Storytellershrink

WAF

Over the last days, User:G.A.S and me have been working on a careful rewording of the intro, which we are now jointly proposing here. Since you've been recently active on WT:WAF, I think the proposal may be of interest to you and we both would appreciate your input. Also, {{BASEPAGENAME}}, please forgive the timesaving templated wording. — aldebaer⁠ 20:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

My personal hope and aim is that the guideline resemble consensus in a useful way. This includes that the guideline should be written with a generally welcoming stance, inviting users to learn about some notions that have over time gained momentum within the community. The rewording of the intro G.A.S and I came up with is trying to be a first step in that direction. Rather than beating anyone over the head with capitalised policy shortcuts, we tried to come up with a positive and welcoming wording without throwing the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bath water. You're invited to weigh in on our joint proposal. — aldebaer⁠ 23:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ha! I tried to come up with an example, then thought what the heck I can't think of a good one... hmn. You mean example with regard to our rewording, right? Well, G.A.S had the brilliant idea of linking to WP:FA? instead of overemphasising the anti-in-universe stance that pisses of some users. Is that a suitable example, or what did you mean? — aldebaer⁠ 23:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're asking for my personal opinion: Any kind of in-universe writing should go right out the window. It's never useful. But we as a community have apparently arrived at a point where we're not longer demanding none of it, but merely that it be supplemented with anything else. But that's really just my own opinion and I realise that my rewriting of WAF was too forbidding in style, and I heavily overused emphasis formatting and links, so I thought a rejuvenation may do the guideline good. If you think the current wording is better for some reason, you're just as welcome to say so at WT:WAF. — aldebaer⁠ 00:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It has not so much to do with the currently proposed rewording of the intro, but in time we may get to an overhaul of the in-universe section, and your comments are definitely welcome anyway.

Replying to your comment: You see, "no in-universe writing" does not mean important plot elements like superpowers or relationships etcpp should not be mentioned — quite to the contrary: in e.g. the article on Superman, they need to be mentioned to make the article comprehensive and accurate (however, this is already covered in the guideline in #Primary information).

G.A.S and me came up with the idea to clarify upon the easy-to-misunderstand distinction between "what" and "how" to write part of the intro (and maybe part of the guideline later on): In-universe writing is a matter of how you write, while WP:NOT#PLOT pertains to what to write.

To give you one example of in-universe style: Consider image captions of screenshot/still images. On many articles, the captions read something like "Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker as master and apprentice" rather than "Screenshot of a scene with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker" or "Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anaking Skywalker (Hayden Christopher) as portrayed in Episode X".

In-universe writing really boils down to making any effort to keep up the illusion of the fiction by omitting real-world info. E.g.: Movies, particularly Hollywood productions, are made to create a strong illusion and even make us forget about cinematography itself. I.e. the most basic fact of a film, the filming itself, is elegantly hidden by making smooth transition rather than rough camera movements, zooms and cuts. But compare BSG 2004 (although that article unfortunately makes no mention of the distinctive cinematography employed in the series) or Dogme 95.

On Wikipedia however, we should not try to re-create and uphold that illusion by omitting any real-world info. "Obi-Wan Kenobi" is real for us, as long as we're watching the movie (which is precisely what makes the movie so great). But in the real world, and therefore on Wikipedia, he's a fictional character, and we should accurately mention that e.g. what we're seeing in a screenshot is not Obi-Wan, but in fact Ewan McGregor portraying Obi-Wan.

If you're interested to further refine your understanding of the difference between in-universe writing ("how") and overlong plot summaries ("what") (and incidentally also of the way the two are often enough confused by people who tag the articles...), I suggest browsing the what-links-here pages for {{in-universe}} Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:In-universe and {{plot}} Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Plot. — aldebaer⁠ 11:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the section is a pretty good example of a balanced and real-world oriented combination of primary information and secondary information. Hold out for formulations like e.g.

• As an influential archetype of the superhero genre,...
• As originally conceived and presented in his early stories,...
• When making the cartoons, the Fleischer Brothers found it difficult to keep animating him leaping and requested to DC to change his ability to flying.
• ...the Superman writers established that...

These make for real-world perspective, so the last paragraph doesn't need to emphasise the fact that it is talking about narrative elements from a work of fiction.

Just like you said: instead eductate them more on the means that the creators arrived on the powers, and their concept. - That's a good formulation of an example of what real-world perspective is.

Likewise, simply adding the word "fictional" doesn't make for actual real-world perspective. It's merely the most basic thing that should be added in the article lead of heavily in-universe articles. I've seen some pages on e.g. military units from Warhammer or somesuch which, in addition to be written without any real-world info, did not even mention the fact that the article is about a fictional enitity. In such an article, before a more time-consuming rewrite is done, the first immediate change should be to at least add that info and making it clear to everyone that the subject is fictional - but that's not a long-term substitute for a real-world oriented rewrite.

You see, there's no bright-line distinction of when an article or section is in-universe. One rule of thumb is that almost every section of almost every article can be improved to be even more real-world oriented.

Am add-hoc hierarchy in the continuum from total in-universe to perfect real-world perspective could go something like this: Not even mentioning the fictional nature of the subject is the worst, of course. Mentioning e.g. the source episodes is one (albeit little) step into the right direction, but a much stronger real-world perspective is needed e.g. in a section like Lightsaber#Colors.

Discussing (based on reliable secondary sources, of course) aspects of production and the artistic process can be considered the high end. In that respect, the Superman article and the Powers and abilities section are really quite good (thanks for the link, hadn't read the article before). — aldebaer⁠ 19:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The wording itself is not bad, yet incidentally your idea of changing the section serves to illustrate of why in addition to writing from real-world perspective, we need reliable sources to back up that real-world info. To clarify, I tagged your rewrite:

The color Red is usually associated with the Sith, most probably due to the anger they represent/, whereas blue and green colors are usually associated with the Jedi. However, the Expanded Universe and George Lucas, establishes no direct relationship between a lightsaber's blade's color and its user's affiliation. For example, in the computer game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, one Dark Jedi character used a blue lightsaber while another used a yellow blade. Also, in the Corellian Trilogy, written by Roger Macbride Allen, Luke creates a lightsaber for Leia that is red, although in the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn, Luke builds a lightsaber with a green blade for her, and Mace Windu, a Jedi master from the films portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, has a purple blade.

The examples from primary sources would need footnote citations (which are easy to come up with). The "most probably due to the anger they represent" however (which in itself sounds plausible enough) would require a secondary source, otherwise it'd be OR. Mentioning Lucas may be construed as using a weasel word, since the authoritative position of Lucas is not backed up by any kind of source. — aldebaer⁠ 23:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

To be sure: In my own opinion, a plausibly written section with real-world perspective, even if it's completely unsourced, can be a lot better than no real-world perspective at all. See e.g. Darth_Vader#Cultural figure. — aldebaer⁠ 23:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I would not tag-butcher a live section like that, just wanted to illustrate where citations would ideally be in place in my opinion. — aldebaer⁠ 06:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

You know, that's actually a very deep question. In my opinion: There's no bright-line distinction of what should definitely be referenced and what can be see as self-evident fact. You see, if we were to dig really much deeper than could possibly be useful with regard to Wikipedia, we might arrive at the conclusion that even language itself is rarely something to rely on. That's probably why there are so many NPOV disputes. People see what they want to see in almost each and everything. But simple fact assertions without implicated connotations (or where such connotations would have to appear really far-fetched) don't need sources as badly as much farther-reaching, strong assertions that span multiple semiotic levels.

In the end it probably boils down to this: We have to jointly settle on something. And someone who would persistently ask for sources on something as totally trivial as the 1$ bill image question (and who would repeatedly remove such info "unless a source can be cited") may get themselves quickly blocked. But the question remains a deep one. Consider e.g. this: "The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. — aldebaer⁠ 21:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

As far NPOV and particularly the unfortunately far underappreciated WP:ASF goes, have fun with this diff. — aldebaer⁠ 21:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, everything would be strictly sourced. The question is when something that can hardly be sourced can be assumed to be self-evident fact. "Mace Windu, a Jedi master from the films portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, has a purple blade" is self-evident only after you watch the movie, which can be safely assumed not every reader has done. So this indeed requires a simple reference to the movie, ideally in the form of a footnote. But I agree that such a factual assertion is fine by simply mentioning in which movie Mr. Jackson portrayed Mace Windu wielding his purple lightsaber (but an internal link to the respective movie's article may be a good idea).

Re "we here on Wikipedia don't give fiction the proper credit it is due". Quite to the contrary, I'd say. I don't have the weblinks available right now, but there have been analysis of Wikipedia's overall content (some rather joking and some more serious ones) and as a matter of fact, articles related to popular culture make up far more than their due part, while at the same time far too often often being unreferenced, in-universe etcpp. I believe that this is a phenomenon of increasing systemic bias, and I wish you understand why several others and me are deeply concerned about that. Please believe me that I'm not a deletionist in any way. I'm not arguing for less fiction articles. Maybe for an "decreased increase" of additions, and certainly for better fiction-related articles. You see, an inherent problem of many fiction-related articles appears to be that at least part of the editors who dedicate their time to creating these have no real idea of how (or why, for that matter) to write encyclopedically correct.

In my eyes, writing and arguing for what some (including me) see as indiscriminate collection of information (compare real-world significance of sun and lightsaber#colors, and see also this weblink) is an even more fundamental breach of NPOV than e.g. inserting ideological bias in a controversial article (which may over time be removed or superseded).

I once argued for something like an article "purgatory". Something in between deleted and live, so that an article would have to be community-approved in order to be included. Needless to say, the anti-elitists would never allow that. But maybe you already know this article, which makes some good points.

To conclude with another bit of personal opinion: I view writing about fiction a bit like modern art. Artists are welcome to call a carefully bi-colored canvass "art", as long as there is some evidence that they know just how to properly paint. I.e.: In my opinion, everyone who wants to write about fiction, should be forced to write about something else first. If an editor can produce something half-way feasible in any other area, they may go on and write about their favourite cultural topic. A real problem are those who never do anything else than to write about fiction. Again: Fiction/popular culture is not given undue underappreciation on Wikipedia. Compare the area to any other and you gain some insight as to what I mean. Clearly, there are poorly written unreferenced articles in every area, but chances are, if you follow an internal link from any Star Wars article to another, you will hit an unencyclopedic mess after two or three klicks at best. — aldebaer⁠ 06:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

You know, this is really just me, but I would love to hear an enthusiastic fiction-subject writer shut me up by mentioning his efforts in e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks. — aldebaer⁠ 06:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Not that I know of. There's Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion. Maybe a guideline isn't as necessary there since at least scripture-based religions do have a close relation to written text and writing an encyclopedic article may come more naturally to some of the editors in that area. Movie, TV, and computer game on the other hand are fundamentally different from books (except for industrially churned-out mass market paperbacks). That maybe why "fiction" (where fiction does not entail works like, say, Finnegans Wake) poses a bit of a problem with regard to the wiki part of pedia. That's also why a "WikiProject Fiction" could not replace FICT and WAF. — aldebaer⁠ 21:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said, I believe a guideline would exist if the need arose. As something of an ignosticist, I don't have a particular opinion on that. But the proverbial dichotomy of "fact vs fiction" is not one that applies to either religion-related nor fiction-related articles. For the latter, it's rather "acknowledging fiction as a real-world fact" vs. not doing so. — Dorftrottel⁠, was: AldeBaer 07:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Alagaesia dragon

Thank you for your offer of a Barn Star. Alas, I too am graphically challenged, at least so far. You could ask someone to help you, though. --Essence 22:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I saw the note you left on Essence's Talk Page and thought that this barnstar might work. All you have to do to award it is put {{subst:The Template Barnstar|message ~~~~}} on the userpage. Good luck! ~ Bella Swan 02:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. Hope Essence likes it! ~ Bella Swan 00:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

My user page

Here. Flyer22 02:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)