This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was no consensus, no MoS adjustments will be set for OOU articles. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 23:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

There are four major types of OOU articles: People, events, non-reference media (Books, comics, games, movies, etc.), and reference media (Other books, guides, manuals, etc.). Currently we have a policy about the structure of OOU articles that focuses primarily on the aspect of books, and does not specifically address all media. This CT is proposed to address these types of media.

With each of these media types stems articles with their own unique challenges. This proposal focuses on the third category—print books, comics, games, movies, etc.—that are not explicitly reference material. These include everything from children's books to the trading card games and the new MMORPG to the Legacy comics.

Contents 1 Current layout 2 Proposed article requirements for every OOU article 3 Proposed main body requirements by subset 3.1 Books 3.2 Comics 3.3 Computer/video games 3.4 Movies/Television 3.5 Trading card games and RPGs 3.6 General layout 4 Voting 4.1 Votes in favor 4.2 Votes against 5 Comments

Current layoutEdit

Currently it lists:

1. Title/Eras/Infobox
2. Introduction
3. Stub
4. Editions
5. Publisher's summary
6. Plot summary
7. Excerpts
8. Appearances
9. New continuity
10. Behind the scenes
11. Cover gallery
12. Notes and references
13. See also
14. External links
15. Succession box
16. Category
17. Interwiki links

Proposed article requirements for every OOU articleEdit

All articles would require four parts: a header, introduction, main body and footer. These four article areas outlined below are proposed to be required without exception. The main body section is different for each form of media that is published and is addressed below.

Header material:

1. Title - using {{Title}}, if needed, for italics.
2. Eras

Introduction:

1. Infobox
2. Introductory text

Main body material:

• Every article should include sections devoted to conception, production, principal characters, summaries, reception and continuity. Each main body should also conclude with a section for notes and references, and links to other pages – both internally and externally. For each individual item, see the subsets below.

Footer material:

1. Succession box(es)
2. Categories
3. Interwiki links

Proposed main body requirements by subsetEdit

Due to the nature and demands of each media type, specific layouts are proposed for each type. They all follow the design of conception-production, summary-characters, media, reception, continuity, references-links. As always, if either absolutely no information exists or is not in any way applicable, sections can be omitted.

BooksEdit

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
   • Editions: Brief discussion of various editions, languages, etc. should be included here.
3. Summary of story arc(s)
   • Publisher's summary: This should be included here for individual books.
   • Synopsis — This should be written to expand upon the storyline or story arcs.
4. Main characters
5. Media
   • Books — Books within the series, if the article covers the entire series.
   • Supplemental media — (If necessary)
   • Related media — If the article is about an individual book, this references the other books in the series briefly, if necessary.
6. Reception
7. Continuity
   • Continuity errors
   • References to other Star Wars media
   • Appearances
8. Other topics — For varying use, if needed.
9. Notes and references
10. See also
11. External links — (If necessary)

ComicsEdit

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
   • Editions: Brief discussion various editions should be included here, if necessary.
3. Summary of story arc(s)
   • Publisher's summary: This should be included here for individual comics.
   • Synopsis — This should be written to expand upon the storyline or story arcs.
4. Main characters
5. Media
   • Comics — Comics within the series, if the article covers the entire series.
   • Supplemental media — (If necessary)
   • Related media — If the article is about an individual comic, this references the other books in the series briefly, if necessary.
6. Reception
7. Continuity
   • Continuity errors
   • References in other Star Wars media
   • References to other Star Wars media
   • Appearances
8. Other topics — For varying use, if needed.
9. Notes and references
10. See also
11. External links — (If necessary)

Computer/video gamesEdit

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
   • Editions: Brief discussion various editions, formats, and languages should be included here.
   • Cast
   • Crew
3. Summary of story arc(s)
   • Opening crawl or Opening text — (If necessary)
   • Publisher's summary: This should be included here for individual games.
   • Synopsis — This should be written to expand upon the storyline or story arcs.
4. Main characters
5. Gameplay
   • Modes of gameplay
   • Alternatives in gameplay
6. Media
   • Games — Games within the metaseries, if the article covers the entire series.
   • Supplemental media — (If necessary)
   • Related media — If the article is about an individual games, this references the other games, books, etc. with relation to the article, if necessary.
7. Reception
8. Continuity
   • Continuity errors
   • References in other Star Wars media
   • References to other Star Wars media
   • Appearances
9. Other topics — For varying use, if needed.
10. Notes and references
11. See also
12. External links — (If necessary)

Movies/TelevisionEdit

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
   • Editions: Brief discussion various editions, formats, and languages should be included here or under post-production.
   • Cast
   • Crew
3. Post-production — (If necessary)
4. Summary of story arc(s)
   • Opening crawl or Opening text — The latter used, for example, for the Clone Wars TV series.
   • Publisher's summary: This should be included here for individual games.
   • Synopsis — This should be written to expand upon the storyline or story arcs.
5. Main characters
6. Media
   • Movies — Movies within the metaseries, if the article covers the entire series.
   • Supplemental media — (If necessary)
   • Related media — If the article is about an individual film, this references the other games, books, etc. with relation to the article, if necessary.
7. Reception
8. Continuity
   • Continuity errors
   • References in other Star Wars media
   • References to other Star Wars media
   • Appearances
9. Other topics — For varying use, if needed.
10. Notes and references
11. See also
12. External links — (If necessary)

Trading card games and RPGsEdit

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
   • Editions: Brief discussion various editions, languages, etc. should be included here, if necessary.
3. Summary of story arc(s) — This may not be relevant for the trading card games or card sets, but is relevant for RPGs otherwise.
   • Publisher's summary: This should be included here for individual games, if available.
   • Synopsis — This should be written to expand upon the storyline or story arcs.
4. Main characters
5. Media
   • Card sets — Card sets within the series, if the article covers the entire series. (If applicable)
   • Supplemental media — Other resources, such as online guides, manuals, reference books, etc. (If applicable)
   • Related media — If the article is about an individual card set or RPG adventure, this references the other books, cards, games, etc. in the series briefly.
6. Reception
7. Continuity
   • Continuity errors
   • References in other Star Wars media
   • References to other Star Wars media
   • Appearances
8. Other topics — For varying use, if needed.
9. Notes and references
10. See also
11. External links — (If necessary)

General layoutEdit

This layout can be used if none of the above are applicable.

Main body:

1. Conception
2. Production
3. Summary of story arc(s)
   • Publisher's summary
4. Main characters
5. Supplemental media and/or Related media
6. Reception
7. Continuity
8. Other topics of note
9. Notes and references
10. See also
11. External links

VotingEdit

Please vote below. Comments and wiki-lawyering should be reserved for the comment section.

Votes in favorEdit

1. Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 23:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
2. I don't see anything here that's excessively restrictive. It's always been my understanding that in any individual case, if a good reason exists for violating the manual of style, the manual of style can be violated. Gonk ^(Gonk!) 16:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
3. Per Gonk, and because I absolutely favor a semblance of standardization. Toprawa and Ralltiir 18:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
4. Per Gonk. I think, while these should very much be adopted as rules, leeway and flexibility should be provided. I disagree with Hydro's third point, I think - if character summaries do go into more detail on some plot points than the summary itself, then it will benefit readers to know the outline of the plot. But I don't think the order particularly matters in most cases and the flexibility - which I would support being mentioned on the policy itself - should allow the author to move things around a little if its in the interest of good sense and helpfulness. -- AdmirableAckbar ^(Talk) 20:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Per the one known as Ackbar. Chack Jadson ^(Talk) 23:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
6. Per Gonk. Plus, in reference to arguments below, if in the course of the FA process people start to see that there's a good reason to change this, it's not like we can't have another CT for an addendum. I think the fact that we don't have a ton of OOU ref-material as FAs is a good reason rather than a bad one to have a solid MOS, since we don't have similar articles to point to for precedent when someone actually wants to work on and improve one. Wildyoda 17:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
7. DC 23:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
8. IFYLOFD ^{(And now, young Skywalker, you will die.)} 22:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
9. Per Gonk. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 20:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
10. Graestan^(Talk) 23:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Votes againstEdit

1. There are good ideas in here, but if there's just a single for/against vote I don't support everything here. I'll elaborate below, later. - Lord Hydronium 01:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
2. I'm currently against the policy as presented. See my comments below. Mauser 18:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
3. Horrible vote format, for one. But more importantly, I don't see any need to lock this down. Our OOU articles are mostly crappy, and we have extremely few that have reached FA status so far. Let people work on these and find out what works themselves, and let standards evolve through the FA process. But for God's sake, we don't need an iron set of rules on what sections you have to have. This just seems to be an idea slapped together by one user -- if we're going to tie ourselves to encoding anything, we should do it after a lot of good article writers have had an opportunity to write OOU articles and find out through actual experience what works, not just make iron law out of the order and set of names thrown out by a random user. Havac 23:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
   • Fiolli is NOT a "random user." And he didn't slap this together; he asked the opinions of several users, including myself (although I admit I didn't really have time to look over it), before proposing it. I can understand disagreeing with someone's ideas, but did you really have to skirt slandering the user? Graestan^(Talk) 03:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
     • As another one of the people that was consulted and gave feedback to Fiolli, per Grae. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 04:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
       • I, too, gave Fiolli feedback back when I was writing Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi for FA and he was first thinking about this. I haven't voted either way yet, because I am unsure if we require a solid standard at this point, but this was hardly proposed by some user new to Wookieepedia and our ways. Greyman^(Talk) 12:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
         • I don't exactly see how it's slander to suggest that one user (with no OOU FAs to his credit) throwing out an arrangement, without saying that he's consulted with anyone, is pretty random. Still, even with consulting, we've got only three OOU source FAs in existence, with most of the types here not represented. I don't think we've got enough collective experience with quality OOU source articles to go around setting hard-and-fast standards no matter what handful of users make suggestions. Havac 18:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
4. Per Havac and a few others. —Xwing328^(Talk) 23:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Per Hydronium. Din's Fire 997 23:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
6. Unit 831120px^Talk! 17:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
7. I too would like to see these fleshed out as they're actually made. Thefourdotelipsis 23:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

CommentsEdit

I think we should have a discussion before any voting, as this is a lot of things to put to a single for/against vote. That said, here are my main concerns:

1. Excessive amounts of policy: "Instruction creep" might be overused as a phrase, but the point is sound; namely, we don't need a policy for everything. Especially when it comes to article sections; I see no need to mandate a particular set of sections in a particular order and thereby force every peg be crammed into the same array of holes. It subordinates whatever works best for the structure and flow of the article to an artificially imposed set of rules to make every article look exactly the same, only with different paragraphs plugged into each of the predefined slots. A guideline I would be fine with, or more flexibility allowed.
2. Publisher's summaries: Unnecessary bit of copyright violation. If we include our own synopsis, there's no reason for this. There's also the lesser problem of what publisher's summary you use: the hardcover, the paperback, the OS's, Random House's website?
3. Characters after plot: This may seem minor, but it also involves that matter of flexibility I mentioned. Books are character-centric, and in many cases more important points are made in the character section on plot points than the plot section—for example, I'm currently working on Vector Prime, and while Chewbacca's death is an afterthought in the plot section, it conveys much more of its importance in the character section. The plot, as told through the characters, is more useful than a straight summary, and should not be relegated to an afterthought. Character sections also usually involve a mix of IU and OOU information, and between the main OOU information section (production) and the main IU information section (plot) seems like the logical place to put it. - Lord Hydronium 01:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The first major flaw to me is the lack of difference between the articles for the (meta)series (book series, comic series, game series) and the individual subjects themselves, which should be treated quite differently. The majority of the layout you listed works well for articles like Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (comics), but it just doesn't work for individual comics and even story arcs. Same goes for individual books, TV episodes, cards sets etc. But for the series it works nice, except for Appearances section. If we ever list everything that ever appeared in Star Wars: Republic or Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, this articles would grow ridiculously huge.

But he individual comics, books, card sets etc. do not require such sections as: Media, Main characters, Related media, References in other Star Wars media, References to other Star Wars media at all. Seriously, it only works for the bigger picture. Other stuff, such as: Continuity errors, Conception, Production, Reception can nicely fit in the Behind the scenes section, as it already does. What remains is Editions, Publisher's summary, Plot summary, Appearances - which is exactly what we already have, even in the same order.

Again, as long as this new MoS makes no clear differences between individual items and the series they belong to, I'm totally against it. Mauser 18:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Uhm, you do realize what "Behind the scenes" actually means, right? "Behind the scenes" sections in OOU are moronic and if they're not against policy they're strongly discouraged. -- AdmirableAckbar ^(Talk) 20:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually no, I didn't until now. If it's called Trivia, does it make it more justfied? Mauser 04:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but no it doesn't. In fact, Wookieepedia has a policy about trivia sections. Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 04:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Not sure why, but I would recommend putting "Continuity" before "Reception" as the reception would sometimes be based on what's in the continuity, if that makes sense. E.g. Path of Destruction, which has detractors because of its continuity errors/overwriting, or on the flip side, the Han Solo Trilogy, which is popular among some in part because of the constant references to other continuity. -- AdmirableAckbar ^(Talk) 20:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
• Echoing Ackbar, there is no such thing as BtS on OOU. Furthermore, I support this policy and plan to vote on it once a few minor details have been hammered out to the satisfaction of most parties. ;) Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 20:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

From Fiolli: I guess I'll respond here en masse to the comments above. (Wow, this moved fast.)

• Addressing Lord Hydronium:
  • I personally do not believe that this is constituting instruction creep as there is nothing that explicitly micromanages content below the topic level. We have a uniform MoS for IU articles, this is just merely providing one for OOU articles.
  • Regarding your second point, I am not opposed to the removal of publisher summaries. I agree that they are unnecessary and may cross the line of copyright infringement. If the community agrees, I'd be happy to remove them.
  • The idea of flexibility is always on order in cases where an article warrants it. Quality trumps unity in these extreme and otherwise unavoidable matters. See Gonk's comment above. **Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 03:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Addressing Mauser:
  • First off, as Ackbar said, there are no BtS sections in OOU articles. OOU articles should contain all of this information to be complete.
  • Additionally, this format is designed to be used for (meta)series and individual media alike. For individual books, comics, etc., there might be limited information on conception and production, but information is nonetheless there and should be included. Furthermore, each story or comic contains at least one story arc, if not more. These arcs can be divided into sections for further detail. I do not see the flaw here. The same applies for reception, etc. Each book, comic, etc. is received differently depending upon the author, penciler, etc. Furthermore, each book, comic, etc. has a set of main characters! I do not see this being skipped because of lack of information. There may only be two principal characters, or three, but there are always main characters. Related media refers to other books, comics, etc. in the (meta)series. If someone is doing the article on Bloodlines, references to the Tempest and other books in the series would make their way into this section, framing the events within the article's central topic. References to and from is also viable for the same reasons expressed in this paragraph.
  • You make a good point about the appearances section, however, but this can always be excused if it is too cumbersome per an exception. Again, flexibility is in order in those extreme cases (such as the entire TotJ series). However, I still believe that is warranted.
  • Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 03:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Addressing Havac:
  • As a former Inq and regular contributor—not some random user—took great pains to think this schema through and to discuss it with other users. In fact, ten other users were consulted on this before anything was even posted on a user-subpage. This has been in the works for a while since we have a few GANs and FANs pending which are OOU articles and would be effected by this. This is being put into place now so that we do not run into this problem too far into the future when we have a plethora of articles attempting to or having achieved a good or featured status. The articles that currently exist are fine for now. Like all other changes to an MoS, we can revisit it later. This is addressing the current noms we have, and the potential noms we have in the future.
  • Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 03:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• I too have problems with elements of the format. I think, on the whole, good idea, attractive layout, but the minor niggles prevent me from supporting. The aformentioned publishers summaries have become a bit of an institution round these parts, and quite frankly, the wholesale copying of them that goes on here is not even in the same parish as professionalism. To mandate them would be horrible, but I see that Fiolli would be willing to ax them in the future, so no problems there. The other is having Appearances as a subsection of Continuity. Not a major one, but I feel it clashes with that one degree of consistency that we have, and, while not an encyclopedic standard, it is a most useful tool for both readers and users, and so I feel it deserves to be listed as a full section, not supplementary to another. This also helps distinguish it as a proseless item - not really part of the article at all. I must disagree with Hydro on the subject of Plot and Character section positioning, though, as I feel the need to convey the overall general plot is far more important than highlighting it through the characters. Character sections, while nice, are, in my opinion, already flirting with the line of what is essential to an encyclopedic entry on a piece of media, wheras an overall plot summary is somewhat essential. To put characters first would somewhat skew things to the reader, and while the Vector Prime example is good for showing how the switch would work, there are plenty of instances in which it would not. Thefourdotelipsis 13:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not going to vote against this measure. I feel like some guidelines are needed to aid users who wish to GA/FA OOU articles, if nothing else. I don't necessarily agree that it should become policy, but I was thinking that something along the lines of the nice tan boxes in our Layout Guide for character, planet, and species articles could be adopted. I don't see what the point is in all of these diatribes on this page—we have done this before with the aforementioned guideline sections, and there's no reason we can't do it again. As always, there is going to be some room for variation based on the needs of the article. Sure, some planet articles need sections on the planetary government, and some species articles need subdivisions of the society and culture or history sections. We can do this here, with OOU guidelines. I appeal to everyone else who bothers to read these lengthy rants and raves to see the positive potential for this proposal, should it be modified to more fit the ideas of the community as a whole. Graestan^(Talk) 15:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Fourdot that Publisher's summary should go, and I would agree that Plot should come before Characters if I thought we should have a Characters section at all. We shouldn't, not beyond a list of appearances. Nothing about the characters can't be conveyed in an assessment of the plot; we don't need an excuse for a glorified image gallery with individual plot recaps for those characters the writer decides are "major". If you want to know the character's role in the story, the plot information should tell you that. This is symptomatic of what I see as a huge problem with this proposal -- massive, massive redundancy. Why do we need independent sections on conception and production? Shouldn't they all be part of the history of the series? I'm also not seeing the point of most of the media section -- why do we need information in the article about other sources? Shouldn't the articles about those other sources be the ones about those sources? The whole thing seems a little overthought -- "What other sections should we cram in?" I'm pretty dubious of this as a scheme, and that's why I have a huge problem with presenting the whole thing as one giant take-it-or-leave-it proposal and demanding an up-or-down vote. Havac 19:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Responses to above:
    • 4dot: I understand what you mean about the order, which is why I think flexibility is more important than any particular order. Some just work better one way, and some the other. And I do agree character sections in general shouldn't always be necessary; if you're doing something like a short Tales story, talking about each main character is not going to add anything. Character sections, like every section, should only be required if there's something unique to say that requires them; the current standards of flexibility included in the proposal would still mandate them, since as Fiolli said: "Furthermore, each book, comic, etc. has a set of main characters! I do not see this being skipped because of lack of information. There may only be two principal characters, or three, but there are always main characters." (Not meaning to pick on Fiolli here, just since he made the proposal he understands what it mandates and what's allowed for flexibility.) - Lord Hydronium 19:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Grae: I do think there are advantages to a set of guidelines, and this isn't bad (I'm using a rather similar format for Vector Prime at the moment). I made the original outline that resulted in the OOU MoS we have now, and to be honest it was pretty shoddy, like including a "Behind the scenes" section. The problem is—and this isn't unique to this one, as I do think our overall priorities of voting vs. discussion are rather out of whack—this is formatted as a yes/no vote for the entire thing. It's not very conducive to discussion; any comments are relegated to the area below the vote, and the only thing you really can do is vote and explain your reasoning below. Perhaps, if Fiolli is OK with it, we should close this one and start a new one formatted as a discussion—leave voting until after we've decided on something that's suitable for everyone, and worked out kinks like "publisher's summary" that no one seems to want anyway. - Lord Hydronium 19:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Havac: Character sections I feel are mostly useful in two situations: 1) Major character arcs of the story that are better conveyed when you focus on an individual character than the plot as a whole (Luke in DE as an example), or 2) OOU information about the character that doesn't really work jammed into another section (Vector Prime has a good deal of unique OOU information on Mara's role, Kyp's role, Chewbacca's role, etc.). "Conception" and "production" vs. "History": Simply a matter of how you like to section things. I think a big single "History" section is rather bland and doesn't say much, and splitting up the phases of how something is made (in Vector Prime's case, the NJO team conceiving the series and VP's role in it vs. Salvatore's actual writing of it) can be very useful. But in some maybe you just need one section; that's why, again, I think flexibility is the most important thing for any MoS regarding sections. Different articles have different needs. - Lord Hydronium 19:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

More from Fiolli:

• Again, I have no problem removing publisher's summaries and other copyright infringements that are superfluous. In fact, the only reason they were retained, was because they already existed so prominently. It is a relic that I would not mind seeing removed if the community —namely those who already support this CT—agree to this change. For now, I went through and crossed them out on the proposal above. They can be permanently removed once those in support have been spoken to and agree to the change.
• After thinking this through and doing some more research on how things are done "in the real world" I am willing to be a little more flexible with the character-plot ordering… to a point. I am willing to talk about this and discuss this further as needed. As a note: One of the reasons for flexibility is that the introduction will already "spoil" some of the entity discussed and the character sections should not be character-centric plot-reductions anyway.
• About the necessity of character sections: While I think they may not be entirely encyclopedic, they are a good tool for the reader. One thing to keep in mind, per the quote referenced above by LH, is that there are always characters (perhaps one, perhaps two or more) which are a central focus of the media. Even a one-shot comic like Star Wars: Zam Wesell focuses on or follows Wesell, Fett, Poof and Khoorda. The sections do not have to be lengthy tomes in the case of shorter works, but they should be inclusive to the text/imagery/etc. Flexibility is that there does not have to be "three main characters" with "twenty sentence paragraphs each." That would be absurd and preposterous. Frankly, I would not care if I saw only one, provided that the media dictated and necessitated that.

—Master Aban Fiolli ^{{Alpheridies University ComNet}} 15:15, 22 November 2008 (UTC)