Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Buffyverse task force/Archive 4

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All Angel episodes up for merging

It has been proposed that all Angel episodes be merged to a single article. Discuss. So far there are more supports for merge than keep. Kweeket 06:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I would add that, by the standards of Wikipedia:Television episodes, which reflect overall Wikipedia policy, many if not most of these articles should be considered excessive, giving the "merge" callers significant moral high ground. Also, just registering "keep because we like it" types of votes will probably count for nothing. We must look at how to make the articles work within WP content and style guidelines. Finally, the response there will probably be taken as a sign of the commitment that WikiProject Buffyverse has for doing any recommended work, so a lack of meaningful responses will probably be taken as acquiesence for the merge rather than giving us time to fix any identified problems. So please review the policy and participate in the discussion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I wholly agree that at this point, the Angel episodes do fail WP:EPISODE. What I hope to elicit from this community is the mobilisation of everyone invested in keeping episodes in separate articles - we need to go out, prove notability, add real-world sources, and change the Buffy/Angel templates to reflect the new television episode guidelines. That means removing the sections for trivia or quotes, and adding sections for writing, casting, reception and reviews, and scholarly analysis of themes.

I started a list on the Angel talk page of possible sources that can be used to improve individual episode articles. It would be helpful if other people found additional sources, or went through some of the links and added relevant information (properly cited) to the episodes they reference. Kweeket 19:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

BuffyVerse Chronology (s), where did they go?

(btw: to the top "Delete Buffy" stuff (et al), if you think their is/was/willowbe to much Buffy stuff on Wiki, on or off the air, (for any reason), don't look for thing. Simple. Bite me!)

Wikians appear to spend too much time arguing & defining itself and also worrying differing points of view.

I hoped Wiki would serve a world-wide repository on Buffy info. Buffy/Angel is "off-the-air", but I never saw an as aired episode. Not even close. DVD's and other archives create multi-generational fans, all the time. I just got a old girlfriend and her junior high age daughter, who now live a 1000 miles from where I do) started with Buffy S1/S2.

Ok, my question. What happened to the "Buffy Chronology" pages? (i offer my email below)

There used to be (few weeks, months?), a three part chronology that encompassed just about everything. TV episodes, Books, Comics, Graphic Novels, even WB promos). There was a "canon" only Chronology and even simpler "tabulated", in a table of the canon.

With the advent of Darkhorse comics Buffy Season 8 comics, and also Darkhorse doing a complete rerun/reprint of everything they've ever printed (so far, in seven "Buffy Omnibus" volumns (300+ pages each). Note: Vol 1 of this already released, with Vol 2 in Sept 2008; i'm guessing one month each).

The whole chronolgy was great for finding exactly what/where these "Omnibus" items came from, etc.

Here are the shortcut links I had saved for these chron's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffyverse_chronology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffyverse_chronology_(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffyverse_chronology_(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffyverse_chronology_(canon_only)

I don't Wiki that much, but this was all drawing me in. I apologize if this has discussed adnauseum. Please be gentle. I offer my real email (if hot mail is really real), si vous plea...

Thanks, Michael michaeljwaltrip@hotmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.72.55.182 (talk) 02:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

They were deleted because they weren't considered notable. I think they may have been moved to a fansite/wiki, though.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 19:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Where's the discussion that resulted in their deletion? This deletion of stuff from Wikipedia is getting out of hand! Are we running of space? Are users complaining? Is the database getting to full? — Aldaron • T/C 17:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The deletion discussion was here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Buffyverse_chronology_%282nd_nomination%29 --Nalvage (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The deletion was made in error: there's no WP:OR issue here. If you watch the episodes or examine the other materials themselves, the chronology is clear in almost every case. Where it's not, claims of chronology should, of course, be excluded or demand references; but for the most part, it was indisputably correct. This is an insane interpretation of WP:OR and its application globally would result in about 3/4 of Wikipedia being deleted. In particular the assertion that for every list of items there must be a source for that entire list, even if there exist references for the entires in that list that describe the relationships with other entries, is just insane. — Aldaron • T/C 19:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Well if anyone can tell me where it has been moved to please let me know lfc1105@hotmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.61.219 (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

There was talk of transwiki but I don't think it ever happened. I agree that this article was improperly deleted and it should be put up for deletion review. DHowell 04:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doctor Who story chronology for a similar article about a different series which was closed as "no consensus"; some of the arguments I made there were enough to sway some delete proponents to change their argument to keep. DHowell 04:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

One more thing: the chronology pages were apparently userfied to User:Paxomen's space but he apparently abandoned the pages and has not been very active lately here; perhaps if someone is willing to work on the pages to improve and better source them, FT2 might be willing to restore it or userfy it. DHowell 04:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I asked an admin to restore the page in my userspace so I could transwiki it, but he could only find some of it. (I think the article was originally three parts or something?) I definitely do not think this article is suitable for Wikipedia as it is written from an in-universe perspective, which is not the purpose of this encylopedia. It does suffer from original research problems, because how do we know Angel episode X took place before or after Buffy episode X? How do we know where to place novels and comics which were intended to have a vague place in continuity? Drawing conclusions from the material itself, no matter how well you can justify them, is original research unless you specifically have a source saying "this is the official timeline". If someone could help me find the other pages of this article, I would be happy to transwiki it to the Buffyverse wiki, but I don't want to see the page restored here because it's not really encyclopedic.  Paul  730 08:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The articles Buffyverse chronology (canon only) and Buffyverse chronology (3) were deleted in the same AfD; there was a Buffyverse chronology (2) at one time but I'm not exactly sure what happened with that. You might want to ask the admin to restore the edit histories of these pages as well, as this is supposed to be done for GFDL compliance. Unfortunately it seems that very few people know how to do a proper transwiki preserving edit history, but perhaps User:Deckiller who has transwiki'd a few articles over to Wikia Annex would be able to help. DHowell (talk) 02:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

Most of the Buffy episode articles have links to review sites at the bottom, typically "Soulful Spike Society", "Peripheral Visions", "Section 31", and "Swing the Sickle". Why these four sites in particular? --Nalvage 09:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(May contain minor spoiler) Hopefully, this message is in the right spot. I noticed the Angel/Buffy book "Cursed" is in the time line before Episode 1 of Season 3, and the "Longest Night" book is actually listed sometime later afterword. However this is impossible. I read both of these, and Connor has already been born in "Cursed". Therefore, it must take place after the Episode 9 of Season 3, after the "Longest Night". I just wanted to clarify that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.182.144.56 (talk) 13:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Two issues, from an outsider

I noticed two issues among Buffyverse articles today. Apart from the staggering amount of general cruft, which I'm not going to bother with. However, these two specifically concern me a lot. (1) Scooby Gang - as I'm not familiar, is this an established term used repeatedly in the series? Is it something mentioned only once or twice in the series? Is the term just slang among fans? It is used in published, reliable works apart from the show itself? In other words, I'm concerned that "Scoobies" and "Scooby Gang" is a neologism and should be avoided, at least as the title of an article, and in other articles that link there. If it's not a neologism, there needs to be information explaining that the term is well-established and appropriate. (2) The Buffyverse chronology templates. It seems particularly strange to be categorizing works according to whether or not they are canon in the chronology. If canon is so important, why not just put the canon works in the chronology? If it's not so important, why make it stick out so much? Also, I don't think it's necessary to have chronologies in a template like this -- a succession box would be a better idea if you want to include information on the next or previous events... but that also doesn't seem like an especially good idea. Plus, the chronologies seem a bit dubious to me - look at Template:Buffychron99a for instance - the dates listed are all either just "1999" or "Spring, 1999", and though the order is partially based on the order of release of the works, sometimes this is reversed, and no discussion is presented - for instance, Return to Chaos was released in December '98, before all three books of The Gatekeeper (Buffy novel series), but the latter is listed first in the chronology. And I note that the chronology was deleted at AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buffyverse chronology (2nd nomination).

I don't know if these issues with the chronology templates are solvable, or even if those templates are a good idea. But rather than simply move to delete them, I'm raising the issues here so that they can hopefully be discussed and resolved. (You can find the templates at Category:Buffyverse templates.) Mangojuice^talk 18:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Scooby Gang, yes it's a term used repeatedly on the show. I just did a quick search through the scripts and there are around 30 that include at least one use of "Scooby Gang" or "Scoobies". It'll certainly have been used in published material, and I agree that we need to source that. --Nalvage 19:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change of episode template

As I noted above, the Angel episodes are up for merging. During the discussion, it was brought up that having both a "Plot summary" and "Expanded overview" is redundant and puts too much focus on simply recounting the plot of the episode. My proposal is a mass change to move the "plot summary" contents into the lead, to give a brief, non-spoilery if possible, description of what the episode is about. It should be a few sentences at most, similar to the brief description from the episode list page. Thoughts? Kweeket 22:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Season 8 Characters/Twilight Arc

I think it's about time we discussed some of the characters from the new Season 8 comic series.

For starters, I noticed that certain characters from the series, such as some of the newly introduced Slayers, have had formative pages which have since apparently been deleted, and other new villains, such as General Voll, Lady Genevieve and Roden, have no page at all yet. I was also surprised by the lack of information regarding the "Twilight" emblem that has appeared several times in the series, as it appears, at least to this reader, to be part of a larger arc, in the vein of Bad Wolf or Torchwood from Doctor Who.

Is all this due to a lack of sourcable information? And what of the pages that used to be up but are now nowhere to be found?

Radical AdZ 10:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe they can have articles when they're something to write about them. I think a List of characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight could evolve into a nice little article, though.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 01:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I could use some help sourcing Twilight_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer) well enough to get rid of the notability and references tags. Jclemens (talk) 22:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Looks like it's solid now. Jclemens (talk) 05:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Slayage: reliable source?

Information was recently removed from the Willow Rosenberg article by User:Webwarlock, with the edit summary "rv Blogs do not count as sources per Wikipedia:Verifiability. If it get's published in the Journal of Human Sexuality then you have a case". The information was sourced to Slayage, an online journal about Buffy/Angel studies. I asked User:Bignole if he believed that Slayage was a reliable source. He pointed out that, while it seems the site is basically students posting their analysis on the show, their postings do undergo several reviews before being published (as seen here). Therefore, not anything can be published, it is checked and approved beforehand. I'd like to start a discussion on whether people believe Slayage is a reliable source to use in the Buffyverse pages. Is it simply a blog, or no different from any other reliable online journals? Paul730 23:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Kweeket was also contacted about the subject, and his response to User:Webwarlock was:

I saw you removed the analysis from Slayage from the Willow Rosenberg article, saying it fails Wikipedia:Verifiability because it is self-published. I had a look at the policy on self-published sources and it does point out that personal websites and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources - but "may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I think Slayage qualifies for that exemption, as the site owners, Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery, are published authors in the field ("Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The Forces: What's At Stake In Buffy The Vampire Slayer?") and many of the articles are copied with permission from other (non-self-published) books. It also appears to have a reputable editorial staff. Kweeket 23:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The addition is at best fancruft. An article written by a fan is in no way primary research. More importantly it is a section that contradicts established canon, i.e. at no point in the show were the words "bisexual" ever used to describe Willow especially since the creators of the show went out of their way to describe her as "gay" or "lesbian" at any point. At worse it has been added in conjunction with the article to make some sort of WP:POINT. The weight of Wikipedia policy does not support this addition nor is it encyclopedic. Place this information (if you must put it anywhere) on Buffy studies. Web Warlock 16:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Canon has no play on "analysis". The whole point of "analysis" is that it is how other people have perceived the show--hence how we help to establish cultural impact and notability. The site, if used properly, could easily fall into the citation of a "journal". First, it is a published journal, and considering the number of reviews each essay goes through (and by looking at their list, they seem to not take anything below college level) it could easily be classified as a peer-reviewed journal, which is accepted as a source. I think what is being misconstrued here is the fact that the journal is focused on the show, instead of an all of entertainment. But, there are medical journals that focus on one aspect of medicine--like neurology--and not all aspects. Those journals also contain information published by doctors, which would be the equivalent to your "fan" argument above. One could argue that any article written by a doctor on a given subject could be construed as making a "POINT". It isn't making a point if you cite a journal article that talks about lesbianism and bisexualism, just because they never use those two words on the show. They never use the word "gay" for the Clark and Lex Luthor relationship on Smallville, or "Christ-like" for Clark...but you can get sure that there are plenty of sources that discuss just that. Canon has no bearing on the matter.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I summarized the essay which I came across and felt was a reliable source. It made points that the series presented codified references to bisexuality in the character of Willow (as well as several other characters), and discussed in which ways the show presents Willow's lesbianism over the course of the series. It also discusses points about how and where the show falls into stereotypes. These are largely opinions, but they are compiled at a college level; this particular essay was referenced to various sexologists, cultural theorists and "Buffyologists". It wasn't intended to present one viewpoint above another, but the argument that it disagrees with a consensus interpretation of the series it moot - Wikipedia is not about providing plot summary or character biography, but rather detail the success of and discussion regarding a work of fiction or fictional character in real life. I'd gathered that the Buffy articles were all undergoing a rework - the majority are to be merged, the key ones to be restructured with more emphasis on published academic sources. In future, I will limit any changes I wish to make to my user space until the article has significantly deviated from (and improved upon) the original before being submitted to the main space. ~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 19:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_Collectible_Card_Game

This article has recently been put up on AfD (linky). Input from anyone familiar with the subject matter is welcome. — xDanielx ^T/_C 06:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game does not currently establish notability for itself, and unless some references that do so are added it will most likely be deleted. In fact an incomplete afd is alread in progess here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game. It seems like it should be notable, so finding sources shouldn't be too hard - a couple of reviews or articles discussing it would do the trick. Artw 17:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It is now properly listed. Artw 20:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Informed

I'm letting you all know there are some issues being brought up at Talk:Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series), which could affect the FA status of the article. Please come join the conversation.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Vampire (Buffyverse) is up for deletion

Just thought I'd let you know about this AfD. DHowell 03:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Article naming, fancruft

Please try and take more care of how you name your articles.

1. . Avoid fan slang where clearer English could be used.
2. . Be careful with titles like Music (Buffyverse). That title is incorrect because the article is not about a secondary usage of the word "Music". It's actually about Music in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Vampire (Buffyverse) is correct** because the article is about a secondary usage of the word "Vampire"; i.e. it's about vampires but of the type found in Buffy.

**Correct perhaps but "Buffyverse" is slang, and this points out a problem with tone throughout the articles you manage. They're often written in fan-speak, they're written for fans and not the general public, they're full of original research, they often don't even bother linking to Buffy/Angel in the lead! --kingboyk (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NAV says "Try to avoid navigation templates that are too large"

Please follow the advice from Wikipedia:Navigational templates and fix {{Buffyversenav}}. See this section of the template's talk page for a recently revived discussion that suggests a couple of options. I just did some work on Jane Espenson and resorted to commenting out {{Buffyversenav}} because it was too big for a still-short article on a writer/producer whose career has alot more going on in it than her five years in the Buffy universe.... 68.165.76.110 (contribs) 06:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The template is great: it contains a lot of information in a small area. Sure it's "large", but it's costless (it's not in the way, it doesn't slow load time, etc.) and does work that would take many, many more words in another form. Anything like this that connects information in a concise and structured way is good. — Aldaron • T/C 14:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It contains too much crap imho: minor articles and excessive (fan-level) detail. You have to go with the flow; this isn't a fan site it's a general purpose encyclopaedia. Discuss at Template talk:Buffyversenav#This template is far too big please. --kingboyk (talk) 15:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)