Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Archive 19

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Eternals

Is anyone an expert on this team? I've noticed several of the member pages are quite small. So they need to be merged or expanded. I don't see any point for small articles on some Eternals members, while others get long ones. Lesser Eternals shouldn't have pages: if they aren't as important and/or don't even appear much. Some small Eternals pages: Zarin, Interloper (comics), Valkin, and Domo (comics). That's just some, you can take a look at Category:Marvel Comics Eternals and find more I bet. I think a page of lesser Eternals would be much better than just alot of little pages on them. Since I'm no expert on the subject, I will leave it up in the air for now. Hopefully someone is an expert on the matter and can help figure out a solution. RobJ1981 11:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Valkin, Domo and Zarin don't need pages of their own, but the Interloper does. He was only made an Eternal after a retcon, and his publishing history is more intertwined with that of the Defenders. From my point of view, I'd say Ikaris, Thena, Sersi, Makkari, Sprite, Gilgamesh, Ajak and Zuras are the only ones that actually need separate articles. Some of these are terribly written and could use cleanup or an expansion. --Pc13 12:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, feel free to clean them up if you can. I'm no expert, but I hope there is some here. Wikipedia doesn't need a page for each Eternal, if they all aren't important. A page of just lesser Eternals should be made, if possible. RobJ1981 05:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Was the Interloper a retcon? I thought it was mentioned pretty close to his first appearance. In any case, I'd agree with your list of essentials - but add Druig as he's playing a major role in the current series. --Mrph 23:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"Factual" Lists, e.g. X-Men: The 198 Files

We are not able to cite OHOTMU or Who's Who information, so does that not also mean that we cannot cite stand-alone publications from the OHOTMU editors such as X-Men: The 198 Files? Additionally, lists such as this, which are copied whole cloth from an original source violate fair use: Lists created by a single agency are their intellectual property. They are copyright violations and should be removed. It is for this reason that the "100 Greatest Marvels of All Time" article was deleted.

This sort of list is described at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 February 4:

Under US case law, e.g. Eckes v. Card Prices Update, lists of items that are created entirely or primarily as a result of editorial opinion are subject to copyright protection. This explicitly excludes lists which are derived solely from facts, statistics, or polling data, as only opinion based lists are considered by the courts to have the requisite creativity required for copyright protection under US law. Consequently, the inclusion of the entirety of such a list solely for the purposes of adding it to Wikipedia will generally constitute a copyright infringment. Excerpts of such lists can be used in Wikipedia under the doctrine of fair use when they are associated with meaningful discussion of the contents of the list, but under typical circumstances, one should never reproduce the entirety of such a list.

Some will argue that these are lists of facts, but I would like to remind you that this is fictional information and so not considered factual. Additionally, the decision was based on a level of creativity, so while editors may quibble with calling the listing of the 198 "editorial opinion", no one can disagree with calling it a creatively created list. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 18:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need the 198 Files list either as presented in Decimation (comics) (with the Wizard list, for instance). It's not a complete list anyway and there are errors in it. We should not have it for all the various reasons OHOTMU stats are not included as well. The topic is better served by perhaps "Marvel Comics depowered mutants" category/Marvel Comics powered mutants" categories based directly on evidence shown in the comics. -HKMarks 18:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Now taking suggestions for a renamed category: Category talk:The 198 Files#Should be renamed. Once this is worked out, the lists should be removed from Decimation (comics) -HKMarks 20:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The CFD discussion on this reached consensus that it should be renamed, but not on what it should be renamed to. Could use some input from anyone interested. -HKMarks 21:11, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I know that it's rather lengthy, but for accuracy's sake it should be something like "Confirmed [Marvel] characters to retain mutant powers" or something with that jingle to it b/c I think "Currently powered mutants" is a little nebulous. Tullyman 00:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that there would be a problem with a list of, say, the founding members of the Justice League or X-Men, so I don't see why there would be a problem with a list of Marvel's 198 remaining mutants.--Drvanthorp 22:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

We can have a list of those of the millions of remaining mutants shown in comics if each item is cited; however, a list cannot be taken wholecloth from another source. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Which list of the founding members of the Justice League would be used? That's been retconned into several different lists over the years. Doczilla 07:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I would certainly hope it would mention Triumph. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The template color scheme

The information on this page is now deprecated.

Color scheme

For the comic_color and alliance_color parameters in {{Superherobox}} and {{Superteambox}}, and comic_color in {{Supersupportingbox}} and {{Comiccharacterbox}}, use the value from the appropriate "Color" cell in the following table.

Color scheme for Superheroboxes, Superteamboxes, Supersupportingboxes and Supercbboxes

comic_color
Color	Company
background:#ff8080	Marvel Comics
background:#8080ff	DC Comics
background:#ff0000	British comics such as IPC Magazines or DC Thomson
background:#80ffff	Dark Horse Comics
background:#ffff00	Raj Comics
background:#80ff80	Image Comics
background:#ff9900	Harvey Comics
background:#ff80ff	Any Japanese publisher, such as Shueisha or Kodansha
background:#c0c0c0	Other/Defunct
alliance_color
Color	Alliance
background:#ffc0c0	Hero
background:#c0c0ff	Villain
background:#cccccc	Neutral/None/Other
past_current_color
Color	Currently being published/not being published
background:#5be85b	In periodical publication
background:#ff9275	Not in periodical publication

Discussion

I hate the infobox color scheme. Hate it hate it hate it. It's not visually attractive, it's distracting, most of the colors are ugly, it duplicates info already mentioned in the infobox, it's Amerocentric, and, worst of all, no readers are ever going to know what it means.

Now, I'm prepared to make using it in templates a lot easier by adding a parser table to the infobox templates (no more copying and pasting color codes by hand), but I want to know if it wouldn't just be better going with my gut and getting rid of that awful stone-age personal-web-page nonsense that has persisted for far too long.

Does anyone want to speak in defense of the color scheme? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:10, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't like them either. They provide standardization, but yeah, no readers know what they mean, and they're kind of ugly. Is there any way to set a default colour (somewhere between serious and fun, like comics are supposed to be) but still allow different colours optionally?

On the other hand, I once witnessed a big edit war over what exact colours to make the backgrounds of the roster lists on the Power Rangers articles. It was ugly, man, ugly. I'd rather put up with the current colours than have people fight over what colour to use in individual articles. -HKMarks 06:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Kill it. It doesn't add any information whatsoever to the SHBs. Yes, let's pick a new default colo(u)r! Hurray/Huzzah! --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Standardized, whatever it is (color or no color). We don't need the edit wars and talk page discussions that individualization would cause. CovenantD 06:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Yay! No more lame color scheme! Unless someone wants to defend them,I'll just disable the changeable colors, so there won't be any edit wars. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank god. No one understood the color, so it led to edit wars. Plus, the green for Image is ugly. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 02:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and remove the colors from SHB when I revamp it, and I'll remove it from any other templates afterward. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Yo. Uh...I'm...not exactly a big team player or used to the whole "project" thing, but here goes. I had no idea there was so much backlash against the color scheme, but whatever the case, the SHB looks worse now. It looks...amateurish. I don't know about a standard universal color or what, but please don't leave it like this. Personally, I can't say I'm here to defend the color scheme, but I didn't have a burning hatred for it. All that was really wrong, if get past a few POVs about the colors and tones used, was that it was hard to understand. Still, a lot of practices on Wikipedia might not be easy to understand for the reader. Doesn't mean they should be done way with. Just...changed, at worst. That brings me to my main point. The most common, inexperienced SHB mistake was almost always using the wrong colors. Like, thinking there were universal colors for heroes, villains, etc. I once saw a DC comics villain colored as a Marvel comics superhero. What's worse, the company and allliance colors are/were way too similar. I mean, ambiguous status and ambiguous publisher being matching grays is one thing, but I've found villains listed as DC comics characters regardless of true company; heroes listed as Marvel. I bet a supporter or two may have even been listed as an image character. Needless to say, all that would have to change. (Who's bright idea was it to make DC the villains, anyway?) Nevertheless, with clearer, less similar colors,—maybe throw in orange or yellow somewhere—I'm sure we could make it work. Ha. I guess I am defending the colors...sorta. Anyway, please don't just up and remove them. It just isn't the same. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 00:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The color code is just plain unworkable. If people don't like the plain white, however, I can easily add a single, uniform color for contrast. Would someone like to suggest one? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

BLACK! (not the video game.) ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 01:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Preferably a low-key pastel. We want the (presumably black) text to be easily readable, and black doesn't quite contrast very well with black. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yellow? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 01:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone object to yellow? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought the pink was alright. Additionally, the blue used in the TOC might work. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I also like the idea of blue. --Basique 10:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I also rather have blue than the current colourless version, which frankly looks awful. Dizzy D 11:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

You're really starting to worry me these days, Chrissy. Besides, Pink is PKMN's thing. I could go with blue. Maybe sky blue like the Dark Horse colors. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 19:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say go with a darker blue than that. Although I think that dark blue is already being used by some other infobox(es), but I'm not sure. Why not go with one of the colors already "claimed" by the comics, but one of the lesser used ones, like the Orange for Harvey Comics. I think that would be best. JQF 21:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Feh. I'd rather not have the whole project represented by Orange. Anyway, Blue seems the majority leader, in use or no. How about the standard "0000FF"? That's what I always wanted to used in some form, anyway.—The preceding comment was added by Ace Class Shadow at 22:25, September 21, 2006 (UTC)

Sky blue is WP:CVG's color scheme (check out Template:Infobox VG. It doesn't really matter, but if we're going to respect WP:PCP's color scheme, it doesn't make sense to step on the toes of an even larger, more-active project. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, okay. I was off that, anyway. What about plain Blue? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 07:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have a strong opinion. How about I fiddle until I find a color that seems nice, and everyone either endorses or rejects? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

There is another outstanding issue, the alter_ego field isn't working right now, I figure it's was because you're still working on the template, but I just wanted to let you know. --Basique 15:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

No offense, Basi-Bo- Err..Basique, but that seems like another issue and something to be placed at the bottom of the talk page. I won't move your comments out of respect, but if you don't mind..

AMIB, I think there's strong support for standard blue. It's just hard to differeniate. I'd still go with that. It's not too dark or too light and we've never tried it before. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 20:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I personally find blue kind of overused. How about palegoldenrod? --HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 20:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

 

palegoldenrod

 

lightblue

While I can appreciate an original recommendation, I must disagree. Palegoldenrod is not a suitable color to represent the whole comics project. As an second opinon explained to me, palegoldenrod is hard to read through, and tends to fade in contrast to other colors. I still believe in plain "0000ff" blue. Also, nice swatch, though a little poorly placed. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 21:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I like background:#ff8080 most.--Jamdav86 09:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm gonna fiddle with a sky blue. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Currently, only {{Supercbbox}} has the new color. Anyone like/hate it? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Feh. That looks kinda...bright. I mean, as the Dark Horse color it's okay, but the whole comics pro? Nah. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 22:49, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

0000ff is illegible. Remember, this is a background with black text on it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I made a template and now I want to show it off. So this is #ff8080 -- Tada! Anyway... I like the pale yellow because it reminds me of old paper. Butskyblue is nice too. Would a small repeating pattern by feasible? C10Y10M10K0 print dots? I made a pretty neat-looking mockup but I don't want to upload the image (it's about 500 bytes) if we can't use images anyway. This is #0000FF by the way. Very hard to read. --HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 22:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

We can't and indeed shouldn't use background images, for a number of reasons. I'm tempted to just scrap the colors entirely, frankly. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I know what you mean, every color is either ugly or someone doesn't like it or it's inappropriate for some articles. (I mean, coral pink on a Batman article?) Just for contrast reasons, though, how about grey? #EEEEEE or #DDDDDD? Can the borders be made black? --HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 23:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Fine, fine. That's all you had to say. No 0000ff.

However, AMIB, that wasn't "sky blue" or light blue you used. It was light and it was blue, but it was the Dark Horse color, which is far too light. This isn't simply a matter of legibility. We can't have something too pale or too dark. We need a solid color that doesn't "burn" one's eyes. Anyway, I guess a reasonably light blue could work.

Wait- what? You did see all the comments regardly how poor the boxes look at the moment, right? I doubt anyone wants a plain white box. It just doesn't look right. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 23:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

#C5D9FF maybe? Blue but fairly neutral and light? ---HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 02:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Nah. Look, this is getting us no where. Instead of disagreeing or agreeing, everyone just keeps bringing up new choices.

How about we just vote?

Proposal: 6495ED

#6495ED aka cornflower blue is the closest I can find to something that reminds me off all the blues. It's fine against black text, too.

Survery

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with four tildes: ~~~~

• Support so we can move already. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 06:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support. #6495ED is much better that the current one (#BFFFFF). —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 15:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support looks sweet, man. Brian Boru is awesome 15:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support it's slightly dark for my taste but otherwise perfect. Good call. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 00:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support -- Ipstenu (talk|contribs) 00:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks great! —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 01:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Aftermath

So...that's four "yays" and no "nayes". Can we apply this color now? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 00:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it looks less than great on darker gammas (speaking as probably the darkest possible gamma, using a Mac laptop). I was going to implement something very slightly lighter when I next fiddled with WP:CMC templates. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's wait for more votes.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Brian Boru is awesome (talk • contribs) at 00:39, September 29, 2006

AMIB, Isn't that a little...personal/biased POVish? I mean...I tested it on the template myself—preview rather than submitted edit—it looks good. Dark Horse blue is okay, but just a little too light. Besides, the whole point of this discussion was the resolve the issue and apply a new, generalized color. All this waiting and debating isn't helping anyone. Now, I know you may not care much about this, AMIB, but the bottomline is this: the color coding system was scrapped, we needed a new color, we wasted time picking a color, I made a formal proposal and it was a unanimous "yes". Now, can you give me a reason why we shouldn't go ahead and apply this color...besides the way it appears on your screen? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 00:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

If people objected, it'd change, if they didn't, it wouldn't. This is a wiki after all. I'm not going to implement a specific number just because there was a vote if I see a way to satisfy the spirit of what people want while dealing with my own objections. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Dizzy and I both objected to the current colorless version. In fact, I recall you being the only one who wanted it plain. Furthermore, several users pitched with suggestions and opinions. And I don't really see this as a "majority rules" voting situation that the meta policy was created to denounce. This more of a "you want it your way and aren't considering other sides" situation; certainly not "the spirit of what people want", despite your (intentionally?) ambiguous way of wording it. And hey, like you said, this is a wiki. I can't force you and I don't have to. I'll do it myself. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 01:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Er. I was planning to go ahead and implement a cornflower blue (since it's what everyone wants and I don't care), just probably about five or so points lighter. I wasn't planning to leave it blank except insofar as I wasn't planning to do anything with the WP:CMC templates until I finished some other work on other stuff first. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

You were busy? Why didn't you say that in the first place? We all can be busy from time to time. I can understand that. "I'm busy. Can it wait?" "Okay." or some such. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 01:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I mentioned it to the project as a whole. Looking back, I just mentioned it to ChrisGriswold. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I really like this shade of blue. --Basique 03:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Alien/Cosmic Races box

I think the Project might need this in the future, It would only need six fields: "Name", "Publisher", "First appearance", "Created by", "Homeworld", "Last Appearance". Similar to these Tau'ri used by the Stargate Project. Any thoughts?

• For the Homeworld, Name add info to the Superhero infobox!--Brown Shoes22 22:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics/Archive 19
Parliament of Eggs
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Bald Eagle #1, (May 1976)
Created by	Byrd and Feather
In-story information
Place of origin	Eggholme

Here's a test case of {{superalienbox}}, let me know if you think it's viable. --Basique 00:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Innit pretty much the same as {{superherobox}} with "Homeworld" added? That would be an OK addition for alien characters too. There's a discussion of combining the various related boxes into one on the superherobox talk page. - HKMarks 00:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's actually a variation on supersupporting but with even less fields. --Basique 10:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Then why not tweak supersupporting to have optional fields? -- Ipstenu (talk|contribs) 13:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If you want it, we're planning to combine a lot of the character infoboxes. This'd fit with that. I think "Species" is one of the fields in the SHB already. Mention that you want "Homeworld" here in the new design and we'll hash it out: Template talk:Superherobox#Redesign time! -HKMarks 14:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, the species and homeworld fields are all I want. --Basique 22:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like there was already a little-used species field, so I added some homeworld functionality to it. Now, if you have just the species or homeworld parameter, the field changes to display just that, but if you have both, it says (for example) "Kryptonian from Krypton". Don't bother filling in the species field when you use SHB for entire races, though. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've implemented this field in Superman, if you'd like to see an example. I've also merged and redirected {{Superalienbox}}, since Basique seems to have no objections. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, thanks man no objections here. Now I have a few pages to update. --Basique 02:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced template for comics?

A good deal of our references are comics themselves. After someone added an {{Unreferenced}} tag to Mary Jane Watson without explanation of what needed to be referenced, it occured to me that we don't have a comics-specific tag like that. I whipped one up quick -- it only applies to places where issue citations are needed, as I think the regular Unreferenced tag works for other situations -- though perhaps we could make a comics-specific one of those for maintenance categorization purposes. {{Issue}} works well too, but it's an inline tag and sometimes a bunch of those are messy... so I don't know if this is needed, but it might help in some situations.

<includeonly>{{{category|[[Category:Comics articles needing issue citations|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}</includeonly>

At the very least it might make some people think twice about going into elaborate detail on plot summary. Let me know what you think.
Also working on an FF template on Template talk:Fantastic Four members -HKMarks 03:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Template progress update

I've been doing some heavy lifting on this project's templates lately. Here's some progress updates.

The color scheme for publishers and active publication has been disabled in {{Superherobox}}, and is not in {{Graphicnovelbox}}. I'll be removing it from {{Supercbbox}}, {{Superteambox}}, or any other templates.

{{Graphicnovelbox}}, a template for graphic novels, European-style comic books, manga volumes, or any other single comic publication or comic collection, is ready to use. Feel free to start adding it to appropriate articles; I've written usage guidelines to make it easy to use. Do replace {{Supercbbox}} with {{Graphicnovelbox}} in any graphic novel articles, please.

Additionally, {{Graphicnovelbox}} has a great deal of handy translation/international version functionality that I'll be adding to {{Supercbbox}}.

{{Superherobox}} is now the grand unified comic character infobox, and Supersupportingbox and Comiccharacterbox (as well as the not-yet-in-use Superalienbox) have all been merged there. You can now use this for any comic character, be it hero or villain, alien race or individual, normal human or superpowered pig from the planet Pluto.

The status and relatives fields are now completely removed from {{Superherobox}}, and previous_alliances is now depreciated and has been combined into the Affiliations field. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

NICE job, man. Can't wait to find an excuse to use 'em! -HKMarks 04:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Superhero chronology?

In reguard to the entry Superhero chronology:

I notice that the appearances of the various characters are divided into sections for each decade, then subsections for that various medias, and then arranged by year, and alphabetically within each year.

Wouldn't it make more sense, in a chronology, for all of the characters to be listed chronologically by first appearance, regaurdless of media or alphabetical order? Someone would have to do some research and find release dates, boadcast dates, etc, which are missing from the list as it currently exists, but it would provide valuable data for anyone wanting to know how characters influenced the creation of other characters in the short term, and who was "first" for characters introduced in the same year.

We could start by filling in day and month information in the existing list.--Drvanthorp 04:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is about superheroes, they should be listed regardless of medium. Superheroes are not restricted to comicbooks.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It is broken down by medium. The tricky part about that is whether each superhero should be listed only once, for the very first time the hero appeared, or when the hero first appeared in each medium. Seeing the Lone Ranger live was very different from hearing him on the radio. The Shadow in pulp novels differed from the Shadow on radio. I don't have a definite opinion on which way to go with that. Doczilla 18:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards just one medium, but that's just my opinion on it. RobJ1981 18:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

As it is, the chronology contains first appearances, first other media appearances, then for some characters later appearances in the same media; for example multiple Superman and Batman movies are listed. Maybe the chronolgy needs to be split in to a first-appearance chronology, and a seperate major-appearances chronology, which, from the looks of things, would probably be made up of mostly movies and TV shows.--Drvanthorp 03:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Having given this further thought, I think it should be exclusively their debuts which would mean only one medium except for rare instances in which a character debuted jointly in two media (or an even weirder case in which the Shadow debuted as a mysterious announcer voice on radio but as an actual superhero character in pulp fiction). This same article could be the basis for a different article about first appearances in all media 'if' anyone even wants such a list. Doczilla 04:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Single entry, listing the first appearance of the character (debut). Just because they are/were successful enough to jump to another medium is not enough reason for multiple listings and is outside the bounds of the article. CovenantD 04:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Superhero debuts sections

I have made an initial step to making one chronological list. In the information that is in table format, I am adding a "media" column, and I am removing the headers that label the media catagory of each table. The next step is to merge the tables in to one table sorted chronologically. It might be desirable to have a table for each decade to make the page easier to navigate. For some decades, like the 1940's, there should probably eventually be a table for each year.--Drvanthorp 01:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Hold on. Let's get some input on that. I strongly disagree with removing those headers. There are qualitative differences between radio superheroes, pulp fiction superheroes, and comic book superheroes. I'm very grateful to you to bringing our attention to that article, but let's find out how others feel about the breakdowns by medium first. Doczilla 04:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I thought of another reason to keep tables separate by medium: This way, they reflect changes in trends over time. Just as you don't find radio heroes in the 90's, you don't find TV heroes in the 30's. As the articles stands right now, those tables reflect those changes. The changes aren't just in mode of presentation. Radio heroes were different. Heroes who debuted on TV have been different. Doczilla 04:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Putting all the media's in one table might make it a little easier to track who came first, and which character influences which later character across media. Is it possible to make some kind of a shadow page with just a straightforward chronological list?--Drvanthorp 14:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Right now, I'm mainly just trying to fill in the gaps in the details and double-check accuracy. Now that you've brought the article to our attention (for which I thank you), I enjoy hunting down the needed info. Doczilla 19:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Marvel Comics stubs subcats

This category's somewhat oversized; a Category:Marvel Comics character stubs type would be a possibility, but is itself likely to be pretty large. More specific types would also be possible, such as for supervillains, mutants, deities, supporting characters, and indeed cosmic entities. Thoughts? Alai 11:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of a different way to deal with this -- merging. It's had a couple of mentions before... but a lot of these could be merged to parent articles. Last night I spent about 20 minutes merging The Strangers (comics) into one article, as it had four character stubs attached to it with about two sentences each that wasn't in the parent article.

It seems that a lot of stubs were created for non-notable characters. (A discussion elsewhere basically said that if a character has only had an appearance in one or two stories--especially by only one writer--and didn't really have a big impact on things, they're probably not notable per Wikipedia's definition.) Is that really the way to do things? Wouldn't it be easier to deal with all these articles if there were fewer, and we only spun off if there was a significant amount of information and it became too much for the parent article? (Per WP:SS.)

I'm talking about characters like the Morlocks (excluding Callisto and Caliban and other major ones, of course) and certain one-shot villains. Every time I've seen this discussion come up, there's been a consensus to merge (like with Hypno-Hustler and Burglar (Spider-Man)) though it hasn't always happened, I presume because it's a lot of work.

There's a relevant discussion regarding using images in lists at Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists... but I think images would qualify as fair use as "identification of character in question" for character lists.

On the other hand, some of these, such as District X or Dragon Man, just need a dash more information and a destubbing. They're not really stubs, just short articles.

But yea, 830 stubs is a bit much. It needs either serious paring-down, subcategorization (I'd split off villains first, then heroes) or merging. -HKMarks IS FROM SPACETALK ♦ CONTRIBS 14:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Merging and de-tagging are certainly useful steps if someone wants to tackle those. Following your suggestion, I'll propose a "supervillians" type at WP:WSS/P, at least for starters. Alai 14:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

You may just want to use "villain", to stay away from the question of "super" : ) - jc37 15:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Possibly, though there's a Category:Marvel Comics supervillains permcat, but not an all-inclusive Category:Marvel Comics villains one, so actually is former is possibly more natural in that sense. Then again, I suppose one would easily be created... Alai 21:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

About the merging

Is it Ok if you bring back the Ultimate Venom article? That is one of the best articles I read in this website and one of the best in the Venom article. I don't understand why you have to merge it. I mean you still have Ultimate Wolverine, Ultimate Rogue, Ultimate Iron Man and Ultimate Nick Fury as seperate artices, those are also pretty cool articles, so please bring back the Ultimate Venom article, you can still keep the paragraph section, just have a link lead to the Ultimate Venom article, just like how you did in the articles above. Please answer below ASAP.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.141.83.150 (talk • contribs)

These all should be merged. The reason is that there are other alternate versions of the characters, such as the movie or Marvel 2099versions. Ultimate is cool, but it doesn't merit special treatment. --HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 18:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

...Except Iron Man, which was a limited series, not just a character.--HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 18:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was riding the fence on Ultimate Rogue since I created it, but now I'm very pro-merger, especially since her powers are reverting back. --Newt_ΨΦ 01:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Then Just make the articles, I don't mind, just bring back the Ultimate Venom article. Besides, they already have articles for the movie versions of heroes/villians.

What does that mean? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What does what mean?

It means he doesn't get it.

Hey, guy-who-wants-the-Ultimate Venom-article, how old are you? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 21:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

'bout 18... why? Anyway.... Look at the Ultimate Nick Fury Article. It has about the same amount of info that the Ultimate Venom article had, and it still excists. Now I know the didn't actually delete the Ultimate Venom article, but stored it somewhere, I hope. Is there any way where I can talk to the creator of Wikipedia and ask him?

Someone how do you work the Deletion Log?! User:The Nagotiater

Hmm. Yes, well, the Ultimate universe, while impressive and separate, is still...the same. Ultimate Captain America's difference? No gay wings on his helmet. Ultimate Venom? Purple tone instead of blue. It's minor stuff. Otherwise, they're largely the same. Like...a chocolate chip cookie with nuts versus one without. They'd both belong in the same articles.

Yes, there are exceptions. (Ultimate Thor, anyone?) However, the general rule is to keep alternate versions in the same article. Ultimate Ven falls under that rule.

Now, you mention separate articles for movie versions. I ask, how many? Would you say...more than ten? More than twenty? And what kind of articles? An article for the movie or an article for the character?

I've heard of Spider-Man, but not Spider-Man in film.

Maybe you mean articles like Batman in other media. Hey! Superman has one, too. However, those are, once again, exceptions. Venom doesn't have one. Thor doesn't have one. Captain America doesn't have one. Heck, the majority of the JLA don't/doesn't have one.

Anyway, Ultimate Venom doesn't qualify for special treatment just because you like him.

Now, from I understand, what you really wanted was for Ultimate Venom to have a superherobox. Is that true? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 23:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't deleted, it was merged with Venom (comics). That means everything in the Ultimate Venom page was copied over there. However, it was significantly cut down because it was full of speculation--which is against Wikipedia's rule against original research. Everything worthwhile is in the Venom article. (Except one graphic of Eddie, which I re-added.) --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 23:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

ACS, THERE IS A MAJOR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COOKIES WITH NUTS AND THOSE WITHOUT, AND BOTH DESERVE A SUPERHEROBOX AND I WANT TO KNOW WHICH KEEBLER ELVES THEY ARE RELATED TO. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 00:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The Deletion Log said that you could bring back deleted articles. Can you do that with merged articles? −−User:The Nagotiater

Nevermind, the Ultimate Venom thing is perfect now, that's good. I'm happy now.

Just a hypothetical question: Would anyone be mad if I revealed that Negotiator is actually my sock puppet? Just wondering. It's hypothetical. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 00:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppets are for editing articles about pornography or neurochemistry, not pretending to be a newbie and getting us to try and convince you of stuff. I'd hypothetically be mildly disappointed in your moral character, darling. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 00:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Character intact, then. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. Christopher....

Seek help...I recommend mental.

ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 01:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Arkham Asylum arbitration

I need impartial arbitration on the status of Arkham Asylum as a penal institution based on substantial data that I have already provided here List of penal institutions in comics. See the history for all changes that have occured. --Basique 22:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I once visited a facility for the criminally insane. It had to be licensed as both a penal/correctional institution and a hospital. However, that was twenty years ago. That facility no longer exists. Right now, even the courts cannot agree on whether or not a hospital can be considered correctional. [1] If the officials cannot agree, then we shouldn't exert our own preferences here by picking what term to use. Just find a better name. Doczilla 08:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Our definitions of visited may differ. OOH, BURN! [Disclaimer:Doczilla is not crazy and is in fact a very nice person with a pleasant scent.] --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep, good burn. Doczilla 09:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC) (Scent? When exactly did Chris sniff me?)

Look behind you. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 11:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are bibliographies needed in articles?

In my opinion, a bibliography isn't needed. It just clutters the page. Some people think it's needed, but I certainly don't. Archangel (comics) is a good example of what I'm talking about. Imagine if someone like Superman had it, it would be even longer. Every appearance ever isn't notable, so bibliographies should just go. A new article for a bibliography isn't needed either: so hopefully no one starts doing that. RobJ1981 02:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree... Rather than listing a bibliography (unless a character has a solo series/one-shot/whatever -- that should be listed), it's better to cite key issues for character development or revelations. ---HKMarksCANDY IS A FOOD GROUPTALK♦CONTRIBS 03:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Inline citations for those events, when mentioned in the text, rather than a list or bibliography. CovenantD 06:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

All those bibliographies bug the heck out of me. They. Do. Not. Belong. Biography, yes. Bibliography, no. Doczilla 07:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

They don't really add anything to articles, and they make articles look like fanpages. There are many other sites that do a great job of keeping track of bilbiographies. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Right. I think it's totally appropriate to list at the bottom of each article one link to whichever is the best bibliography already out there. Doczilla 09:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The flaw in the argument is that new readers will be unable to find references pertaining to the more obscure characters. I completely agree when it comes to more well-known characters - as a full list would be very unwieldly - but there's no harm in citing comic references when said character has only appeared say, six times or less. This is when those references help. Example: try finding all the appearances of the Marvel character Equinox (comics) without some help from a well-read fellow fan. Hope that helps.

Asgardian 09:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Np comment on bibiliographies in US comics articles, but I think that in a comics creator (artist or writer) article, you certainly need either a biliography, or a link to a Wikiepdia article with the bibliography (if too long for inclusion in main article). This is comparable to a discography for a musician or band. I think this is necessary encyclopedic information. However, this bibliography may be summarized, i.e. give the different series, not all individual comics. Individual comics should be listed in the comics series article (for graphic novels and European comics). See e.g. Hergé for the kind of bibliography I mean for authors, The Spirit for waht seems to me a reasonable way to make a bibliography for comics. Fram 10:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, you are absolutely right. I think we need to clarify our stances. I've been discussing bibliographies with regard to comics character articles, which can be a problem. Articles about creators should have bibliographies. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 11:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Off hand, bibliographies for creators make sense -- although, like Fram said, not the longer ones. There could be nothing encyclopedic about Stan Lee's bibliography. I, too, was previously remarking about my disdain for character bibliographies. As for a character with a smaller number of appearances, like Equinox, incorporate the specific issues as references in his text. He debuted in the first issue of Marvel Team-Up I ever bought. He returned in a later issue of Marvel Team-Up. Reading his article, I was interested to learn about his subsequent appearances which I never saw. But there's no need for a bibliography when you can specify the issues in the text. Doczilla 16:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Bibliographies, yes. Complete lists of appearances, no. --Jamdav86 17:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

But have you looked at some of these character bibiliographies? Too many people treat them as complete lists of appearances. We do not need them. Just link to bibliographies posted elsewhere. Doczilla 17:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure most of these "bibliographies" could be contracted in some way. --Jamdav86 18:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

How about a seperate page when they get too big? - Peregrinefisher 18:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

A new article just listing a bibliography would be pointless. It doesn't matter much if Wolverine made some small cameo in one panel of a book, or Spider-Man appears on a newspaper article in another book. I agree with what was posted earlier: a link to a bibliography page (if there is one) is a good thing to do. RobJ1981 18:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What about reading orders? I'm treating them as a bibliography and removing as well. Onslaught (comics) is a good example of reading order. It's important to a point, but it's still too long and not completely needed. RobJ1981 19:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I disagree that they aren't needed and I don't like that you're removing them. I think they're useful for crossovers that tie into the rest of that company's books. - Lex 05:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Reading orders for crossovers are very useful. --Jamdav86 19:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

And how exactly would a link to an offsite bibliography fail to provide that for you? Doczilla 05:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Which external bibliography was you thinking of? --Jamdav86 16:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

If this was just a site for comics, I would agree. But this isn't just for comics. A link for reading order is a much better way to go. RobJ1981 19:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I came along this page today when I was looking at the Fantastic 4 page: Bibliography of Fantastic Four titles. Is that really needed? A link is much simplier. This isn't a comic wiki. I wonder if more pages like that exist. RobJ1981 19:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

For collections link here, merge the rest into the main article. --Jamdav86 20:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a bibliography:

• Avengers Vol. 1 #1-402 (Marvel Comics; September 1963 - September 1996)

• Avengers Annual #1-23 (Marvel Comics; 1967-1969, 1971-1972, 1976-1979, 1981-1994)
• Avengers: The Crossing (Marvel Comics; September 1995)
• Avengers: Timeslide (Marvel Comics; February 1996)

• Avengers Vol. 2 #1-13 (Marvel Comics/Wildstorm; November 1996 - November 1997)
• Avengers Vol. 3 #1-84, #500-503 (Marvel Comics; February 1998 - December 2004)

• Avengers #0 (Marvel Comics/Wizard Entertainment; 1999)
• Avengers Annual '99 (Marvel Comics; 1999)
• Avengers Annual 2000 (Marvel Comics; 2000)
• Avengers Annual 2001 (Marvel Comics; 2001)
• Avengers Finale (Marvel Comics; November 2004)

• New Avengers #1-present (Marvel Comics; January 2005 - present)

This is a list of appearances:

As Professor X

Adventures into Fear #20 Alpha Flight vol. 1 #111 Amazing Adventures vol. 2 #11-12, 15 Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #10-12 Avengers Annual 10 Avengers vol. 1 #3 Avengers vol. 1 #88, 110-111, 350-351 Bishop vol. 1 #1-2, 4 Bishop: Last X-Man #15 Bizarre Adventures #27 Black Panther vol. 4 #18 Cable and Deadpool #3 Cable vol. 2 #20, 23, 29, 31, 76 Captain America vol. 1 #173-175, 289 Classic X-Men #2-4, 6-11, 13-16, 19-21, 31, 42 Contest of Champions vol. 1 #1-3 Crystar #6 Damage Control vol. 1 #4 Dazzler #2, 38 Defenders vol. 1 #15-16 Dr. Strange vol. 3 #46, 69 Excalibur vol. 1 #17, 52, 79-81, 84-85, 88 Excalibur vol. 3 #1-7 Excalibur: XX Crossing Fantastic Four vol. 1 #28, 35-36, 264-265, 367-370, 415 Fantastic Four Annual #3 Fantastic Four vol. 3 #24 Firestar #1-2 Gambit 1999 Gambit vol. 3 #4 Generation X #1, 6 Ghost Rider vol. 2 #34 Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4 Giant-Size X-Men #1, 3-4 Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #150, 172, 277-278 Infinity War #2-6 Iron Fist vol. 1 #15 Juggernaut: 8th Day Kitty Pryde/Wolverine #4-5 Marvel Comics Presents #85, 88-89, 117-122 Marvel Fanfare vol. 1 #4 Marvel Graphic Novel #1: Death of Captain Marvel Marvel Graphic Novel #4: New Mutants Marvel Graphic Novel #5: X-Men Marvel Tales #262 Marvel Team-Up Annual #1 Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #4, 23, 51, 53, 100, 118, 135 Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7 Marvel: Heroes & Legends Marvels #2 Maximum Security #1-3 Maximum Security: Dangerous Planet Micronauts vol. 1 #37 Moon Knight vol. 1 #35 Mystique #1-3, 6-7, 14-23 New Avengers #7-10 New Avengers: Illuminati New Mutants Annual #1 New Mutants vol. 1 #1-8, 13-14, 18, 20-29 New Mutants vol. 2 #2-3

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: X-Men 2004 Onslaught: Epilogue Onslaught: Marvel Universe Onslaught: X-Men Peter Parker: Spider-Man #11 Professor X and the X-Men #4 Quasar #38-39 Rogue vol. 2 #1, 3-4 Rom #17, 65-66 Rom Annual #3 Secret Wars vol. 1 #1-12 Secret Wars vol. 2 #1 Sentry #4-5 Shanna the She-Devil #5 Sleepwalker #17-18 Special Edition X-Men #1 Spider-Woman vol. 1 #17 Strange Tales vol. 1 #120, 156 Tales of Suspense vol. 1 #49 Thor Corps #3 Uncanny X-Men #102-111, 113-118, 120, 122, 125, 129-133, 135-145, 148-169, 171, 173-175, 177-181, 183-186, 188-193, 196, 199-201, 203, 273, 275-280, 282-284, 286-289, 291-296, 300, 308-309, 314, 319-322, 326, 328, 330-337, 350, 362-372, 375-376, 378-379, 387, 390, 392-393, 421-422 Uncanny X-Men 2001 Uncanny X-Men Annual #8, 16 Warlock & the Infinity Watch #8 Wolverine vol. 2 #49-51, 53, 58, 63, 65, 85, 91-93, 102, 140, 145 Wolverine/Captain America #1, 4 Wolverine/Doop #1-2 Wonder Man vol. 2 #14 X-Factor vol. 1 #50, 69-71, 78, 84, 86, 106-108 X-Force vol. 1 #17-18, 38, 40, 43-45, 48, 117 X-Man #5, 10-12 X-Men 1999 X-Men Annual #4-7, 18 X-Men Annual vol. 2 #1, 3 X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #1, 5, 10, 23, 25, 29, 37, 42 X-Men vol. 1 #1-44, 46, 51-53, 55-56, 65-66, 94-100 X-Men vol. 2 #-1, 1-5, 12, 14-16, 38, 40-44, 47-48, 50-51, 53-57, 65-67, 73, 83-92, 95-96, 98, 109-121, 123-127, 165 X-Men/Alpha Flight vol. 1 #1-2 X-Men/Alpha Flight vol. 2 #1-2 X-Men/ClanDestine #1 X-Men/ClanDestine #1-2 X-Men/Micronauts #1-4 X-Men/Sentry X-Men: Deadly Genesis #3-5 X-Men: Liberators #1, 3 X-Men: Magneto War X-Men: Prime X-Men: Spotlight on the Starjammers #1-2 X-Men: The Hidden Years #1-22 X-Men: Wedding Album #1 X-Statix #6-8, 13 X-Treme X-Men #7, 21-22, 24

As Entity

• X-Men vol. 1 #106
• X-Men/Micronauts #1-4

As Onslaught

• Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 #415
• Avengers vol. 1 #401-402
• Cable vol. 2 #31-35
• Excalibur vol. 1 #99
• Fantastic Four vol. 1 #414-416
• Green Goblin #12
• Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #444-445
• Iron Man vol. 1 #331-332
• Iron Man vol. 2 #6
• Onslaught: Marvel Universe
• Onslaught: X-Men
• Punisher vol. 3 #11
• Sensational Spider-Man vol. 2 #8
• Spider-Man vol. 1 #72
• Uncanny X-Men #322, 334-337
• Wolverine vol. 2 #105
• X-Force #52, 56, 58
• X-Man #15-17, 19
• X-Men vol. 2 #46, 49-50, 53-55

Former keep, latter delete. --Jamdav86 17:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Unreleased Comics

I want to know how we feel about citing unreleased comics. I'm not talking about editors' adding speculation based on solicitation information; I mean the use of an issue that retailers have received a week early. Because few editors can check the citation, I don't think that information is appropriate to add to articles. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Unreleased comics should not be cited, certainly not in a big ongoing event like Civil War. On top of all the confusion this would cause, information leaked out about ongoing events can be wrong. 1, the part Chris wasn't talking about: Cover art can be misleading. Does anyone remember the people who insisted Aqualad (whatever the hell he's called now) was among the Infinite Crisis dead because of some upcoming cover art? Does anyone else remember the ghost in Aquaman: Sword who said no, he wasn't among the dead? 2, I've seen too darn many people swear they saw early copies and knew blah-blah-blah for a fact and yet the info turned out to be bogus. Allow no room for that crap here. If editors cannot double-check it, keep it out. What's the darn hurry anyway? Doczilla 06:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Plus, spoliers are bad, but spoliers for unreleased comics are even worse. You don't want to read what's in next week's comic before it has even hit the stands. A completely different thing are of course comics that were officially announced but in the end never released. Such info can be very interesting, if only for someone who has seen the announcement and is searching mad for it because he doesn't know it has never been released... 07:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't write that "spoliers" paragraph. Sign your postings. Doczilla 19:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I did. I apparently put not enough squiggly lines at the end... Fram 04:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Okey-dokey. All grins now. Doczilla 05:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

"Narrative Hyperbole about characters"?

New issue. A Given Internet Protocol User (or GIPU) has been making edits at the Cassandra Cain article, insisting that information added from a comic isn't appropriate. Specifically, analysis of the character's abilities by a panel of fictional scientific experts in the issue. Now, for the time being, a little look over might be all that's required. However, this may also be larger issue for debate. Can "narrative" from other fictional characters in a comic book be accepted into an article for descriptive purposes? ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 07:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I could see that as a case by case issue. If I were to blanket rule on this I'd think just barring hyperbole would be enough, but it seems that there might be times when aspects of a character's power cannot be easily depicted and the only "proof" of them is another character's narrative. --Newt_ΨΦ 13:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite it from an out of universe perspective and it's fine to include. I'll copyedit it to show you what I mean. Hiding Talk 14:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

If statements from characters is not an acceptable source, what is? Naration boxes? In many comics of the last ten or fifteen years, speech baloons are all the text there is.

I say only if it's consistently remarked upon by the characters, or if it's being cited for a particular point. WesleyDodds 10:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

GA, Peer review, and FA

I was going to post a request to assistance for Spider-Man which has been placed on hold for a Good Article nomination due to lack of citations, when I noticed this project doesn't have a listing for Good Article nominations, articles at Peer Review, or Featured Articles candidates (that I can see). Having worked on various music Wikiprojects, I have found such listings to be helpful additions to the communal development of articles. Along with a list of certified Featured Articles (which is at Portal:Comics), it helps remind contributors what needs work and it gives users a sense of what we're aiming for as a standard. I'm not sure sure where this would go (project page, notice board, somewhere else), but it's something I recommend.

Oh yeah, Spider-Man needs in-line citations. Bust out your back issues of Wizard! No, I don't care if you ruin the polybag and the collectible card contained within! WesleyDodds 07:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have a background with this sort of thing, will you work on it with me? I have been wanting to put such a project together, but it's a bit difficult for me to understand how to start it, and I've been busy lately. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 07:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

That's the thing: it doesn't need to be a separate project (unless you want to get really involved and make coordinated efforts to nominate articles and the like). It's like what we've set up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative music. Basiclaly just a list of what's what. This list can in turn be used in conjuction with stuff like Collaboration of the Month to determine what should receive due attention and contributions from fellow editors. The main effort would be keeping track of the nominations lists for GA, FA, and peer review, especially since people are going to nominate these articles with or without the guidance of the Wikiproject anyways. WesleyDodds 07:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Comics related GA I can find: Alan Moore, Believers, Graphic novel, and Newshounds. FA: The Adventures of Tintin, Batman, Calvin and Hobbes, Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Felix The Cat, Krazy Kat, and Watchmen. Dragon Ball Z is a featured article candidate. No featured lists, no external peer reviews, and I haven't checked the featured pictures. Fram 08:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

X-Men is also currently a Good Article candidate. WesleyDodds 08:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Superman is a featured article, too. --Fritz S. (Talk) 10:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Roster Order

For the roster in the superhero and supervillain teams we should put it in abc order for it to be more readable. Brian Boru is awesome 22:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Speculation Highlights

In Civil War (comics), several editors argued during the past month or so that Thor had returned and joined SHIELD and refused to be persuaded not to leave such speculation out. They were, of course, wrong. Natasha Irons has contained pretty awful speculation that her name was to be Lumina, based solely on a very preliminary pencil sketch featured in the barely citable magazine Wizard:The Guide to Our Advertisers.

Stop doing this. If you don't know whether it's the truth, don't add it. Ask for help on the discussion page for the article, or on this one. Don't assume, don't speculate, and don't argue with a ferocity inversely proportionate to your knowledge of the information. If it's not in a comic that has been distributed, do not cite it. Do not make guesses based on the cover or solicitation information - both sources of the many other errors Civil War (comics) has featured over the past few months on its road to becoming one of the most error-riddled, inaccurate, and speculative articles in the project.

Again: Please don't add information unless you can point other editors to a reputable source that verifies your claim. If an editor cannot, I ask that other editors involve let me and the rest of the editors here know that it is going on so that we can resolve the matter. This WikiProject is generally accurate; errors like these erode the work the majority of us do, as well as the reputation of the project. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy stresses that this is not a place for speculation. That Civil War article is such a mess that, even though I've pegged it in my watch list, I rarely look at it. Why make assumptions? There's no reason for them. The facts will emerge. Don't put speculation, no matter how obvious it seems. If it's not explicitly in the comic, it's not explicitly in the comic. How hard is that? Doczilla 08:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Outside people unfamiliar with comics but coming here to what they perceive to be a trusted, handy, all-in-one source (because they read about something comics-related in the press, or for school, or business, or because they're just getting into comics) deserve to get the same strict, factual information they'd expect to get in a professional print source.

We're not a newsletter, or Wizard. We're an encyclopedia. All of us are experts to some degree or another, newbies and longtimers alike. We know the facts. We just need a little patience to source things and not add anything immediately that we wouldn't put in a professional publication with our byline. Here, here, Chris and Doc. --Tenebrae 15:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's the associated link. - jc37 17:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Comics Dopple effect

There's kind of a Doppler effect with a number of articles among editors right now: Every detail of a current comic seems so very important until after the series. Then, it becomes obvious that those minor characters, etc. are minor. Current details appear to seem more important than old ones, or sections on Civil War, Infinite Crisis and 52 wouldn't be as long or longer than the entire history of characters that have been around for 20 years (Booster Gold) or even 35 years (Elongated Man).

We need to be careful about putting too much emphasis on recent publications. We don't know how important these stories are to the history of these characters, so take it easy on reproducing every detail. I just cut down a plot summary of Ion:Awesomest Dude in Space #1-6 that dwarfed the description of the rest of Kyle Rayner's history. When Rayner's entire JLA career is captured in a paragraph or two, we don't need three sentences about how a mug Kyle uses has the name Radu on it. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

As an observation or three...

1. Based on the structure here, it seems likely that the current information is what is going to spur on someone to add, to or create, an article. As such it's going to have more length and detail in it.
2. A good chunk of what is important for the "in story" portion of the articles is going to be subjective. As such it's going to need other eyes looking at to decide what is germane and what is chaff.
3. Looking at the examples you pulled for the first paragraph, there is a legitimate argument that could be made that the series listed are of more import than the characters. Also, if plot elements are included in a series article, those titles are extremely dense on appearances, plot elements, and cross-over references. Regardless of age, some characters can be covered in extremely short articles, either by dint of little use, or little development.

All of that being said, it may not be a case of too much emphasis, or time, being spent on the new, but a lack of time and effort being applied to the old. — J Greb 18:27, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you've nailed it. It's tough to go back and write about something that either came out before you were reading comics or something you've got packed away in the basement and haven't seen in years. But it's easy to write about something you read last week.

On the plus side, detailed info about the current storylines will make it easy to cut it down to the relevant bits once it's all over. But there's going to be some bias toward the new, no matter what we do. Good information is hard to come by the farther back you go. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 20:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

External Links Row

An argument between myself and another user has developed over the external links on Marvel Masterworks, DC Archive Editions, Essential Marvel Comics, and Showcase Presents. Originally, on the first three of these pages, the The Marvel Masterworks Resource Home Page was linked as a resource on the subject, as was The DC Archive Edition (unofficial) Home Page to the third one. However, back in December 2005, Chrisccl added links to his website from each of these 4 pages (as well as Timely Comics, but he seems to have given up on linking his site there, so that's irrelevent). He added to the links section:

Collected Comics Library The premiere site for news and information for DC Archive Editions, Marvel Masterworks, Marvel Essentials, other high-end comic books and trade paperbacks! Complete with Syndicated Content Feeds and Podcasts.

When I read this, I thought "self-promotional advert." So I removed the promotional text, leaving just Collected Comics Library, saying in my edit comments, "Wikipedia is not a place for adverts".

However, the next day, I found Chrisccl had re-added his links, with exactly the same self-promotional text as he had last time. So this time, I removed the website description from each of the links, gave my reasoning for doing so, and left a comment on Chrisccl's talk page notifying him of what I was doing.

Some time later, in June to be precise, after I checked out his site, I found it provided no information the other two external links I've cited above did not, so I removed his link from each of the four pages, feeling it was redundant. May I point out that I have only actually deleted his links once.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Chrisccl. Why he did not discuss with me his issues with what I had done on my talk page or on the Marvel Masterworks talk page, I do not know. I have "e-mail from other users" disabled on Wikipedia, so he must have searched for my e-mail address on the Internet. Anyway, he had the following to say:

Mr. rst20xx,

You have once again deleted my link on the External Links section of the following pages:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Masterworks
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Marvel_Comics
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Archive_Editions

I do not understand what the issue is. Comparatively, I provide the same information (and in some cases more) then the Marvelmasterworks.com (http://www.marvelmasterworks.com/) site and the DC Archive Editions Homepage (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dstepp14/DCArchives.htm).

Yet, you keep on deleting my simple External links that does not intrude on any other site and should be available to the public.

I understand that you are the creator of these Wikipedia pages, but that alone does not give you the right to pick and choose which link you like better then others. I see no other explanation as to why you continually delete my links other then you simply do not like me - which is a petty and childish argument. You have stated to me a year ago that you will report me to Wikipedia and the:WikiProject Comics, I welcome the opportunity to get this resolved. I am confident that the Administrators will side with me on this issue.

The solution is a simple one that that can be settled between us. Simply allow me to put my links back up and be done with me. I would like to avoid any entanglements as I'm sure you do to. Otherwise, I am prepared to take this further.

Sincerely,

Chris Marshall

Collected Comics Library

http://collectedcomicslibrary.blogspot.com/

To which I simply replied,

OK, so. What information does your website provide on Masterworks (let's start with Masterworks) that http://www.marvelmasterworks.com and the Wikipedia article on Marvel Masterworks don't provide?

Because there is no information it provides that is not already covered. I then got the following response (by the way, "John" runs http://www.marvelmasterworks.com):

Rst20xx,

Before contacting you yesterday, I e-mailed a few experts that I know that deal with Wikipedia on a regular basis in order to get my facts straight. I informed them of your practices of removing my links without first contacting me personally and to discuss any agreement that we can come to. Since you have made no effort on you part, you may be at a serious risk of being suspended or, even worse, banned from participating in any editing of any Wikipedia page, even the pages that you created.

After further review, I noticed that you have removed my links from not only the DC Archive Edition page, but also the DC Showcase Presents page. You had no hand whatsoever in creating these pages, therefore you have absolutely no right in deleting my links form these pages at all. If you feel that my link is obtrusive, it is up to you to contact the creator of the page to settle any differences with me. If you cannot contact the creator of said page, then you should contact Wikipedia to handle the situation. You, on the other hand, decided to take matters in you own hands and delete my links without notice to anyone, including me. This is in direct violation of Wikipedia practices.

I will let you know that I will be putting my links back up on at least those two pages. Again if you feel that my links are in error, use the proper protocols.

But for the moment, I’ll indulge you.

If you want to get into site comparison, let’s first look at what separates your Wiki page from both John’s site and mine. The Wiki page that you created, less then a year ago, is a stripped down copy cat version of both of our sites that have been on the internet since the mid-1990’s. You have a checklist, history and cover-art of the books. These items have been on our sites for years, it looks to me like you just came along and copied it from various sources around the web. I see no artistic endeavors by you and I see absolutely nothing on your page that the general public can’t find on our two sites.

As for the Essentials, your Wiki page provides the same information as above yet, you lack the cover art.

John and I have had our differences in the past, but we have both moved on from that. Our sites are vastly different now then what we both were when we started out at roughly the same time. He, for one, is now a paid freelancer by Marvel Comics and he runs a site called MarvelMasterworks.com, so I would hope that he would be an authority on the subject, even more so than your simplistic Wiki page. I, however do not get paid by any comic book company and I offer something that John does not – my weekly podcasts. If you’re not sure what a podcast is, look it up on Wikipedia.

Although I don’t have to divulge this information to you, I will anyhow. My weekly podcast gets over 1000 downloads per episode. I pride myself on being chosen to be a panelist at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con. People who are selected to be on panels are considered experts in their field; my field is not only podcasting, but also all types of collected editions from many different companies, not just Archives, Masterworks and Essentials.

I think in some way you are trying to make this a Chris vs. John argument, which is not what this is all about. I have no problem with John or anything that he does. I have moved on from him and we have not e-mailed each other in over a year. I wish him all the best when it comes to his comic book, I truly do. What this is about is you and me.

In closing, as I said in my pervious e-mail, a simple way to resolve this would be to allow me to post my link on the Masterworks and Essential pages. I reiterate that you face some serious charges and long, drawn out, frustration and possible banishment from Wikipedia. You can resolve this all by yourself very quickly. It’s just a simple External Resources link and that’s it. It no big deal. You may have created the pages and maintain them, but you do not own the pages. Wikipedia does. It is a page that you designed for public use and the public has a right to know that there are other websites on the internet that have an interest in Masterworks and Essentials. It doesn’t matter which site is better then the other. Someone visiting the Wiki page should be given all alternative external resources from the Wiki page. In that regard, I have just as much right to have my link on those pages as John. We may not be friends, but he would have to agree with me. I know that my friends within Wikipedia do.

Chris Marshall

I think the only way this is going to be resolved is here at Wikiproject Comics, and seeing what others say. I have put this e-mail chain in so everyone has all the facts. I hope Chris doesn't mind my doing so, but, I did not choose to be contacted by e-mail ANYWAY, hence my e-mail address not being available on Wikipedia. I feel this discussion should have occured on Wikipedia, so I further feel I am perfectly entitled to put what was said on Wikipedia.

As for my response to the points Chris raised in his last e-mail, let's go through his e-mail.

Before contacting you yesterday, I e-mailed a few experts that I know that deal with Wikipedia on a regular basis in order to get my facts straight. I informed them of your practices of removing my links without first contacting me personally and to discuss any agreement that we can come to. Since you have made no effort on you part, you may be at a serious risk of being suspended or, even worse, banned from participating in any editing of any Wikipedia page, even the pages that you created.

There is no way I will be banned simply for deleting his links from a few pages on one occassion (I only actually deleted the links once, not several times).

Furthermore, while it is true that I did not enter into discussion with Chris before deleting his link descriptions, I did contact him on his talk page telling him that I had done so after I did it; furthermore I gave my reasoning. To reiterate, my reasoning was that I felt that his website didn't provide any information the already-linked sites did not (in fact less), and also that the language he used when you first put his links up was very self-promotional; it read like an advert. Quote "The premiere site for news and information for DC Archive Editions, Marvel Masterworks, Marvel Essentials, other high-end comic books and trade paperbacks! Complete with Syndicated Content Feeds and Podcasts." And advertisements/self-promotion on Wikipedia is not allowed; only useful external links and references are.

It is he who chose not to discuss the case in a civilised manner on the talk page at that time, as is the norm for Wikipedia. Not me. What he did was simply skulk away from the issue. He portrays me as very uncivilised in the last paragraph; yet unlike me, and contrary to what he says, he failed to make any attempt to discuss the issue before he started this e-mail chain. He could have replied to my points on the Masterworks talk page, or contacted me at my user page, both of which are standard courses of action for dispute resolution. But no, instead he sought out my e-mail address elsewhere, and contacted me via e-mail.

After further review, I noticed that you have removed my links from not only the DC Archive Edition page, but also the DC Showcase Presents page. You had no hand whatsoever in creating these pages, therefore you have absolutely no right in deleting my links form these pages at all. If you feel that my link is obtrusive, it is up to you to contact the creator of the page to settle any differences with me. If you cannot contact the creator of said page, then you should contact Wikipedia to handle the situation. You, on the other hand, decided to take matters in you own hands and delete my links without notice to anyone, including me. This is in direct violation of Wikipedia practices.

Firstly as I pointed out already I did contact him, he just chose to ignore it. Secondly, I don't know what the creator of the Archive/Showcase pages has to do with this. Chris, I think you misunderstand how Wikipedia works. The creator of a page isn't its owner, and has no say in what goes on that page. It is through consensus that decisions are reached as to what goes on a page. Consensus amongst users is generally reached through discussion on the talk page(s) of the page(s) in question. I initiated such a discussion, notified you I had done so on your talk page, you ignored it.

If you want to get into site comparison, let’s first look at what separates your Wiki page from both John’s site and mine. The Wiki page that you created, less then a year ago, is a stripped down copy cat version of both of our sites that have been on the internet since the mid-1990’s. You have a checklist, history and cover-art of the books. These items have been on our sites for years, it looks to me like you just came along and copied it from various sources around the web.

Firstly, at no point did I compare the Wikipedia page to your/John's sites. Secondly, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I used the Marvel Masterworks site (as well as marvel.com and Amazon and Tales of Wonder) when creating the Marvel Masterworks page. This is called referencing, or using sources. Not copying. And the information on the Wikipedia site is all of a factual nature; it is all information you and John got directly from Marvel anyway. So by your logic, Chris, I could call you a copy-cat, too. Don't try and make out that I copied your and John's original work, because I did not copy any original work. In fact when it comes to your site, I didn't even know it existed until you added the link. So I definitely didn't copy anything from there!

I see no artistic endeavors by you and I see absolutely nothing on your page that the general public can’t find on our two sites.

Well of course there are no "artistic endevours", original research on Wikipedia is not allowed. And again, of course all the stuff on the Wikipedia page can be found on the two sites; Wikipedia is (once again) an encyclopedia, it presents only the facts, and only to a level of detail deemed reasonable for one page on an encyclopedia. When it comes to Masterworks, or Essentials, or whatever, Wikipedia is not some specialist site; it has one page of information on each. MM/CCL have several pages. Of course they have more information!

John and I have had our differences in the past, but we have both moved on from that. Our sites are vastly different now then what we both were when we started out at roughly the same time. He, for one, is now a paid freelancer by Marvel Comics and he runs a site called MarvelMasterworks.com, so I would hope that he would be an authority on the subject, even more so than your simplistic Wiki page.

Of course he's more of an authority, but a Wikipedia entry is not meant to be the ultimate authority on all information related to a subject; if it was, then we wouldn't need external links at all!

I, however do not get paid by any comic book company

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

and I offer something that John does not – my weekly podcasts. If you’re not sure what a podcast is, look it up on Wikipedia.

Although I don’t have to divulge this information to you, I will anyhow. My weekly podcast gets over 1000 downloads per episode. I pride myself on being chosen to be a panelist at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con. People who are selected to be on panels are considered experts in their field; my field is not only podcasting, but also all types of collected editions from many different companies, not just Archives, Masterworks and Essentials.

Yes, I know what a podcast is. But, reading Chris's argument, and looking at his site, the only thing his site offers that John's doesn't offer in more depth, is the podcast. But does this podcast provide any news related to Masterworks/Essentials/Showcases/Archives that the other two sites don't? No, it does not. Does it matter that it does not, seeing as how the news is presented in a different format? That is open to debate.

I think in some way you are trying to make this a Chris vs. John argument, which is not what this is all about. I have no problem with John or anything that he does. I have moved on from him and we have not e-mailed each other in over a year. I wish him all the best when it comes to his comic book, I truly do. What this is about is you and me.

He says this, but, I get the feeling he is so passionately defending his links not only because it is his site in question, but also, because the alternative to his site is John's. But that's beside the point.

The point is, I wasn't turning this into a Chris v John argument, but a CCL v MM argument. When it comes to Masterworks/Essentials/Showcases/Archives, the other sites provide everything CCL does and more (except providing news in the form of podcasts). Therefore, they are better resources on these subjects. And therefore, Chris's (self-promotional) link is not needed.

It doesn’t matter which site is better then the other. Someone visiting the Wiki page should be given all alternative external resources from the Wiki page.

I disagree with this. If there are two links to two resources, and one resource provides everything the other does and more, then the second one is a redundant link, essentially link spam, and may be removed. But does MM.com provide everything CCL.com does and more? Well podcasts aside, definitely - all his site has is checklists, cover scans, solicitation text, and a brief history of each format. Which is barely more than the Wikipedia articles cover, especially the Masterworks/Essentials ones. MM.com further provides in depth reviews of not only each book but each issue contained within each book, as well as information on what future volumes may contain/look like. With the podcasts, Chris's site still does not provide any news relating to these 4 areas that can't be found on MM.com - however, it does provide the news in a different format. It is open to debate as to whether giving people a choice of news formats means that Chris's site merits inclusion on the Wikipedia page.

I reiterate that you face some serious charges and long, drawn out, frustration and possible banishment from Wikipedia.

Please do not threaten me. Since when Chris actually bothered to contact me about this, I have been nothing but civil, and open to discussing this.

Is Hu12 one of Chris's "Wikipedia expert" friends? Because he has now gone about and deleted all the MarvelMastworks.com links from the pages, or put up "link spam" notices, accusing the MM.com links of being there for "commercial" reasons. Firstly, I didn't even know we were arguing about the rights of MM.com to be linked from these pages. And secondly, there is nothing "commercial" about MM.com, nor self-promotional, as it was not anyone involved in MM.com who put the links up. Unlike CCL, which was/is promotional. Chris, if you had nothing to do with Hu12, I appologise.

So - should the links stay, or go?

And I appreciate all this is making a mountain out of a molehill :P -- rst20xx 18:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Blogs are specifically listed as Links to Avoid in the guidelines for External Links. CovenantD 18:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hate to simplify that whole giant discussion, but Covenant is right, blogs are strongly discouraged. --InShaneee 20:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

For the record I do not know who Hu12 is. If my site/blog is deemed inappropriate I will comply. But I have to ask the experts here, I gave Rst20xx absolutely no permission to use the private e-mail I sent him, for posting on this website. It was intended for him and him alone. I don't mean to nick pick, but there must be some rule against this. And if you want to get technical, Rst20xx says that, "there is nothing "commercial" about MM.com". That's not true whatsoever. A Commercial site is a website with a global presence for your business to securely do business over the Internet. Also referred to as: E-commerce websites, Electronic store front or Virtual store. MM.com has links throughout the website that link to a third party comic book retailer that does global business. The owner of MM.com makes a profit from every sale conducted through his website. That to me is commercialism. --Chrisccl 21:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any rule of law or policy that keeps him from posting correspondence from you, with or without your consent, at least not when not he is not seeking to defame your character and he posts it in its entirety to keep context. I would suggest in the future just posting your problems with his edits on his talk page or on the talk pages of the articles in question. If you'd like you can look here for the guidance on external links in Wikipedia. --Newt_ΨΦ 21:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

OK good point Chris about MM.com having sponsored links to TOW/Amazon - I forgot about that. Anyway, that aside, as I said, I felt that I should be allowed to post what you said here, because 1 you should have contacted me on Wikipedia, not by e-mail, 2 I did not give out my e-mail on Wikipedia, so I could equally argue you breached policy by going and looking for my e-mail elsewhere, and 3 you said in the e-mail that we should debate this on Wikipedia, and I felt the fairest way to do so would be to get down exactly what everyone has said so far.

As for Hu12, looking at his user contributions, it appears he is a user who spends his time removing link spam from Wikipedia. So iedits are just an amusingly-timed coincidence. Sorry for the accusation. rst20xx 22:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Blogs are discouraged. Advertising is banned. Once you send someone an e-mail, it's theirs to do with as they please. What what "experts" is Chrisccl talking about? Telling someone they can be banned is either fraudulent or idiotic. You do not have to contact anyone about removing their link. Moreover, you should not contact someone personally over removing their link. They can discover it for themselves. When Chrisccl reposted the link, he should have added an edit summary explaining why it was worthy of re-addition, specifically addressing the advert issue that had been raised. Doczilla 00:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Chrisccl definitely should not have added the links in the first place: From the list of links normally to be avoided: "A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns; neutrality is an important objective at Wikipedia, and a difficult one. If it is relevant and informative, mention it on the talk page and let other — neutral — Wikipedia editors decide whether to add the link." --Fritz S. (Talk) 17:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• Disputes (ongoing and personal) not related directly to project pages should be taken to Request for Mediation. Removal of the http// in this discussion can help keeping a NPOV as links are the nature of this problem. Both sites violate links normally to be avoided.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hu12 (talk • contribs) .

Hero X?

Has anyone ever heard of this character? He's listed in the Titans category page. --Basique 22:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you ask the creator of the article. CovenantD 23:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

All I can find under that name is some foreign video/computer game. Seems like a non-notible minor character from silver age TT. If the article credit can't cite the issue and/or it doesn't meet notibly standards, submit it for deletion. ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 23:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

There are 681 hits for "Hero X" teen titans on google. I didn't read past the first page but the fifth hit has a picture of him about half way down the page. - Peregrinefisher 03:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep I see, it's supposed to be Chris King the kid from Dial H for Hero, I guess the page's creator didn't know that. --Basique 10:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

correction - It isn't Chris King, it's a guy in a costume i've never seen before who's directly below Chris King in that link. He was apparently an uncredited Team Titan character, thanks for the link. --Basique 10:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this supposed to point to Hero Cruz? I've heard of him before. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 11:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it looks like he was an uncredited member of the future Team Titans team, and whoever added him to the Titans page named him themselves. And then the page was built based on a non-canonical name. I think this actually set a precedent, I originally thought he was just a really obscure character like the Moondancers, Human Cannonball (DC) and the Elementals (DC). --Basique 13:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Redundant formatting

What's the correct way to mention for the first time the first appearance and creators of a character? I ask because Moon Knight says Werewolf by Night and Doug Moench and Don Perlin (creators) three times at the top of the page; the intro, the infobox, and Publication history. I've been putting it in the intro and the infobox myself, but I never check the other sections to see if they have it as well. - Peregrinefisher 04:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Another question as I read Moon Knight: should the picture caption read Promotional art of Moon Knight descending to the city streets. Art by David Finch. (as it does) or should Promotional art be left out? - Peregrinefisher 04:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No, it is promotional art. It's good to say what the image actually is. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Does it really matter if it's there 3 times? --Jamdav86 12:54, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Category/Subcategory questions

I've noticed that there has been some edits and re-edits regarding category tags related to comic book characters. I'm new here, so please bear with me if this has been brought up before, but is there a hard, fast guideline as to what is valid for be considered a category, or a sub-category?

I'm going to use the list of categories from Blue Devil as an example of where my confusion is coming in.:

• These I fully understand:

• DC Comics superheroes
• Fictional Catholics
• Fictional demons
• Fictional Irish-Americans
• Justice League (animated) members
• Justice League members
• Sentinels of Magic members
• Shadowpact members
• 1984 introductions

• These I think I understand:

• DC Comics characters with super strength
• Fictional characters with the power of accelerated healing

Though I would ask why one is "/Publisher/ character with /power/" and the other is "Fictional character with /power/".

• These I need some help with:

• DC Comics titles
• Fictional Americans in DC Comics

Shouldn't the first be reserved for an article dealing with the publication, not the character? Since there is little, aside from the publication date of the first issue of that book, in this article, it looks out of place.

As for the, it see redundant (covered by "Fictional Irish-Americans" and "DC Comics superheroes"), if not silly. Is there a reason this type of category would be created?

Thanks for the help — J Greb 18:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I stirred up more than I anticipated. I completely agree that "Fictional Americans in DC Comics" is a superfluous category. I don't think it should exist. It is inherently redundant Last night, I went through cleaning up some of the articles included, but brought unfavorable attention from contributors I think well of, so today I just went through and undid most of my own edits so somebody wouldn't keep wasting their time cleaning up after me -- not that I think my edits were wrong, but we'll let people hash this out first. That said, this should be up for discussion. It's a ridiculous category.

As a couple of us have point out elsewhere, anyone can do the math and see that if we create categories covering every possible combination of categories, Wikipedia will have more categories than articles. Doczilla 19:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

He gets "titles" because he had his own eponymous solo book. The usual practice is to have characters and their series share articles unless it's impractical to do so. Solution to that world be to simply add more info on the series.

"Fictional Americans in DC Comics" is kind of a questionable category, as the majority of DC characters are American. But as far as I can tell, not redundant. Not all fictional Irish-Americans are DC characters, and not all DC Americans are superheroes or Irish. Or vice-versa. The obvious solution would be to make a "DC Comics Irish Americans" category and make it a subcategory of DC Americans and Fict. Irish-Americans. I don't know if that's worthwhile, though. How many are there, really? I guess it exists to be a subcategory of "Category:Fictional Americans."

For the powers, "accelerated healing" is much less common than super strength. Super strength was split up to smaller categories to make it manageable, but healing wasn't. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 19:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in and of itself, it's not redundant, but it becomes redundant when you can separately classify the character as both "Fictional American" and "DC Comics superhero" (supervillain, etc.). Why not "Fictional right-handed newscasters who wear glasses in DC Comics" or "Fictional insane clown serial killers"? These combinations can get ridiculous. Doczilla 19:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC) (And I know why not. Those hypothetical categories are too small to bother. But "Fictional blond right-handed men in DC Comics" wouldn't be. It would be big enough to populate but more exclusive than Fictional Americans.) Doczilla 20:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• Fictional Americans in DC Comics

A subcat of Fictional American comics characters, which is a subcat of Fictional Americans by media, which is a subcat of Fictional Americans, which was so overpopulated when the DC subcat was created (by me) as to be unwieldy. Without the subcats, Fictional Americans would be several thousand entries long. I don't agree with the overall structure in all cases, or even the need to categorize comics characters by nationality, but much of it was already in place when the DC and Marvel subcats were created. Enough people are continuing to add to these categories (with varying degrees of accuracy) that there seems to be a desire for them. CovenantD 19:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"Fictional Americans in DC Comics" is probably going to remain necessary as long as there are "Fictional (nationality) characters" categories. The US creates so much media that it seems kind of rediculous from that POV, but for many other nationalities it's kind of important. Category:Fictional Americans is huge and needs to be split up.

Please don't make up silly categories just to make a point. It doesn't help your argument. No one in their right mind would make categories like that. Fictional Blondes has been deleted 3 times, and it's almost always impossible to tell if a character is right or left handed. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 19:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's the problem:

• Cat:Fictional Americans

• Fictional Americans by ethnicity

• Fictional Irish-Americans

• Blue Devil

• Fictional Americans by media

• Fictional American comics characters

• Fictional Americans in DC Comics

• Blue Devil

Same character, but listed 2 different ways in the same category. Is this the intended use? — J Greb 19:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Think so, yeah. That looks right. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 19:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

While I still wholeheartedly agree that "Fictional Americans in DC Comics" is silly, Irish-American refers to ethnic identification whereas American refers firstly to nationality, so they're not the same thing. On a separate note, HKM, what doesn't help my argument? Using a hypothetical example to illustrate the potential silliness? My whole point is that overly specific categorization is silly. Doczilla 20:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

There have indeed been some exceedingly silly categories during the past few months. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 01:05, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Doczilla - using a rediculous example when we're talking about reasonable ones doesn't help. "Fictional Americans in DC comics" exists to break up "Fictional Americans by media" into a reasonable size -- it doesn't exist in isolation. (That said, I begin to wonder why there isn't a category like "Fictional evil clowns"... don't answer that...) --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 04:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

CfD

I was about to name these and more up for CfD, when I noticed this discussion on my watch list. I still may.

• Comment - If wanted, all of these should likely be lists, not categories. Lists can provide citations/references, and categories cannot. Also, confusion abounds - rhetorical: If you are a member of the Justice League of America, are you an American? If you appeared on the street of an american city, and your back-story hasn't been explained, are you presumed to be an american? How many comic book characters do you know that actually show the birth place of that character? Or even show them performing an action that only a citizen of the country can do (like run for President of the US, or vote).

Here's what I have so far:

Delete the following:

• Category:Fictional Americans by media
• Category:Fictional American comics characters
• Category:Fictional Americans in DC Comics
• Category:Fictional Americans in Marvel Comics

Keep

• Category:United States-themed superheroes
• Category:Archie Comics characters

Keep, as these two fall under other umbrella categories:

• Category:American computer and video game characters
• Category:American manga and anime characters

Rename

• Category:Fictional American television characters to Category:Fictional characters of American television
• Category:Fictional Australian television characters to Category:Fictional characters of Australian television

Though I actually favour deletion for the last two, at least the rename would clarify the distinction between fictional americans, and characters of american television. (And compares well to Category:American television series).

• Create - Caregory:Fictional characters of television by country as the parent category for the above two (and any further categories, such as British or Brazilian), if they are kept.

Comments welcome - jc37 00:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the TV ones, but I'll say amen to other suggestions. (United States-themed superheroes? Interesting.) Doczilla 01:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Nod, I'm going to go look for General Glory later, and add him to that cat, as well : ) - jc37 02:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I can understand you reasoning with regard to the "Fictional /Nationality/" categories. It is very easy to generate immense groups based on country of publication. There is a natural tendency to assume that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, that a fictional character is of the nationality of the setting of the story or series. Since this is an assumption and not a fact established either in story or from the creator or publisher, it is something that should not be included here.

The flip side is that an argument could be made for that being an obvious fact that need not be explicitly stated.

If I had to make a call on it, I'd err on the side of it being a reasonable assumption until contradicted by hard information.

The point I was dealing with above was that "Fictional /Nationality/" is redundant if you already have the character placed into a "Fictional /Ethnicity/-/Nationality/" category.

As for the change you propose for the television cats, those would appear to change the fundamental definition of them. Example: Mister Spock would fit "Fictional characters of American television" but not "Fictional American television characters". — J Greb 03:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with deleting these. While, as I said above, from an American perspective, it seems silly to categorize characters as "Americans" -- from the perspective of other nations it is not so strange. "Fictional Canadians" for instance, is of serious interest to Canadians. I've seen several news articles over the years about Canadian superheroes and so on. The media subcategorizations provide a useful means of zeroing in on those of interest.

If you want to delete these, what about the rest of the subcats of Category:Fictional characters by origin? --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 03:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right. As categories, we need to delete the rest of those subcats. Thanks for pointing that out. Seriously, though, they would all be more appropriate as lists because, as another contributor noted above, you can annotate a list. Citations! (Far too many characters may have been categorized as Americans based on mere assumptions rather than in-story documentation.) Doczilla 04:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Lists and categories can exist together. They're not mutually exclusive. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 04:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

But (1) categorizations are multiplying like crazy and (2) a list doesn't clutter the bottom of an article. Doczilla 04:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of categories, I see that someone created "Category: Fictional characters played by more than one actor" a couple of days ago and is rapidly populating it. It's relevant here because I discovered it through the Joker article. Once you figure in flashbacks, voiceovers, and stunt doubles, I doubt you can easily name any famous character who hasn't been played by more than one actor. (No, that's not off topic.) Doczilla 04:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

See, that I agree has to go. I could see it being defended for some interesting cases... like the husband on "Bewitched"... but anyway... --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 04:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This amused me: One minute after I mentioned that, I discovered that someone else had already nominated the two actors category for deletion. [2] Doczilla 04:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It amuses me even more that they brought up Darrin. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 04:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Re:Lists vs. Categories, while lists don't clutter the article (which I don't think is a problem anyway, but that's a whole other argument) they're also harder to find for that very reason -- the articles they link to don't link back to them. While links could be added, that would defeat the purpose of getting rid of the category in the first place. However, a list can be made the first item in a category listing. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 04:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, every article links back to what links to them through "What links here". Although, to be fair, the point you make about that was why I used to prefer categories over lists myself and, in many cases, a category is better. I just don't care for overly broad or specified categories that become redundant to other categories. The multiplying number of categories will get to be beyond useless. Listing 200 categories at the bottom of an article means I won't read any of them. Doczilla 04:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC) (Thanks for mentioning the stage. We can't forget the Superman musical.) Doczilla 04:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Since this has broad reprecussions for other Projects, I hope they are being informed of this discussion as well. CovenantD

Ugh! I oppose both the delete and the rename options because they are both necessary subcategories of a massive parent category and renaming the last two would incorporate any character in America television, regardless of ethnicity. Right now it's for fictional Americans IN television, not Fictional Americans OF television.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 15:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Both DC's 'Who's Who' and Marvel's 'Official Handbook' had information on the characters' birth places, most of it not sourced in the comics stories themselves. As it was published by the companies themselves AS A REFERENCE to the characters, it seems pretty authoritative to me. Oppose deletes. Icarus 23 16:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

So is Superman an American? I believe I remember reading some story that described him as having been granted citizenship in all countries. That would be quite a lot of categories ("WTF? Why is Superman listed in Category:Hungarians in DC Comics??"). Postdlf 22:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Tricky issue -- because fo the multiple continuities established for the character.

Technically, he was an illegal alien but adopted by U.S. citizens -- I don't know what the law says about minors in such cases. Some time in the 1960's, I believe, one of the Weisinger edited books established that the U.N. (they were considered good guys in thise days...) had granted him citizenship in ALL member countries. If anyone wants, I'll check M. Fleisher's 'Great Superman Book' for more specific reference.

When Byrne did his 'Man of Steel' revamp, he used the 'Birthing matrix' idea, where young Kal was growing in an artificial womb, and was born in the United States in Smallville, Kansas after his flight here from Krypton. One of the pre-Zero Hour annuals involving Waverider showed Superman running for President after the DC Universe courts decided that he was a native borne US Citizen.

Sorry it's not more clear, but I didn't write it... Icarus 23 00:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Things are getting tense in Gotham City

See what I did there with that clever pun? Someone please explain the use of present tense to ThuranX (talk · contribs), who says that Green Lantern can't exist in both 1945 and the present and has repeatedly called me a bully - something I got tired of during a previous template discussion. I'm out of patience. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 18:20, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a solution to this would be to follow what they do at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth: Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards#Tenses. Just as the stories in Middle-earth are part of a history of a larger world, So too, could we say that about the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe. - jc37 18:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so, no. Comics are written as if they're happening now, not as the history of a fictional world or memoirs of past adventures. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 19:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of which, the out-of-universe rewrite of the section in question has done wonders to make the bit more readable and sensible. So, yay~! --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 19:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Just 2 observations here:

1. Some stories, or portions there of, in comics have be presented as recollections. This covers everything from small flashbacks (example: origin recaps) to the entire content of an issue (example: the "Times Past" stories from James Robinson's Starman series). Using a variation of "Present tense for in continuity material as the books always are presented as present tense" is not a solid premise.
2. Looking at the article in question, it may be prudent to have the "Residents" section reworked to be a bulleted list. Similar to the Mayoral list preceding it.

Just throwing in 2¢ — J Greb 21:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

1. A flashback in a story shows that something has already happened previous to the time at which it is shown within the story, so that the showing is present, and the events are past in reference to that showing. "Near the end of the film, Batman once again remembers the night his parents were killed, and is finally able to clearly see the face of the man who shot them." A story that is completely set in a particular time, however, lacks that internal reference to the past in the form of a present narrator, etc. "In Gotham by Moblight, a story set in the 17th century, the city is depicted as a Swiss colony, which the British sack fifteen times in their attempts to take it." It's then historical fiction, not history, and so the story occurs in that historical time.

Postdlf 21:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Two vary good examples, however:

The treatment you rightly show for flashbacks treats the actions related to that event as past tense ("killed" and "shot") while the description of the event having the flashback is in the present ("remembers" and "is able").

The other is a excellent way of handling period pieces as they are generally presented. That is you are witnessing the events as they unfold, not being told them after the fact.

Neither really addresses issues like the "Times Past", some of the Jonah Hex issues, or anything else where the narration boxes basically enforce that someone unseen is telling the reader a story of "times gone by." — J Greb 22:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: flashbacks, yes, that's what I was saying (so I'm not sure why you preceded that with "however"), because the story is depicting that something already has occurred. As for "Times Past" and Jonah Hex, I haven't read either, but I'd think that an unseen narrator that just appears in the form of a narrative caption isn't enough to make the story more of a flashback/recollection than simple historical fiction. Postdlf 02:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Green Goblin's Last Stand

Will somebody look at this one? It appears to be copied word for word from Spider-Fan.org [3]. CovenantD 23:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick look using MS Word? All but identical. Mostly minor, very minor, edits to break up paragraphs, change punctuation, and drop a handful of words. — J Greb 00:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This fan film already has an article at The Green Goblin's Last Stand. The new article should be tagged as possible copyvio (the user who created it might be affiliated with Spiderfan.org), then deleted and recreated as a redirect to the original article. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 00:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

DC COMICS EDITORIAL HIERARCHY

Recent issues of DC's publications have contained a text page by Dan Didio in which he names various members of DC's editorial staff, and gives some information about what they do.

When I look at comic book related entries on this site, I see complex minutia about the fictional histories of characters and their interactions with other characters. What I don't see is much mention of the real-world editorial structure that influenced these stories. If two characters freequently teamed up, isn't it worth mentioning that those two characters were controlled by the same editor?

So I am proposing the creation of a DC Comics Editorial Structure entry to document this part of comic book history. I expect that if the entry is successful, we might also see a Marvel Comics Editorial Structure entry, and possibly others for other publishers.

I don't know if an "editorial structure" article is really the way to go, but I'm all for more description of how editors determined the content of comics, whether in the articles on the comic titles, the characters, or bios of the editors themselves. Postdlf 02:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

How about adding the information to DC Comics and Marvel Comics? It can later be spun off if the content is sufficient to warrant it. It is interesting information, but probably best placed in the articles about the publishers, creators/editors, and titles. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 02:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

DC's editorial structre has particular historical interest considering how isolated each editoral group was, e.g. you can pretty much chart the development of DC comics by what Schwartz was editing in any particular year. However, the danger is just duplicating the history part of the DC Comics entry. Another approach would be a page of lists with DC editors by decade and noting their most important books in that decade. --Jason Kirk 08:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Recursive category

Looks like a new Category was just created: Category:Comic book characters that have been resurrected

The page lacks a parent Category and it references itself on page.

The Cat looks valid, but it needs to be fixed, and I'm unsure how to do that. — J Greb 02:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Fixed it. But I think it may have to be deleted as recreation of deleted material. --HKMarksTALKCONTRIBS 02:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought it looked familiar... CovenantD 02:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Emptied and deleted. I need a cigarette... Postdlf 02:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

"Created by" categories

I know that at some point recently I thought it was not a bad idea for someone to create a "Characters created by Chris Claremont" category, but I not longer think this. This is another case of a list being more suitable than a category: These characters need notation: author input, co-creator, first appearance, information about the impetus for the creation of the character. I just noticed a Grant Morrison category. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 07:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Chris...why would you turn on me like this? That's why I made sure to ask before doing it b/c it took many, many hours to hunt down all these charcters. As for the information that you think should be included, that info will (mostly) be contained in the hero boxes of the linked characters. And as far as the "impetus for the creation of the character", I have yet to find a page with such information contained on it. Please don't delete all my hard work. Tullyman 19:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Category help

Per this now closed CfD/R, category:Fictional elementals needs to be manually recategorised. (See discussion here.) Any and all help would be appreciated. - jc37 18:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Atom (comics)

Do you think we should make two more articles for Adam Cray and Ryan Choi. Brian Boru is awesome 01:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

One for Ryan Choi may make sense, But I would like to see it held of until the character has a bit more of a publishing history.

Adam Cray though... I don't know. I don't think that there would be much more than is currently in the Atom (comics) article. — J Greb 03:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Overall, too little history to bother. Doczilla 04:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Templates again

Okay. Now that my other stuff is settled down, I'm back working on templates again. First up is the new cornflower blue project color, which should be implemented in all of the infoboxes by the time you see this. After that I'm going to add the minor styling tweaks of the templates I've already worked on to {{Supercbbox}} and {{Superteambox}}. Everything up to this point has already been done. Then, I'm going to be adding the translated-edition features of {{Graphicnovelbox}} to {{Supercbbox}}. The last major issue on my queue is detailed usage instructions a la Template talk:Graphicnovelbox#Usage for all of the boxes.

After that, there are a few things I need to run by the project.

Does anyone object to renaming some of these templates? {{Superherobox}} in particular needs a better name, since it's now a unified infobox that covers anything from normal humans in comics to entire alien races. I was thinking Template:Comic character infobox. The other names are also a bit esoteric, but not pressing.

I was also pondering completely revamping the way the infoboxes are structured. The visible appearance wouldn't change, but instead of tables within tables, it'd be one big table. Hopefully, that would fix the goofy inconsistent center line in multi-section examples, as seen here. This would be experimental (and done in userspace until I got it working), but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some reason the templates were structured the way they are now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Another issue that needs project input is at Template talk:Superteambox, where how team membership is handled in the infobox is under discussion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, anyone working on an article for a limited series, graphic novel, story arc, European-style comic book, or anything similar can use {{Graphicnovelbox}}, which is better-suited to comic collections than {{Supercbbox}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, as for characters with superhero-ish abilities but no proper superpowers (e.g. the Punisher's training and arsenal), there's no need to begin the powers parameter in {{Superherobox}} with "None;", as the "Powers" field was renamed "Abilities". - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• They all seem good ideas to me. Hiding Talk 11:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is the master list of all the comics-related info-box templates? Is there a box for non-superhero title characters?--Drvanthorp 02:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Right here.

• {{Superherobox}} - Despite the name, it's for all comic characters super or otherwise, heroic or otherwise. This also covers species that are a collection of essentially similar members (the Brood, the GL Guardians, etc.)
• {{supercbbox}} - For comic book series, longrunning or ongoing.
• {{Graphicnovelbox}} - For comic collections (miniseries, graphic novels, Euro-style comic books, etc.)
• {{Superteambox}} - For teams of comic characters.

You want {{Superherobox}}. There used to be a {{Comiccharacterbox}} for non-super characters, but I merged it into {{superherobox}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

MIB: Could you kill the comma that appears between species and homeworld? It doesn't make grammatical sense. I find it very upsetting, and it makes me re-think everything I stand for. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 17:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Per request, nav boxes

see Wikipedia:Navigational boxes _→AzaToth 12:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Infobox

WikiProject Comics

This WikiProject is about Comics.
Shortcut	WP:COMIC, WP:CMC
Portal	Comics
Parent project(s)	Literature
Project banner template	{{Comics}}
Userbox	{{User WPComics}}

I think they are pretty handy, I make this for the middle earth project from the films wikiproject. I hope you like it. --201 03:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that's unfortunately ugly, unnecessarily huge, and fairly useless. Can we not use that? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the contribution, but I think we already have all the navigational templates we need on the project page. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 07:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't made it, I just saw it in WP:FILM I think it's neat, you get all you need to know there. --201 07:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Hooboy. I know I'm going to razzed for this, but I actually like it. I've been looking at numerous WikiProject pages this week, and I think something like this would (1) be handy to newcomers and (2) give more consistency with other WikiProject pages (well, with some others anyway). I like the word balloon as a symbol to represent comics. After all these months, this is the first time I've ever seen the comics portal page, and I finally checked it out while examining this thing. (I feel so ashamed.) Doczilla 08:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I do really like the word balloon, although it is already in a lot of WP:CMC templates. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 12:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't like it, but I'm mostly wondering where such an infobox would be used. On article talk pages? Article pages? User talk pages? The project page only? Fram 08:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe it would go on the project page only, positioned like the one at WP:FILM. Doczilla 16:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not completely against this template, but I think that {{WPCMC}} serves us really well, and better than this one would. Do we put this on all the project pages? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 17:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Our existing WPCMC box clearly has more resources, of course. Doczilla 17:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Nononono, hahaha! The infobox is only placed at the top of the wikiproject page. I didn't made it up, it's from other Wikiprojects. I guess I should have explained that at first.

It is handy because with that newcomers don't have to scan for the user template, notice template, the portal, shorcuts, etc.

In the wikiproject "film" case, they use the same logo they use for everything. --201 19:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"I is handy"? Maybe you meant "It is handy" there, but I'm sorry, I don't get "I the wikiproject..." Did you mean "In"? Doczilla 20:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, do we need to get checkuser again? Hiding Talk 20:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh shit. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Here we go again...? —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 23:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm realizing it is kind of wide. But I know some guys are contacting the creator to reduce the size.--201 00:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I like the large word ballon but I think it needs to have something inside it. --Basique 23:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Plot summaries redux

Okay, I checked in at wikia:comics and they've indicated they're happy to have info transwikid across. I've set up a template to place in the external links section of an article, {{Comicswikia}}. What they basically look for is short plot summaries of each individual issue. Now there's no great consensus that such detailed plot summary should be here, and since there's another wiki that would welcome such info, I don't see why we can't solve the problem by transwiki. To transwiki, you need to copy across the info, and link to the page diff in which you remove the info in the edit summary when you add it, and also leave a message with that diff on the talk page of the article, noting the "I've performed a transwiki from foo, all history up to this edit to be taken as history of the information copied across". Or something like that. Hiding Talk 14:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)