| Revision as of 11:44, 7 January 2006 editStevage (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers11,862 edits Change guideline template to include shortcut← Previous edit | Revision as of 13:23, 12 January 2006 edit undoThe Wookieepedian (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users13,875 edits →Examples: added star warsNext edit → | ||
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| ===Examples=== | ===Examples=== | ||
| *] from the '']'' films is a major character, and the major points of his character are covered in the article, but he is elaborated on in a separate article devoted to the character. | |||
| *] from the '']'' books is a major character, and has her own article because the main article would get too long otherwise. | *] from the '']'' books is a major character, and has her own article because the main article would get too long otherwise. | ||
| *Prince Corwin from '']'' (and sequels) is a major character, and is covered in the main article. | *Prince Corwin from '']'' (and sequels) is a major character, and is covered in the main article. | ||
Revision as of 13:23, 12 January 2006
 | This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
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| Notability |
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| General notability guideline |
| Subject-specific guidelines |
| See also |
Fiction in Misplaced Pages
- Major characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If the article on the work itself becomes long, then giving major characters an article of their own is good practice.
- Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be merged with short descriptions into a "List of characters." This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice. The list(s) should contain all characters, races, places, etc. from the work of fiction, with links to those that have their own articles.
- Fictional characters which are cultural icons appearing in works of fiction not directly linked to themselves (e.g. as cameo or guest appearance) deserve articles of their own, regardless of other circumstances.
- It is useful to add redirects to the article page or list of minor characters, from anything that's listed in there.
- It is often informative to include plot summaries (and other spoilers) in articles on works of fiction. However, please keep them reasonably short, as the point of Misplaced Pages is to describe the works, not simply summarize them. It is generally appropriate for a plot summary to remain part of the main article, not a lengthy page of its own. Please see the Making good use of Wikibooks and Wikisource section below for guidance and examples.
Examples
- Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars films is a major character, and the major points of his character are covered in the article, but he is elaborated on in a separate article devoted to the character.
- Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books is a major character, and has her own article because the main article would get too long otherwise.
- Prince Corwin from Nine Princes in Amber (and sequels) is a major character, and is covered in the main article.
- Lionel Hutz from The Simpsons is a minor character, and is covered in a list of minor characters.
- Superman is universally well known and transcends the original work he appeared in, so he has his own article.
- Horses of Middle-earth is an example of a list that was created from a group of short articles.
Being bold
If you find articles (particularly stubs) on fictional characters (and places, concepts, etc.) you may want to be bold and merge them into an appropriate article. This allows the information to become more organized and easier to access. However, if you should do so, do not delete meaningful content.
You should obviously remove redundant headers ('this is a fictional character from such-and-such book by such-and-such author'), but you should not summarize or otherwise reduce the articles in question.
Details
This guideline was created from strong consensus at Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy/Minor characters and other discussion at Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy/Middle-earth items. It is not official policy, but should be helpful for making a decision on keeping, merging or deleting of fiction-related articles.
If you are unfamiliar with a certain field or are unsure whether some character (concept, place, etc.) should be considered minor or major, please ask around on the relevant talk pages before making radical changes.
Fiction includes books, TV series, films, computer games and roleplaying games, and possibly other sources.
Fanfiction, on the other hand, may well be considered vanity (not by default, but often so), which is grounds for deletion. This includes anything self-published, put on fanfiction.net, or done by vanity press; information about a character in roleplaying or MMORPGs; and computer game mods or custom maps.
Fiction not yet written may be considered speculation (again, not by default, but often so) which is grounds for deletion because Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball. This includes not-yet-released books, movies, games, etc., unless there has already been substantial hype and press coverage about the to-be-released item.
See also Misplaced Pages:Guide to writing better articles#Check your fiction.
Making good use of Wikibooks and Wikisource
Wikibooks, Misplaced Pages's sibling project, contains instructional and educational texts. These include annotated works of fiction (on the Wikibooks:annotated texts bookshelf) for classroom or private study use. Wikisource, similarly, holds original public domain and GFDL source texts. See Wikisource:Wikisource and Wikibooks.
One possible course of action to consider, which has already been successfully employed for several works of fiction, is to make use of all of the projects combined: to have an encyclopaedia article about the work of fiction on Misplaced Pages giving a brief outline, a chapter-by-chapter annotation on Wikibooks, the full source text on Wikisource (if the work is in the public domain), and interwiki links joining them all together into a whole.
Examples
- Atlas Shrugged has an encyclopaedia article on Misplaced Pages and a chapter-by-chapter detailed annotation of the work on Wikibooks.
- Lord of the Flies has an encyclopaedia article on Misplaced Pages and a chapter-by-chapter detailed annotation on Wikibooks.
- Of Mice and Men has an encyclopaedia article on Misplaced Pages and a detailed analysis on Wikibooks.
- The Harry Potter series of novels has encyclopaedia articles on the individual novels on Misplaced Pages (such as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and a Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter on Wikibooks, comprising a detailed book-by-book chapter-by-chapter annotation of the whole series, including a topical index to link each topic in Harry Potter to the chapters in which it appears.
Related topics
- The proliferation of fictional-universe-related articles is considered in the Misplaced Pages page Misplaced Pages:Fancruft and its talk page.