claiming that each item in a table needs its own page. The only other claim that you seem to be making is the that the table was overlong -- a personal opinion of yours, but one that's addressable without subjecting the entire page to arbitrary sorting -- and that it's longer than other tables on Wikipedia -- which is objectively a false claim.

And yeah, I'm done arguing this point since it doesn't seem to be getting across, but I'm not sure why you think it's a "gotcha" to raise concern about how there's no way to divide a table like this without being arbitrary, as even you acknowledge. Towelgum (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

> I'm done arguing this point

Well, yes, because you've never really articulated why a table with around 1000 books in it is preferable to a page with a full TOC. The only real thing is that you could sort all books by page count, which you no longer can. You've lost a piece of functionality that's been replaced by a full, navigable, TOC.

But they've also been replaced by tables that are easy and simple for anyone to edit - as opposed to something where small changes would throw the 'colspan' tags out because everything overlapped.

The fact a few books could be moved around isn't really a problem. Move them. I posted above that sections could be merged, renamed, whatever. You, I, and anyone else can have a conversation about that right here on the Talk page. Peterspeterson (talk) 21:18, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Peterspeterson would a compromise work? Keep the longer tables, but have more than 1 table.

616, event, Ultimate, 2099, Robert E Howard, other licensed (but not 616) properties 2A0E:1D47:D584:2300:994E:F20E:3454:A56E (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

That only partially addresses the issue that the previous version had no TOC - although admittedly, it would somewhat.

You'd also end with some kind of random groupings. Like, why would Star Wars be on the same table as Godzilla? Why not have them separate?

You'd still end up with a very long 616 list, with no way to easily navigate to the Wolverine omnibuses (for instance).

So I guess what I'm asking is what your solution would achieve? That's not to say I'm against it - but what benefit does it give, other than being able to sort a long list by page count?

IE: What can't you do now that you want to be able to do?

Bearing in mind, one of the reasons for all this is that the previous table often took a long time to load from an editing point of view - and, because of the way the colspan formatting had been implemented - often meant small changes had large, unexpected repercussions. It was awkward for me, and I somewhat know what I'm doing.

Basically, this:

Tables can also make a page much more complicated and difficult to edit, especially if some of the more complex forms of table coding are used

The previous setup made it incredibly un user-friendly for editors, especially novices. Right now, it's very easy for anybody to add a book, regardless of whether they've edited on Wikipedia before. Peterspeterson (talk) 23:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Peterspeterson i know I'm only addressing one paragraph of your reply here, so apologies for that. But just wanted to say I should have included Star Wars in my list of proposed tables. Maybe even 2 tables for Star Wars: Legends and Canon.

Godzilla, Micronauts and ROM should really sit in the 616 table I would say because they are fully part of the main universe 2A0E:1D47:D584:2300:994E:F20E:3454:A56E (talk) 23:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for interacting.

Stuff like Godzilla, etc, could and can be moved. It's not a particularly big deal, nor a difficult thing to do - especially with the way the page is currently formatted. The space underneath the section and sub-sections can be used to explain that a title is both licensed, and (partially) takes place in the 616 universe. That's what citations and context are for.

But I guess none of that really addresses the question of what you can't do now that you want to be able to do.

If you articulate that, it would be easier to figure out if and/or how to create a page that satisfies.

For now, nobody has really been able to explain what the big table offers that outweighs the benefits of easier navigation and significantly easier editing.

The guidelines say:

For very long tables, manageability and maintenance of the page may be better served by breaking information up into several smaller tables instead of one extremely long one.

Obviously the word 'may' is open to interpretation. But we're talking about one very long list, or a few somewhat long lists, that are frequently updated. With 'maintenance', the old version of the table was very problematic to edit; with 'manageability', there was no real TOC, nor way to navigate the page. Peterspeterson (talk) 00:00, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

"I never suggested a poll -- you're the only one who's done that, by soliciting feedback elsewhere on the Internet and making changes based on what you've heard. If you read the part you're citing, I'm pointing to that discussion as evidence that the decision was clearly made based on personal preference and led to a design that was far more arbitrary."

No, I have never solicited feedback elsewhere on the Internet, nor have I made any changes based on what I've heard. And there was no need for you to link to a discussion on another website in order to have a "See? There's dozens of us who disagree" moment.

And I'm not implying that the opinions of those dozens of people have no value or importance. But they should bring their arguments here if they want to have a say on what this article's format should be. That's why I likened your "what the community wants" comment to a poll.

And this was not even part of my main argument in favor of the current reorganization. What are your thoughts on the other parts of my comment? Pagina18 (talk) 16:29, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Pagina18, @Towelgum

How about this as an actual compromise...

Replace the Upcoming/Recent section with something like "All omnibuses"

If @Towelgum is actually serious about wanting to be involved, they can fairly easily grab the coding that's already on the page and work on this on their own sandbox. I don't actually mind helping if I have some time later/whenever.

For instance, the Adam Warlock stuff is a fairly straightforward copy/paste of:

{|class="wikitable sortable" width=99%
|-
! class="unsortable" width=20px |#
! Title
! Years covered
! class="unsortable" |Material collected
! Pages
! Released
! class="unsortable" |ISBN
|-
! style="background-color: light grey;"|
|'''''[[Adam Warlock]]'''''
|1967-1980
|''Fantastic Four'' #66–67; ''Thor'' #165–166; ''Marvel Premiere'' #1–2; ''Warlock'' #1–15; ''Incredible Hulk'' #176–178, ''Annual'' #6; ''Strange Tales'' (1951) #178–181; ''Marvel Team-Up'' #55; ''Avengers Annual'' #7; ''Marvel Two-in-One'' #61–63, ''Annual'' #2
|style="text-align: center;"|904
|{{dts|4 Apr 2023}}
|{{nowrap|{{ISBNT|978-1302949877}}}}
|}

... assuming you keep the ISBN, which could be entirely up to you.

Just grab every omnibus and stack them in one table. The formatting is already done for you to a large degree - but you could fiddle with it if you don't like it.

What this does is:

- Maintains the TOC for the top part of the page

- Keeps all information intact re: DM covers, reprints, etc

- Means all the extra books we found are included, without someone having to re-track them down and/or me trying to remember what they are

But it allows you to:

- List every book in one, singular, table.

Because you can still sort by the date column, there'd be no need for the recent/upcoming section that's currently there.

I did some counting - and I'm both right and wrong. There *are* over 1000 books on this page, by a long way - but, of those, only 431 are unique books.

If you stripped out the DM covers, reprints, maybe even ISBNs, etc, your table would be 431 books long. It would add roughly 50 a year. That's still big. It's still a (bit of) a bitch to edit - but because the colspan formatting has been stripped, it's not terrible.

Also, if you do strip out the ISBNs, it wouldn't matter because they're up-page anyway. You could even strip out the contents and just keep title-date-pages. That table would be big - but also succinct.

What do you think? This works for me and, I think (hope?), it gives everyone more or less (?) what they want? Peterspeterson (talk) 17:22, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Event Omnibus Heading Versus Main Universe Heading

Hello, shouldn't X-Men Event Omnibuses like Fall of the Mutants or Age of Apocalypse be considered Events? As they tied into New Mutants/X-Force, X-Factor, and contain tie ins of non-Mutant books?

I feel like they have a similar level of connection to solely X-Men as Absolute Carnage has to solely Carnage or Spider-Verse has to solely Spider-Man. They similarly are themed around a series but then include tie-ins or other titles that would get a heading under the "Main Universe Omnibuses."

Also while I understand Strikeforce Morituri being in Miscellaneous, Marvel officially says its in Earth-1287 MarbleComics (talk) 14:59, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for this. You should feel free to move things around / re-label, and so on. Peterspeterson (talk) 15:05, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey again! Nice job! Great to see your first edit was successful. Looks terrific. Peterspeterson (talk) 23:17, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Character vs Anthology Omnibuses

heya! I noticed that plenty of the omnibuses are anthologies focusing on multiple stories in a run or issue (Adventure into Fear, Golden Age Marvel, Marvel Fanfare, Months, etc) and I think that those are unique enough to be split off into their own section from the character-based omnibuses like solely Spider-Man or Hulk omnibuses. What do you think? AranaeHere (talk) 00:26, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello! I agree with you on this. When I first reorganised this page, that's actually how I'd done it. With upset elsewhere, I sort of moved things around to try to appease some people. But there's always the thing about not being able to please everyone. I'm still getting DMd threats on another site about this.

Anyway, simply because there's been a lot of upheaval on this page, if this was me, I would let this comment sit for a few days to see if anyone else replies to say "definitely no", or "yes!", and so on.

If nobody objects, you should definitely feel confident to go for it. Thanks for getting involved. One of the best outcomes from reorganising this page is that people have been working on it ever since. It was a desert before that. Peterspeterson (talk) 15:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)