Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction/Archive 12

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Recent changes

There have recently been several changes undertaken on this MOS page by GabeMc, which modify the terms of writing about fiction significantly. As this MOS should apply Wiki-Wide, I'd like to ask the community if there is a consensus on these changes.

Is

Referring to the fictional events or dates which occur in the story, rather than the fictional works themselves. For example, instead of writing: "It is the year 34,500 AD, when the Trantorian Empire encompasses roughly half of the galaxy", write: "This story is set in the year 34,500 AD, when the Trantorian Empire encompasses roughly half of the galaxy", or similar.

the correct and only interpretation of

Referring to the fictional events or dates which occur in the story, rather than the fictional works themselves

And is such a criterion necessary? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Support new wording

  1. Support not sanctioning the use of "It is the year XXXX" as the first line in the article body of an article written about a fictional work. The article starts new and independent of the lead; you cannot rely on what's been established in the lead to set the proper context for the article. Why else do we link in the lead and the first mention? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  • "The article starts new and independent of the lead"? That's an entirely new interpretation of articles with no basis in fact at all. It also ignores the big word "Plot" in the section heading, overtly signifying that this is a fictional work. - SchroCat (talk) 09:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, why do you link in the lead and then again on the first mention in the article body? Headers cannot be relied upon to introduce information because per WP:HEAD there should be no citations in headers. Therefore, all information included in headers is unverified. Per MOS:INTRO: "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." See also WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Per WP:CREATELEAD: "There should not be anything in the lead that does not refer to specific content in the article and is not backed up by specific references found in the article ... Each word, phrase, and sentence in a lead should be covered by equivalent content in the body of the article." GabeMc (talk|contribs) 17:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Waaaaay too many strawmen and synthesised arguments to deal with there. What on earth has the linking policy got to do with it? Or the lead argument? Not so much straw men as those things you are clutching at. The lead reflects the article. In your attack on Drama, you miss the point that the lead discusses the fact the story is fictional: something the article makes very, very clear. Not just in the use of the big word "Plot" (and yes, your argument on "Head" really is nonsense), but in the rest of the article - something the "Writing" section makes clear to everything above single-cell amoeba. _ SchroCat (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  • You keep going back to "everyone knows its a fiction", which I have never once denied. That's not at all the point of these guidelines, which is to favour the more encyclopedic writing style. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether the reader will know its a novel. That's a strawman. I said that the article and the lead need to be written so that they can stand-alone, which is supported by policy. Are you really saying that you can inform the reader with a header so that that information need not be repeated in the prose? As in, if I wrote a header that said: "John Lennon died in 1980", that section would not need to also mention the year? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:47, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Oppose new wording

  1. Oppose: It is difficult, if not impossible, to indicate the passage of time in a narrative without referring to years. Moreover, the MOS does not require RW Perspective in plot summaries of single works ("Real-world perspective is the preferred style for plot summaries that encompass multiple works, such as a series of novels. Such conventions are not as important for plot summaries of single works that are not part of a series; nevertheless, some real-world language at the beginning of summaries is often good style.") but this wording contradicts that, enforcing a single viewpoint which is (IMHO) significantly poorer in terms of opportunities for brilliant prose. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose We don't need to be that prescriptive. I would hope it is clear that "It is the year XXXX" is not out-of-universe style, but we don't need to spell out the "right" better way of doing it. "In the year XXXX..." is just as good as "The novel starts in the year XXXX" among potentially other ways. --MASEM (t) 23:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
    You're right. "It is the year XXXX" is not out-of-universe style; its in-universe style, since obviously its not the year 1883 in the universe in which we exist, right? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
    • That's what he's saying... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
    • No, I'm clear in what I said. "It is the year XXXX..." is presenting the fiction as if it is actually happening, and thus not appropriate for us (this is in-universe). "In the year XXXX" or "In XXXX" could be taken either way, but that's why we rely on the plot section header to note "hey this is the fictional stuff now!" to the reader. "The novel starts in XXXX" is clearly out of universe, but can be clunky language. --MASEM (t) 00:20, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
    • I stand corrected, but since when can headers establish facts and context so that the lead-in topic sentence can assume that the stage is set? I don't agree with that and I've never heard that position defended at FAC. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose, as per the above. Firstly, the article has to be viewed in its entirety. Secondly, with the key word "Plot" as the section heading, it tells people clearly that we're dealing with a work of fiction here, rather than anything else. Real world issues are a minor problem in single works (there is no cross-referencing to other fictional works etc) and these are lessened by the knowledge that people already know its fiction by the time they start reading the description of the plot. - SchroCat (talk) 09:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
    • This has nothing to do with "will the readers know its about a fiction". That's a strawman argument. This is about using the most encyclopedic writing style, which is not story-telling mode. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 17:17, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
    • No, it's not a straw man, Gabe. You are losing sight of the point here and moving into troll territory. Time to drop the stick and move on. - SchroCat (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

It need not be the only correct interpretation to be a valid one. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  • If you are presenting that interpretation as a prescriptive one in a manual of style, then by definition that is being treated as the only one and not leaving any room for other viewpoints. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  • (ec) What is the other viewpoint? FTR, I didn't add "Referring to the fictional events or dates which occur in the story, rather than the fictional works themselves"; it was already there. I just added an example, because there were none, and it was ambiguous. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  • That one should not refer to entirely fictional calenders, for instance. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Gabe, "the article starts new and independent of the lead"... citation, please. You seem to be the only one supporting such a view. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
    • If you wrote a lead that introduced a character as Doctor John Smith would you refer to him as just Smith when mentioned for the first time in the article? The lead and the article should be able to stand on their own, without relying on the other to establish context and background. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
      • That's not a citation, Gabe. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
        • Don't you link terms on their first mention even though you've already linked them in the lead? Why? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:19, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
        • Per MOS:LEAD: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview." So unless you are arguing that the article does not also need to stand alone you have your citation. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:25, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
          • That is a misreading. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview." simply means that: the lede should be able to stand alone (i.e. no major information should be left out). It does not imply that the rest of the article should be read without the lede. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
            • Per MOS:INTRO: "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." See also WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 17:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
              • Again, that is merely saying that the lede should be able to stand on its own. It does not say, nor imply, that the body must be able to stand on its own, apart from the lede. You are misreading. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:14, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
                • Okay, answer this question: Would there be less information in the article if you took the lead away? Why, or why not? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
                  • Yes, there would. Most articles define the subject in the lede, which may or may not be in the body of the article. Gabe, you're reaching. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
                    • So, is it accurate to state that according to you, the lead may contain information that is not contained anywhere in the article body? Is that what you are saying? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:40, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Per check your fiction: "If you add fictional information, clearly distinguish fact and fiction. As with normal articles, establish context so that a reader unfamiliar with the subject can get an idea about the article's meaning without having to check several links. Instead of writing
"Trillian is Arthur Dent's girlfriend. She was taken away from Earth by Zaphod when he met her at a party. She meets Dent while travelling with Zaphod."
write
"Trillian is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' radio, book and now film series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the first book, Trillian is introduced to the main character Arthur Dent on a spaceship. In her backstory, she was taken away from Earth when the space alien Zaphod Beeblebrox met her at a party." GabeMc (talk|contribs) 18:19, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I sympathize with GabeMc that the lead and body should be independent of each other (that's my approach, anyways, regardless of whether the MoS requires it).[a] That said, I do think a "Plot", "Summary", or "Synopsis" header is a sufficient indicator that section will jump right into an in-universe style (which is also the approach I prefer). Curly Turkey (gobble) 02:04, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
  1. ^ Or rather, the lead, as summary, should depend on what's in the body, unless doing so is simply silly. I think the body should in no way depend on what's in the lead.

Clarifying things

I think we need to be clear we're actually talking 3 different styles of writing here:

  • In-universe is where the narrative of the summary is frames as to act as if the events are really happening, typically using language that draws the reader into that. This may be more expressive prose, but it is also generally non-encyclopedic because of the bias. As such, we never should write plus summaries in this style. In addition, plots in this style tend to get wordy and may be too long.
  • Out-of-universe is the opposite of in-universe, where the narrative is told from a passive, external view of the story. It may be less brilliant in prose but it is better for conveying the plot in an unbias, unemotional manner. This is preferred for all summation of fictional aspects.
  • The third aspect is the "real-world perspective", and this I would say is the specific act of mentioning that the story is taking place in a book, film, or whatever else. When we are talking about a singular work, as long as the nature of the work's medium is discussed elsewhere, then the real-world perspective is not needed in the summary; the fact it is a work of fiction is implied by the lede and section header. On the other hand, talking about the larger plot of a serial work, a fictional character that appears in many works, or similar broader concepts, the real-world summary is absolutely needed. Further, even for a singular work that is part of a series, if the work calls back to a series' running plot, then a real-world perspective to identify those past elements may be needed.

In other words, all plot summaries should avoid in-universe writing style, and use out-of-universe approaches. Real-world perspective would be nice in all summaries but its not something we can reasonably expect for all singular works, but is nearly necessary when discussing a series or elements of it. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

  • That is a pretty good argument. I've changed the plot summary of the article that started this fiasco. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
  • For the sake of clarity, is this your personal take, Masem, or is this supported by external style guides? I noticed that you are changing the MoS to support this position, but I'd like to see this explained in a few reliable secondary sources first. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:27, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
    • This is what practice has been on WP for a long long time. There are no obvious external style guides that take this approach (outside of Wikia-type ones, but I'm disregarding those), but it is practice and common sense correct. --MASEM (t) 22:34, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Fair enough, but can you give some examples of what you mean? For instance, can you please phrase a sentence in the three different perspectives so that we can see what exactly differentiates them? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
        • In-U: "It is 2003, and..." Out-of-U: "In 2003, ...". Real-world "The book begins in 2003, ...". --MASEM (t) 22:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Recent changes to plot summary guidelines

Really, since when do entire sections of Wikipedia articles not need any reliable secondary sourcing? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

For some time. See WP:FILMPLOT: "Since films are primary sources in their articles, basic descriptions of their plots are acceptable without reference to an outside source", for example. - SchroCat (talk) 22:41, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

  • (ec) This has been standard for Wikipedia since before I started editing. The plot is assumed to be cited to the work being discussed, except where the work is no longer available (such as lost films). See pretty much any FA on an extant film, novel, comic, video game... However, direct quotes should still have footnotes, per WP:V.
Also, note that interpretation (say, the significance of the spinning top at the end of Inception, is he in a dream or not) does need reliable secondary sources. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Are you sure about that, Crisco? I agree. According to WP:FILMPLOT: "As Wikipedia's policy on primary sources says, '...a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge... Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a primary source.'" Per WP:PRIMARY: "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:46, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Right. So, to continue the Inception example, "Cobb spins a top" would be fine. "Cobb spins a top, which does not fall over, meaning he is in a dream" would require a secondary source. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
FWIW - I just added the need to cite direct quotes, and using the Inception example as a point to avoid interpretation (since I remember there were people trying to argue either way based on a frame-by-frame analysis) --MASEM (t) 22:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the recent changes to the section in question, I question two things:

There is this: "Plot summaries and similar recaps of fictional works (like a character's fictional biography) should be written in an out-of-universe style, presenting the narrative from a displaced, neutral frame of reference from the characters or setting. While an in-universe style may be more engaging for prose, it may also bias the work and be overly wordy. For example, instead of starting a plot summary with 'It is 2003,' (which puts the reader in the frame of reference of the work), start with 'In 2003,...' (which extracts the reader from that frame)."
And then there is this: "Independent secondary sources that make analysis or interpretation of a work but without any correlation with the creator should be discussed in a separate section outside of the plot summary and not confused with the presented plot summary."

Concerning the first, and where it states "Real-world perspective is the preferred style for plot summaries that encompass multiple works, such as broadly describing a series of novels, describing key events that might have happened in earlier works that impact the present work, or the biography of a fictional character over multiple works.", it's not often that Wikipedia film and television Plot sections start out describing, or primarily describe, the plot in a way that reminds the reader that it's just fiction. For example, beginning by stating "In The Dark Knight, or using phrasing such as "in a flashback," "in the scene" or "in the rolling credits."

Concerning the second, saying that we should not blend "analysis or interpretation" with the plot summary unless it concerns what the creator says seems somewhat out of step with the guideline as a whole, which emphasizes real-world context. How does something like the plot summary in the WP:Featured article Pauline Fowler factor into this? Is it fine that its plot summary is blending analysis and interpretation since it's not titled Plot...but rather Character development and impact? Flyer22 (talk) 23:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

On your first point, the wording is basically saying that the plot summary on the standalone page about a single-work piece of fiction does not need to identify the plot is a work of fiction as it is a safe assumption in such an article. These articles can if they find it necessary to help relate the plot should it be complex.
On your second point, I would not consider the "Character development and impact" the same as a plot summary so it should be fine.--MASEM (t) 23:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for clarifying. Going back to the Character development and impact section, though, it's basically the Plot section for that article; for example, it includes an Early storylines subsection. But you consider that type of setup to not contrast with the aforementioned guideline since it's not under the heading Plot or Plot summary? By that, I mean: Do you feel that way because the headings "Plot" or "Plot summary," etc. indicate that it's a typical storyline section? Or do you feel this way because a Plot section generally doesn't include such material, and generally should not...unless that material only concerns what the creator thinks (or what more than one of the creators think)? Perhaps it's both factors? Flyer22 (talk) 23:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

This is turning into a problem per WP:NOT#DIRECTORY

This guideline (at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Alternative outlets for fictional universe articles), is turning into a Web directory of every fictional-universe wiki. Maybe we need an actual stand-alone list article on the notable ones, vetted per WP:RS as to their notability, but WP:N shouldn't be bypassed in a different namespace for fanwanky promotional purposes by hijacking this MOS page into a geeky linkfarm. (I write this as a big ol' fanboy, too; I just know to keep my F&SF obsessions in another compartment of my life.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Good idea. I'd support that. But inclusion criteria could be loosened to requires something like 1000 articles instead of notability. Or whatever. It's not important. That can be decided on the page itself later. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

WikiProjects don't write guidelines?

WhatamIdoing, in this edit, you stated that WikiProjects don't write guidelines. But, as examples, WP:FILMMOS is a guideline written by WP:FILM, and WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS are guidelines written by WP:MED. To me, it is always best to point out those guidelines as guidelines, not simply as advice. Wikipedia guidelines and policies, as you know, hold more weight than Wikipedia advice or essay pages. Flyer22 (talk) 20:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

They are not global guidelines and inconsistencies with global policy or guidelines will always be overridden by the latter. --MASEM (t) 21:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Of course they are not "global guidelines." But they are guidelines. There is no "global" Wikipedia guideline or policy I can think of that would override them, other than WP:PLOT (a policy) with regard to WP:FILMPLOT. But WP:FILMPLOT adheres to WP:PLOT. And it's widely accepted among Wikipedia editors that the guideline for Wikipedia film articles is WP:FILMMOS. WP:FILMMOS holds far more weight than any other WikiProject simply offering advice on how to format a Wikipedia film article. And WP:MEDRS is so strictly followed on Wikipedia medical articles that it might as well be a policy. Flyer22 (talk) 21:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
To be clearer, wikiprojects' WP:PROJPAGEs are not WP:GUIDELINEs. Sometimes they become guidelines, usually after a {{Proposal}} process, or something less formal such as an extensive discussion about it at a top-level "parent" policy/guideline page (e.g. WT:AT for nascent naming conventions, WT:MOS for topical would-be style guidelines, or WT:N for proposed subject-specific notability guidelines). A lot of editors are confused about this because they observe that some of the older topical guidelines of this sort were simply written by one person or a handful and slapped with a {{Guideline}} tag, way back when. This was common years ago, when WP's editorship was small and WP was experimental and not well-used by the public yet. It's a major global resource for the public now, and things are consequently much less fast-and-loose. Even used-every-single-day essays like WP:AADD are not always elevated to guideline status these days, and guideline elevation to policy level is very rare now.

Many older wikiproject-authored "guidelines" should not have that {{Guideline}} tag (including one I'm the principal author of; I'm not picking on any else's work), or be more formally integrated into the N, or MOS and/or NC/AT systems, as appropriate for the page in question. In some cases, key aspects of them should be integrated into the main pages and the topical ones eliminated as separate pages. Or they could be integrated into higher-level topical ones - e.g., merging all sports-and-games-related material of this sort into a unified one that covers sports and gaming; this would go a long way to ending wikiprojects' excessive levels of WP:OWNership over certain so-called guidelines that frequently violate WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy by directly conflicting with WP:AT, WP:N and/or WP:MOS.

We must always be aware that these top-of-page labels are entirely secondary to real consensus as it operates on Wikipedia. Many "guidelines" are so disused they could be deleted and hardly anyone would notice, meanwhile something like AADD operates like a policy. The idea that "this is just an essay" or "this is just a guideline" or "this policy trumps all other concerns because it has a {{Policy}} tag on it" is a serious failure to understand how WP actually operates. What's actually important and operational is how solid the reasoning on any given page is and what buy-in it has among the editing community (aside from some top-down commandments from WP:OFFICE which are policies in a different sense, not subject to WP:IAR). People even misunderstand this, and frequently mistake WP:FAITACCOMPLI action by wikiprojects as evidence that "this is what the community does" when really it's "this is what 13 editors do and force on everyone else through tendentiousness in a topic area no one else cares about enough to push back much". If in doubt, hold an RfC, and host it at the largest appropriate venue (e.g. WT:MOS or WT:AT). "Our wikiproject has done it this way for 5 years" doesn't necessary mean anything. Finally, the principal difference between a policy and a guideline here is that policies address mission-critical matters of WP operation, while guidelines mostly address matters of efficiency, consistency, cooperation and other smooth-operation aspects of the project. Policies are how the hull, keel and rudder of the WP ship are built and maintained for it to function at all, while guidelines cover how it is rigged to sail. Essays are mostly opinions about how to work all this equipment for best results.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish came to this discussion via a WP:Dummy edit summary I left at another guideline page. I appreciate SMcCandlish putting some thought into this "WikiProjects don't write guidelines?" discussion and thoroughly weighing in on it. That stated, my point, however, is that WP:FILMMOS, as just an example, is a guideline (unless it is ever demoted as one) and I therefore see no problem with referring to it as such. Other than WP:PLOT, there is no policy with regard to writing about fiction. And when it comes to writing about film plots on Wikipedia, WP:PLOT and WP:FILMPLOT are what we are usually supposed to defer to, which is why Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction directs readers to those pages; there is no guideline that overrides WP:FILMPLOT, unless we state that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction overrides it. It is perfectly acceptable for a guideline to exist for certain fields on Wikipedia. Film articles have one, and so do medical articles. And both guidelines were written by WikiProjects, even if not originally in whichever (if any) case. One can refer to these WikiProjects as WP:LOCALCONSENSUS as much as that person wants to, but unless these guidelines are in direct conflict with Wikipedia policies or the main Wikipedia guidelines, they are what we defer to for the topics they cover. A film editor saying "Screw WP:FILMMOS. I'm going to do things my way." has no support as far as Wikipedia policies and guidelines go, unless of course it actually is a legitimate use of WP:Ignore all rules (WP:IAR). And that is my point. Flyer22 (talk) 23:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I came to this discussion because the page is on my watchlist along with the rest of MOS; a post by you at the other page simply inspired me to come here a little sooner (see my edit history; I've been focusing on MOS stuff again for over a month). My own overall point here is that this "x trumps y" reasoning isn't always helpful, and often is confused by incorrect assumptions analogous to primogeniture or tenure (this guideline is older so it trumps that newer one), and so on. It's more important to see whether something very specific in a guideline (legitimate or otherwise) controlled by a single wikiproject is contradicting more general rules that reflect broader input (e.g. about fiction in general), and in turn whether those are conflicting with even broader-based guidance at MOS/AT proper. That's really how WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy should be interpreted (and even then in light of bigger WP:CONSENSUS concerns – it often happens that projects identify changes that need to be made in broader guidelines; the problem happens when they refuse to seek consensus at the broader pages to account for the change they want, and instead declare a sovereign wikiproject rebellion against MOS (or AT or N or whatever they're campaigning against). In short, an editor working on a film article may well ignore something in FILMMOS if it does not comport with MOSFICT, if the rule about fiction generally is common sense, and the film project doesn't have a demonstrable IAR case for diverging from it, {{Guideline}} tag notwithstanding. The fallacy at work here is that film (or whatever topic) articles must follow film (or whatever) wikiproject rules because they belong to that project and members of that project know best in every way how to write articles on that topic. Anyway, my goal is not picking a fight with Flyer22, it's addressing a general miasma of policy confusion in this entire discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Refusing to follow a formally adopted guideline like MEDMOS has no support precisely because MEDMOS is not an WP:Advice page from WPMED. That page is a guideline that the entire community writes and supports. It happens that many WPMED people are also interested in MEDMOS, but there are many non-WPMED people who have also contributed to that guideline, and the group of editors that call themselves "a WikiProject" does not get any special say-so over that community-wide guideline.
See Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects for some examples of WikiProject advice pages on style. You'll notice that MEDMOS is not listed there. (You'll also notice that the cat is seriously incomplete, and that a few pages are listed that might not belong there.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, I apologize for my sort-of mistake about why you came to this discussion. I wasn't suggesting that you came to this discussion to pick a fight with me; I very well knew that when I linked this discussion in my edit summary...that it might compel editors watching that page to weigh in on the matter (I linked it not so much to attract more comments, but more so to provide a full explanation of the mistake I made in my edit summary). Anyway, if it's not clear from above, I somewhat agree with your take on the "x trumps y" reasoning.
WhatamIdoing, WP:MEDMOS was clearly an example. Obviously, WP:MEDMOS or WP:MEDRS are not mentioned on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction. My focus was to address your claim that WikiProjects don't write guidelines. They do. And since WP:FILMMOS is a guideline, not simply an advice page, I see no valid reason whatsoever for not referring to WP:FILMMOS as a guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Plot summaries. Non-WP:FILM editors have also contributed to WP:FILMMOS. No matter what anyone states about guidelines not trumping whatever matter, it is commonly accepted on Wikipedia that policies and guidelines are stronger than advice or essay pages and have more validity when it comes to following them. One can disagree with that common acceptance all they want, but Wikipedia editors familiar with the differences concerning the way that policies, guidelines, advice or essay pages are applied know the deal on all of that. Flyer22 (talk) 23:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Since WhatamIdoing's aforementioned edit deals with a WP:FILM matter, I am going to invite WP:FILM to this discussion; since a variety of different views are often expressed among them, I don't view alerting them to this discussion as trying to gain comments in my favor. I am truly interested in what they think about whether or not it is best to call WP:FILMPLOT a guideline in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction, whether they don't care, or whatever else they have to state on this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 00:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
It's all good; I was just clarifying that I'm not actually wikistalking. :-) The wikiprojects don't write guidelines point is actually really important, because most WP:PROJPAGEs never become guidelines. An actual guideline like MOSFICT should not suggest, ever, anything that can be interpreted as "wikiproject-written pages that give advice are guidelines"; that usually is not true. In the cases where it is, it's obvious that that case is an exception because it will have {{Guideline}} on it, and not just recently, but after discussion and will be tagged that way stably. This is page about writing in fiction, not about what does or doesn't constitute a guideline and why. Our editors do, as you say, know how to deal with the differences between these types of pages already. Whatever your motivations for inviting WP:FILM to comment on this particular discussion, I'm skeptical that you could possibly not know that the main actual effect is likely to be a rush to dogpile in favor of your pro-guideline wording. In the end, I'm not sure I care, because the increasing problem of insular wikiprojects acting as if sovereign states with their own rules and imposing them on all other editors who wander into "their" articles is wider problem that needs a bigger solution, like radical changes to the wikiproject system.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm obviously not suggesting that every other WikiProject commenting on film plots be seen as having a guideline about film plots; I'm stating that I see no problem whatsoever with pointing out that WP:FILMPLOT is a guideline. So, with regard to WhatamIdoing's edit making it clear that not all of these WikiProjects are pointing to guideline-based rationales, I'm okay with that. But when it comes to WP:MOSTV and WP:FILMMOS? Those are guidelines. I overlooked the WP:MOSTV factor when referring to WhatamIdoing's edit, so perhaps I should alert WP:TV to this discussion as well. Yes, I feel that the guideline aspect should be pointed out, and that's for the reasons I've already stated above. I'm not hard-pressed on WhatamIdoing's edit being changed to make the guideline factor clear; I simply wanted to address this aspect on this talk page and gauge responses to it, better development my take on whether or not WhatamIdoing's edit should be clarified with regard to guidelines. I don't think that there is anything at all wrong with letting editors reading "Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Plot summaries" know that "Yes, these are the ways that Wikipedia film articles are usually handled.", as opposed to giving them the implication that "Keeping WP:PLOT in mind, plot length is usually not a problem, almost any length is acceptable for film plot summaries...but WP:FILM just so happens to suggest this number of words for these plots." I'm not aware of any other WikiProject giving suggestions about film plots, unless pointing to WP:FILM's rules; if they do offer their own advice, it still stands that WP:FILMPLOT is the official guideline for such a matter, not whatever advice is offered at the other page in question. As for "Our editors do, as you say, know how to deal with the differences between these types of pages already.", I focused on familiarity. I stated, "Wikipedia editors familiar with the differences concerning the way that policies, guidelines, advice or essay pages are applied know the deal on all of that." And whether they are familiar with all of that or not, it is best to let know them when we are referring to an actual guideline. Many Wikipedia editors, the vast majority of them, don't edit film articles. WP:FILMMOS is there to guide them on that matter; and I reiterate that letting them know it is an official guideline for the way we usually do things for Wikipedia film articles is a good thing.
As for "the main actual effect is likely to be a rush to dogpile in favor of [my] pro-guideline wording"... No, I know how WP:FILM works, which is why I stated, "since a variety of different views are often expressed among them, I don't view alerting them to this discussion as trying to gain comments in my favor." Anyone familiar with that WikiProject knows that they don't just readily agree with a fellow WP:FILM editor or because something seems pro-WP:FILM. What you view as pro-WP:FILM is not necessarily what they view as pro-WP:FILM. And as you can see, not one them has yet rushed to this discussion after the note I left there about it. I doubt any of them will rush to this discussion, whether any of them choose to participate in it or not. And, finally, as for "the increasing problem of insular wikiprojects acting as if sovereign states with their own rules and imposing them on all other editors who wander into 'their' articles is wider problem that needs a bigger solution, like radical changes to the wikiproject system.", I (as is surely clear) have no problem at all with following a guideline that covers formatting, etc. for a particular field on Wikipedia, whether created by a WikiProject or not, as long as that guideline does not conflict with Wikipedia policies or the main Wikipedia guidelines, and as long as it leaves some breathing room and remembers that it is a guideline and not a policy. WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS, however, are usually treated as policies, which is why I stated above, "WP:MEDRS is so strictly followed on Wikipedia medical articles that it might as well be a policy." I work in that field, and so does WhatamIdoing. I understand WP:MEDRS being taking as seriously as it is, but the strictness with regard to how WP:MEDMOS is applied is something that both WhatamIdoing and I have disagreed with. Flyer22 (talk) 03:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
If you want to make the point that WikiProjects sometimes have good advice, then try giving an example of something that is purely a WikiProject advice page. There are several listed in that cat.
If you want to make the point that MOS:FILM exists, then don't say that this community-wide guideline belongs to WikiProject Film. The only problem from my perspective is saying anything that could contribute to the myth that WikiProjects get to make up rules for articles that they declare are within their scope. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Some WikiProjects do get to make up rules for articles that they declare are within their scope; this is clear from what has been stated above. WP:FILM has had the biggest impact on MOS:FILM; they are the main ones who outlined the rules, suggest the rules and then apply those rules to MOS:FILM. WP:MED have had the biggest impact on WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS; they are the main ones who continue to outline those rules, suggest those rules and then apply those rules to WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS. That these rules are what can be considered community-approved since they are official guidelines does not change that fact. Additionally, let's keep in mind something you once stated at WP:MED (in 2012): "On the general question, a WikiProject is a group of editors, and we get to pick what we want to work on, just like any other group of volunteers. If we were to decide that we wanted to work on Hello Kitty, then we could declare that it was within our scope. If we decide that we don't want to work on Cancer, then we could declare that it's not within our scope. We generally prefer to have a sensible scope, but we're permitted to make whimsical decisions, and defining some types of sex-related articles (and most anatomy-related articles) as being outside of our scope is one of our occasional variations from a strictly predictable scope. None of which says that we wouldn't accept this, or that you don't need help. I hope that some people with more knowledge than I have will look into the question about whether it should be merged into a larger/related topic or not."
Sure, what you stated back then has more to do with WikiProjects deciding which topics they want to work on than "[making] up rules for articles that they declare are within their scope," but it does show that WP:MED can control what article to tag with the WP:MED banner; when a non-WP:MED editor tags an article with that banner, WP:MED supposedly gets to decide to remove that banner or not. WP:MED and WP:Anatomy are the only WikiProjects I know of that commonly do something like that. With regard to the other WikiProject banners, it's usually not so much a controlled matter. Sure, one can argue that deciding whether or not something fits with WP:MED or WP:Anatomy is more complicated than, for example, deciding whether or not something fits with WP:TV or WP:FILM, but what all WikiProjects should keep in mind is that trying to police a WikiProject banner is not how Wikipedia generally works; such banners are applied all the time by people who have created an article or by passerbys. Anyone can be become a part of a WikiProject at any time, by just participating on articles concerning that WikiProject or deciding "I'm now a member." There's no need to put themselves on an "official list."
Anyway, I can go along with "[not saying] that this community-wide guideline belongs to WikiProject Film." I do, however think it's important to link WikiProject Film, like we currently do, and that we should state that WikiProject Film suggests that we follow the WP:FILMPLOT guideline for film plots. So with regard to the current wording, the following wording would be fine: "some of the associated WikiProjects offer some advice on plot length; for example, the Film Wikiproject suggests that editors follow the WP:FILMPLOT guideline, which advises that the maximum length for a film plot generally be about 700 words." I'll add that if no one objects to it here in this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 22:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Re: "Some WikiProjects do get to make up rules for articles that they declare are within their scope; this is clear from what has been stated above. – Except they don't. They get to make WP:PROJPAGE recommendations that other editors are free to ignore if they don't agree with them. You seem to be refusing to acknowledge the distinctions that WhatamIdoing, myself and others, and WP itself, are drawing between such pages and actual {{Guideline}}s. Topic-specific guidelines obviously have the input of, and may even be dominated by the input of, people from relevant wikiprojects, but this is incidental. They may even originate as PROJPAGEs (and often do), but this too is incidental. They're not guidelines because they came from wikiprojects, they's guidelines because the WP editing community at large has accepted them as such on a case-by-case basis. Your general idea that wikiprojects can make up rules at will and call them guidelines is false.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
What I mean by "Some WikiProjects do get to make up rules for articles that they declare are within their scope" should be clear, which is why I followed that up with "this is clear from what has been stated above." You stating "Except they don't" does not make that any less true, considering that I see it all the time at WP:FILM pages and WP:MED pages. WP:MEDRS, for example, is a guideline written by WP:MED nearly 100% of the time. I'm not talking about cases of a proposed guideline. I'm talking about guidelines that already exist and are usually expanded upon by the main WikiProjects associated with them; in these cases, what you refer to as "local consensus" molds these guidelines. I am not refusing to acknowledge a thing; I like to think I am enlightening you, since simply because the entire Wikipedia community is free to help mold guidelines like WP:MEDRS, and since WP:MEDRS is generally accepted by the Wikipedia community, you seem to refuse to acknowledge that just about everything that is currently in that guideline has been primarily molded by WP:MED (except of course for stating "Topic-specific guidelines obviously have the input of, and may even be dominated by the input of, people from relevant wikiprojects, but this is incidental."). I never stated that these guidelines are guidelines because they came from WikiProjects. Flyer22 (talk) 01:18, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I am a bit confused by this. To my understanding it is a long-standing convention that project Manual of Styles are regarded as guidelines in content disputes and also from the purpose of article assessment. They are certainly more than "advice" which we equate more with essays. They often qualify and expand upon the community MOS which are regarded as guidelines. While some styles guides may have fallen into disuse that certainly isn't the case with MOSFILM: if something doesn't quite work any more or falls into disfavor it is open to review and revision. Is there an official dictum somewhere or a community consensus that project style guides are not to be regarded as guidelines? MOSFILM isn't on its own here; many projects have style guides that carry "guideline" banners, so while this is accepted and understood to be the case then I don't think we should be watering down the wording. Betty Logan (talk) 02:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Most Wikiproject guideslines expand or otherwise do not attempt to override the global guidelines and policy, and as such , things like MOSFILMS are respected at areas like FAC and the like should there be a question. However, we do need to be clear that since Wikiproject guidelines are only vetted by project members, there may (and has been) points where the wikiproject guidelines conflict with global ones, at which point we have to respect the global ones. --MASEM (t) 02:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I just answered the same issue, though raised by Flyer22 that time, just above, anchored at #foo.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Betty, WhatamIdoing seems to accept that WP:MOSFILM is a guideline; it's just that, like she stated above, she doesn't want any wording suggesting that WP:MOSFILM, which she referred to above as a "community-wide guideline," belongs to WikiProject Film. She doesn't want the wording to suggest that a WikiProject can simply make up rules and that those rules are then a guideline. Flyer22 (talk) 02:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
The lead of WP:MOSFILM, though, does currently state: "The following is a manual of style for film-related articles under WikiProject Film." Flyer22 (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Well if that is her stance, then I suggest just breaking the link between the MOS and the project. That sentence could be worded as: For some types of media, there are topic specific guidelines for plot length; for example, MOS:FILM sets a general maximum length for a movie plot at about 700 words. Personally I would say Wikiproject:Film accedes to MOS:FILM, not the other way around. The Film project may be the most influential group in shaping the MOS, but ultimately it is open to review from the entire community. Betty Logan (talk) 03:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm fine with your suggestion or the suggestion I made in my "22:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)" post above, Betty (despite having stated in that post that "I do, however think it's important to link WikiProject Film, like we currently do, and that we should state that WikiProject Film suggests that we follow the WP:FILMPLOT guideline for film plots."). The word sets, however, currently isn't used, and this recent tweak was also made. And I agree about WikiProject Film acceding to WP:FILM; seems that WhatamIdoing does as well. Flyer22 (talk) 04:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree that the style guide is the important part, not WikiProject Film. If there's controversy over whether MOS:FILM is a legitimate, honest-to-Jimbo guideline, then that's a matter to be decided at the Village Pump. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
NinjaRobotPirate, I've been wondering what you meant by this. You have some objection to the way the page is designed overall? I was also wondering if I should start a separate section to address what you might have meant, but I was waiting to see if you would do that. Flyer22 (talk) 06:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have been less jokey. It's not my intention to change the meaning; instead, "some" is occasionally a meaningless modifier. "I'm going to eat some food." is the same exact thing as "I'm going to eat food.". In order to preserve the meaning, I did slightly alter the sentence structure of one phrase, but I'm not married to these edits. Revert it if you want. I had assumed it would be uncontroversial, but maybe I was too bold – especially while a discussion over the wording was underway. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Your edits there are fine. Definitely nothing controversial about them. And I understand what you mean with regard to Tony1 and grammar. Flyer22 (talk) 06:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it's the guideline not the wikiproject. A wikiproject should never be cited as authoritative on anything, because it's just a page at which editors agree to collaborate topically.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
You made the change. Good. Flyer22 (talk) 01:18, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

What is a "normal act of reading" for a picture book?

It seems to me that a "normal act of reading" for a picture book for kids is to read it over and over and over. Usually an adult or older sibling initially reads to a pre-literate child followed by an eventual rereading by the child when they become literate and then, perhaps that grown child to their child. We are not talking War and Peace here where only a scholar would read it more than once. "Normal reading" in this case is repetition and attention to detail. That is why these books even exist as a genre. Thoughts? HullIntegrity (talk) 15:12, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

We're talking how a normal adult would read any book irregardless of the target age - which is basically once through. The act of rote repetition for a children's picture book to the children is more educational than reading for enjoyment. --MASEM (t) 15:27, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. That is perfectly clear. Though I cannot imagine a "normal adult" (presumably with children, since most adults seem to have them) "reading" a children's picture book straight through once in isolation. I suppose said adult does see the pictures as well, no? HullIntegrity (talk) 15:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I am also unclear as to what this line means: "The act of rote repetition for a children's picture book to the children is more educational than reading for enjoyment." Do you mean either of the following? The act of the adult reading and showing a picture book to the child is more for the child's education than enjoyment --Or-- The act of the adult reading and showing a picture book to the child is more for the adult's education than enjoyment? --Or something else?-- You totally lost me there. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:58, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm saying that, in real life, we repeatedly read picture books to children to help them learn the language, more than for the purpose of enjoyment of the literature.
But the larger point is this: plot summaries and details about works of fiction that are only sourced to the work itself should be provided at skin-deep level, normally by reading a book, cover to cover, once through, for example. While a children's book is typically more there to be read multiple times, we would still cover the fictional aspects in an article as if an adult read it once through, cover to cover. --MASEM (t) 16:06, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
OK. Thank you. But to clarify (and apologies if I am being annoying) "reading" includes "viewing" the images? What a "normal adult reader" would likely "see" on a first reading. HullIntegrity (talk) 16:17, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes; pictures in a picture book would be part of the story, but keep in mind that again, pictures should be taken as skin-deep recapping and not detailed analysis. --MASEM (t) 16:24, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Got it. Thanks again. HullIntegrity (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

List of The Walking Dead characters

List of The Walking Dead characters contains a single line of "Status" in each character's description. I left a comment at Talk:List_of_The_Walking_Dead_characters#Status.3F. Please share your opinion and/or help in copyediting the article. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 11:12, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Yet another discussion of writing style and tables

Talk:List_of_Game_of_Thrones_characters#On_status_again.... -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

"Status" is an in-universe condition and only reflects the latest (out-universe) episode. I deleted it but some editors insist of re-adding it. Please help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Added new guideline

Does my new guideline about "excessive in-universe jargon" have something to do with breaking the "in-universe" policy? Thank me if this is a good idea.

Qwertyxp2000 (talk) 00:32, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

As you likely know by now, I reverted you. Flyer22 (talk) 00:46, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Plot sections and the WP:BLP policy; discussion about All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story#Removed plot per WP:BLP. A WP:Permalink for the discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 07:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Relevant reading

The Atlantic has an article mentioning this guideline as seen here, in case any editors are interested in reading the piece. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 17:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Expanding WP:NOTPLOT

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Expanding NOTPLOT. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 (talk) 08:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Addition about categories

I boldly added a brief guidance about categories on fiction pages, based on a discussion at the VG project, where we were finding people categorized a work into every possible fictional catchall aspect, which is a failure of the categorization system if these aren't kept in check. Please review. --MASEM (t) 01:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Plot and secondary sources

The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible. If a plot summary includes a direct quote from the work, this must be cited using inline citations per WP:QUOTE. Sometimes a work will be summarized by secondary sources, which can be used for sourcing. Otherwise, using brief quotation citations from the primary work can be helpful to source key or complex plot points.

(Emphasis mine.) Do we really not prefer secondary sources for the plot when they feasibly exist? It's just all the same that it's sourced or unsourced? – czar 22:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be avoided for fictional characters?

Please take part in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be avoided for fictional characters? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

  • Note: It has been proposed at this RfC to add material to MOS:FICT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

MOS:Fair use and plot summaries

I think something more should be added to the Fair use section, especially about plot summaries and even more especially about plot summaries of TV episodes. If I'm reading this correctly, you can say all you want about the style and themes and marketing and reception (if you can find reliable sources), but you must have a relatively short plot summary or you'll break copyright.

It is my understanding copyright protection extends to even the paraphrasing of fictional works, not only direct quotes; "That any work which re-tells original ideas from a fictional source...may be construed as...a copyright violation." There are many, many plot summaries for works still in copyright that are over a few lines long (which protects them under fair use) and therefore are in violation right now, if you take the above statement at face value: that you are not allowed to paraphrase or summarize fiction, except for brief synopses.

I would guess that maybe 5% of our articles are about fiction. Let's say it's only 1% and half of them either are too old to be in copyright anymore or the summaries are short enough to fall under fair use. We still have 25,000 articles to go through and reduce the size to something acceptable. Would one hundred editors please volunteer to spend a year of their lives on this?

Am I wrong? Is there something about labeling a section as "Plot" that overrides the rule that it doesn't matter whether you phrase the summary in your own words or use direct quotations -- it's still breaks copyright? Or have I misunderstood the entire section on Fair use in fiction? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 09:43, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

That quote:

It has been held in a number of court cases that any work which re-tells original ideas from a fictional source, in sufficient quantity without adding information about that work, or in some way analysing and explaining it, may be construed as a derivative work or a copyright violation.
— MOS:FAIR USE

Do we have some kind of source for this? czar 18:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
The go-to case is the Harry Potter encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 06:21, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
I found a little bit here: WP:PLOTCOPYRIGHT, but the gist is that detailed plot (down to the level of some lines of dialogue) is too much. It doesn't have much to say about general plot, even in length, which is most common in our articles. czar 04:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC notice: In-universe name details of fictional characters, in article leads

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: In-universe name details of fictional characters, in article leads (concerning fictional characters as article subjects generally).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:23, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

A trend I've been seeing lately

I haven't figured out if it is by the same set of editors or not, but I've seen a lot of fictional works involved weapons and or cars or anything else that has brand naming be called out in plot summaries or the equivalent just because the editor believes they can identify that item, while the item's branding has zero relevance on the plot. (eg "He gets into his Ford Focus to drive over to her house." instead of just "He drives over to her house."). There are times where branding is important - James Bond and Aston Martins, for example, but this is nearly always called out in the work itself when it is relevant. And of course there are times when things are specifically named (USS Enterprise) that referring to its proper name makes more sense.

I would offer that this has two potential issues. To some degree it is original research if the reader has to observe and make an assessment themselves if the object in the work is what they say it is. Cars this can be easy , and I can see how they can do it with some weapons, but this still feels like OR if it is not explicitly called out in the show. The other issue is more encompassing in that is a unnecessary detail for concise plot summaries. It might be important to make a distinction between a jeep, an SVU, a pick-up truck, or a car for some works, but we don't need to know if it was a Ford or Chevy or Toyota if all it is is just a plot element to convey the person(s) from one scene to the next. Note that it is not an issue about avoiding product placement, simply that these are trivial details.

I feel we need to add this advice in WAF somewhere to help remedy these types of situations. --MASEM (t) 18:35, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

@Masem: Agreed. It's gratuitous advertising, whether intended that way or not, as well as irrelevant except, as you say, in unusual cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Question about templates

Should the in-universe template be put on the article page or the talk page? Gluons12 (talk) 22:09, 28 May 2016 (UTC).

It is meant for the article space, as are all such templates. --Izno (talk) 22:17, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Fiction: real world perspective versus in-universe perspective

I think I understand what Wikipedia’s Manual of Style means by writing about fiction from a real world perspective rather than an in-universe perspective. I read the article on To Kill A Mockingbird and this added to my understanding of what real world perspective means. However, I think it’s important to understand that not all fiction can be written in these terms. I have two examples to present: The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson and the Agent Pendergast novels by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston.

The Millennium Trilogy The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest are novels that contain numerous themes and events that affect real people in the real world. Just one example: a major theme that runs throughout all three books is the issue of brutality by men against women—Men Who Hate Women. I find it interesting that the Millennium Trilogy has been marketed as crime fiction. To me, that is a superficial understanding of these books. These books are fiction, of course, but I think they rise to the level of literature.

The Agent Pendergast Series There are currently sixteen books in this series. The series can best be described as standard crime fiction. These novels are enjoyable and popular, but they are not noteworthy beyond that. There are no themes in any of the novels that would inspire a deeper understanding of the human condition. It is the eccentric nature of Agent Pendergast that drives these books. He is immensely rich, drives a Rolls Royce Silver Wrath, owns numerous lavish residences, etc. I’m grasping at straws when I state that perhaps the role of money is a theme in these books; that is, Pendergast is rich but one of his best friends, and a repeat character, is Vincent D’Agosta. I have read nothing that would imply that D’Agosta in any way envies or resents Pendergast’s wealth. I enjoy reading the Pendergast novels; I have the books and the audiobooks of all sixteen novels and plan to buy the next installment. However, I would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to write a real world perspective article on the Pendergast novels. I do not consider these books to be literature.

I welcome any comments/feedback that would shed light on this issue.

Starsmark (talk) 02:32, 23 June 2016 (UTC)


It's not really "real world" perspective, but "out of universe" perspective. Not every fictional work going to have some statement on the human condition. Instead, we are simply asking that you write the plot summary as an external observer to the events, and not from the view of the character in the work. That said, fiction with themes, as "To Kill a Mockingbird" clearly is, would generally have a section on "Themes" or the like to discuss these aspects separately. --MASEM (t) 02:40, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Use of the word 'forthcoming' for unfinished works of uncertain, probably distant, publication dates?

I just removed the word 'forthcoming' from the lead of our The Winds of Winter article and was promptly reverted. The reverter said that it was common practice on English Wikipedia to refer to such works as 'forthcoming', and I can't fault that logic. But should it be common practice? The OED definition is about to happen or appear, but in the case of this article this almost certainly is not the case, and speculating otherwise seems like a violation of WP:CRYSTAL. The temporally non-specific 'unfinished' and 'unpublished' bothe seem preferable. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:34, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I would argue that as long as the creator has every intention of getting the work completed, "forthcoming" seems ok, but a better word might be "upcoming" (which implies a less near-term time period) or to say "in development" or whatever is the best. --MASEM (t) 00:57, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
I have to echo @TAnthony: in their revert of your edit: "unpublished makes it sound like it's complete and just not printed." Unpublished makes it sound as if it were finished but not published for some reason, i.e. "Isle of the Cross", and unfinished makes it sound as if it's permanently unfinished, i.e. The Last Tycoon. So, I don't agree that those words are preferable. Your assertion "we have no reason to take them at their word anymore" isn't really overly defensible imo; Martin recently said he's working on it, and that's all we can say. I can understand the word "forthcoming" might not be the best word, as it implies the near future, so I also echo Masem's suggestion of "upcoming" or "in development", or a variation of the latter, as alternatives. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 01:41, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
The category for these kinds of books is Category:Upcoming books, but "forthcoming" still seems to be the conventional wording for the lead. I feel like I've seen a discussion of this sometime over the years ... we should probably post links to this discussion at WP:WikiProject Novels and WP:WikiProject Books.— TAnthonyTalk 03:20, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
Actually, this is probably the wrong place for this discussion to be located. This category of articles falls under Category:Upcoming products, which encompasses such categories for pending works in various media. This really needs to be a more global discussion. I should also note, the categories under Category:Unreleased works by medium (named unpublished or unreleased) are for canceled or definitively unfinished works.— TAnthonyTalk 03:33, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
Actually, I figured if this really was standard practice, it would or should be codified in MOS. It should stay on at least one of the MOS talk pages, not the (relatively inactive) category talk pages, if that is what is being implied. Anyway, in the case of TWOW, we know for certain that the book is far from finished and even further from publication, but the author and publishers have every intention of bringing it to publication. I understand there are other articles where there is less media coverage of unfinished works of fiction, and so it is more of a grey area, but since everyone seems to be in agreement that "forthcoming" is not the ideal word, maybe we should decide where and how to have this conversation, and have it.
Honestly, I don't disagree that "unpublished" carries an implication of the manuscript being complete and awaiting publication, or having been completed and rejected/abandoned as unpublishable, or lying in the archives of a dead writer who wrote a lot more than ever saw print, but in this case I thought it obvious that none of these was the case, and went by the barebones definition "not published", which is strictly speaking all the word has to mean. Since, in this case, we have reliable sources indicating that as of either "now" or relatively recently the author is not finished writing, would "unfinished" be acceptable in the mid-term, while we discuss how to deal with this kind of issue more broadly?
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:08, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
Shit. Forgot the most important part. As far as I'm concerned (and Oxford again agrees with: "about to happen; forthcoming"), "upcoming" has the exact same problem as "forthcoming" -- it implies the work will be published in the near future, and in at least one case we know this to be untrue. I think categorynames are less of a concern, though; we have more leeway in giving wordy names to very specific categories of books/films/etc. than in the MOS guidelines for writing the leads of articles on such: Category:Currently unfinished books doesn't seem substantially different from Category:Current sports events. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:21, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
I think that exactly how soon "forthcoming", "upcoming", or even "pending" means is pretty subjective; who gets to determine if "about to happen" means tomorrow, next week, next month, or in 2017? And also, who gets to determine how long is "too long" for a work to be considered "in progress" as opposed to "unfinished"? Certainly in the case of GRRM, the span between novels gets longer with each one, and there were five years between books three and four, and six years between books four and five. You may be forgetting that in order for there to even be an article about a pending work, there have to be reliable sources asserting its legitimate existence, and then there would also have to be sources asserting its cancellation or unlikelihood of publication for us to indicate as much. I don't think we're going to find specific words to adequately describe books coming out this year vs. books that are taking a long time, and I don't know that we have to.— TAnthonyTalk 14:54, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
It is going to be subjective but that's something within editorial control and consensus on WP (eg it does not fall into original research as long as the basic fact that the work is in development and with either a firm or unsure or unclear point of publication). From video games, we nearly always use "upcoming" to refer to titles in progress, but this is because nearly all the time with video games, when they are announced we have a release window given, so we know the game is upcoming; the window might change or the game may be altogether cancelled, but then we update as needed. If on the other hand we know someone has a project but has no anticipated date of release ("it's done when its done"), I would switch from "an upcoming work" to "a work in progress" or "a work in development" to further deemphasize the apparent "urgency" of a near release. The only time I would use "forthcoming" is if a work had just been announced and would be released in the very short term (up to a month or so). --MASEM (t) 15:18, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
I still think the word unfinished implies a permanent state of incompleteness, so if the word is going to be replaced in the interim of a discussion, I wouldn't recommend that. I'd say just replace it with "future" (The Winds of Winter is the future sixth novel...), which sounds a just a tiny bit odd imo, but it implies simply it will be in the future. (If that's even the word choice until the book is released, then I'd be fine with that too, truthfully.)
Though, really, I don't see anything particularly wrong with forthcoming or upcoming. This all feels rather prescriptivist, in my opinion, but that's neither here nor there. All uses I've seen of upcoming appeared to simply mean "will be released in the future", from Kingdom Hearts III, with no fixed released date, (Category:Upcoming video games actually states, emphasis theirs, "This category is for video games with no fixed release date. Games which have a fixed release date or year should be moved into appropriate subcategories") to Avengers: Infinity War, with fixed dates in 2018 and 2019. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 15:44, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
I agree that forthcoming/upcoming seem fine, but for the sake of this discussion, I've also noticed a lot of "XXX is the first novel in a planned trilogy ..." — TAnthonyTalk 15:54, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Plot summary should be written in what tense?

Just reading our Wild Swans article. It's a little complicated by the fact that the book is a partial autobiography and partial description of events that the author heard directly from the subjects, but in cases like this when we use the past tense in our plot summary, does it give the impression that we are taking the entire story uncritically as confirmed historical "fact"? Should we intersperse "Chang writes that..." every fewlines? Or write in the present tense like with works of fiction? Most historical fiction articles describe events that probably did happen as described as though they were pure fiction, so should literary autobiographies be treated the same way?Has this come up before? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:20, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

"Other wikis" list

I found this list to be highly bloated and unnecessary, giving undue weight to certain pet universes. I removed it, incorporated list of wikis as a "see also" indentation, and added a suggested call to action for users unsure of where to go to find a fiction wiki. As always, feel free to revert and discuss. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 00:45, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

As an aside, the "exemplary examples" list should probably be pruned, as well. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 00:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The problem with in-universe perspective: question(s)

Hi. Since starting here, I've done a bit of copy editing to plot summaries and the related subsections. I've been looking at more of the back-end Wiki pages recently and stumbled on this one. While I agree with the intention of this section, I'd like to ask a few questions about whether some of the instructions (and particularly the examples used) are fit-for-purpose. Most importantly, before I start, I'd like to emphasise that I completely agree with the direction of keeping things not like a fan wiki.

  • "The threshold of what constitutes in-universe writing is making any effort to re-create or uphold the illusion of the original fiction by omitting real-world info."
I'm struggling to parse this.
  • Disregarding all or most aspects of a work of fiction as a creative endeavor
What does this mean? I'm not sure how I could even go about disregarding something as a creative endeavour. Is the intention just to say, don't treat it like it's the real world?
  • A plot synopsis written like a historical account.
Again, what does this mean? What are the defining features of a historical account?
  • Fictography – an article or section about a fictional character written like a biography, placing, for example, undue emphasis on titles or birthdates despite their being unimportant to the plot or interpretation. For example, instead of writing: "Gandalf was a powerful wizard", write: "Gandalf is characterised as a powerful wizard".
I don't agree with the example used, or the concept particularly. While I think that an article about character(s) (which I think there are far too many of incidentally) need to have this kind of phrasing in prominent positions, I think that within an article about a book/film/TV series, a 'characters' section serves as an extension of the plot summary, i.e. a device that can be used to provide additional information about the narrative without bogging down the plot summary itself (similarly for settings). I've looked at several of the 'exemplary articles' and even they don't do remotely similar consistently. For me, brevity is the key factor in preventing overly in-universe writing and if we need to give advice it should be related to that.
  • Description of fictional places written like a geographical account; the same principles apply as for fictional characters. For example, (per WP:CYF), instead of writing: "Trillian is Arthur Dent's girlfriend. She was taken away from Earth by Zaphod when he met her at a party. She meets Dent while travelling with Zaphod", write: "Trillian is a fictional character from the series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. In the first book, Trillian is introduced to the main character Arthur Dent on a spaceship. In her backstory, she was taken away from Earth when the space alien Zaphod Beeblebrox met her at a party."
Again, this is vague to the point of uselessness as written. What is a geographical account? The example includes no reference to geography (apart from Earth). The example appears to relate to character again. Does every reference to a fictional character require that we point out that they're not real?

All of the elements I've highlighted above all appear to contradict the purpose of communicating a narrative, which is explicitly allowed within articles regarding fiction. More importantly, they do not appear to be very helpful in communicating what we actually want. Therefore, would anyone object to something such as this? Maybe I've taken something out that should stay, and maybe I've just misunderstood some of what is trying to be conveyed, but I honestly think it's not particularly helpful in its current format. Scribolt (talk) 15:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The points you are discussing are based on making sure that we are not treating the narrative of a fictional work or any elements of that narrative (character, setting) as being real. In a standard plot summary for a work, this is not normally a problem as long as it is both concise and written in the present text. We do urge editors to describe any narrative techniques such as how Memento is presented to the viewer, or for a film like The Green Mile that is an extended flashback.
The issue becomes more about characters in longer works like a TV series. It is very easy to write the character's narrative as a "real" biography, but instead we should identify "This happens to this character in this season". It's making sure that the narrative - which is allowed - is grounded in that it is presented in a fictional work.
Some of these are more subtle than most. For example, in talking about the "historical account" aspect, it is entirely possible to write a history of Starfleet from the Star Trek franchise in the same manner one would write about the US Air Force, how it was formed, key events, etc. That's a no-no, and instead if we need to discuss Starfleet, we explain what episode/etc. it was introduced, what episodes/etc. established key events, etc. --MASEM (t) 18:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Masem. As I said, I'm in agreement that this is a thing to be prevented. I would like re-write of its content however, because you've stated more clearly what this section of the guideline doesn't. I didn't really want to just jump in and start messing around with guidelines on my own, so I came here first. I would like to make the following changes in the article.

  • "The threshold of what constitutes in-universe writing is making any effort to re-create or uphold the illusion of the original fiction by omitting real-world info." → "Writing can be considered as 'in-universe' if real world information relating to the original work is omitted with the intention of re-creating the fictional world within the article."
I think this is clearer.
  • "Disregarding all or most aspects of a work of fiction as a creative endeavor" → "Aspects of the work of fiction are described as if they were real." (or just remove)
This sentence as written doesn't work as a 'problem statement' which is what the list is supposed to be. I think this what it is trying to say.
  • "A plot synopsis written like a historical account" → "The backstories of characters, places, institutions or lore are presented as historical accounts". For example, the history of Starfleet from the Star Trek franchise could be written about in the same manner as the US Air Force, how it was formed, key events, etc. If Starfleet needs to be discussed it should be explained in what episodes it was introduced and key events were established."
I propose below that the point regarding past tense is moved above this one. If the synopsis isn't written in the past tense, it cannot be a presented as a historical account, and therefore this isn't an so much an issue with the plot synopsis section specifically. It's an issue with extended lore where people get carried away.
  • "Fictography – an article or section about a fictional character written like a biography, placing, for example, undue emphasis on titles or birthdates despite their being unimportant to the plot or interpretation. For example, instead of writing: "Gandalf was a powerful wizard", write: "Gandalf is characterised as a powerful wizard"." → "Fictographies – an article or section about a fictional character written like a biography, placing, for example, undue emphasis on titles or birthdates despite their being unimportant to the plot or interpretation. For example, instead of introducing the character as: "Gandalf was a powerful wizard", write: "Gandalf is characterised as a powerful wizard" or "Gandalf is a wizard who appears within the works of J.R.R Tolkein".
I think if we're giving practical, useful examples we should clearly state that the important thing is how the character is introduced as this sets the tone for the content that follows. The example as given is wrong as if people actually did what it said, it would mean every sentence that describes the character would require a disclaimer that it is fictional, which is not what we're trying to achieve as far as I understand.
  • Description of fictional places written like a geographical account; the same principles apply as for fictional characters. For example, (per WP:CYF), instead of writing: "Trillian is Arthur Dent's girlfriend. She was taken away from Earth by Zaphod when he met her at a party. She meets Dent while travelling with Zaphod", write: "Trillian is a fictional character from the series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. In the first book, Trillian is introduced to the main character Arthur Dent on a spaceship. In her backstory, she was taken away from Earth when the space alien Zaphod Beeblebrox met her at a party." → Remove.
We already address characters, places and writing about things as though they are real. The example doesn't add anything imo and isn't very elegantly written.
  • "Using past tense when discussing the plot or any of its elements (except backstory), rather than the historical present tense." → Move up the list, above the histories section.
For me, this is a really important one.

I would invite any comments regarding these proposals from anyone watching. If there isn't pushback in the next week or so, I'll make any uncontested changes and if this generates any further discussion we can go from there. Scribolt (talk) 07:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I would agree with the majority or even entirety of those changes you're suggesting. There doesn't appear to be a loss of intent and in some cases, there are indeed duplication of intent currently. --Izno (talk) 12:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Agree with Izno, I don't see any major issues with these suggested changes. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
No issues with the changes - you should be WP:BOLD and make them :) More people pay attention to WP space than WP talk space, I think. Just look at everything I did, haha. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 04:20, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I'll just go ahead now then and see what happens! Maybe I'll be a little more bold in future, wasn't quite sure about the etiquette for making changes to guidelines. Thanks for your comments. Scribolt (talk) 07:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Real-world perspective for plot summaries

Masem, Izno, Deckiller and Scribolt, I've been meaning to address this, but shouldn't we make it clear somewhere in the "in-universe perspective" section that plot sections are usually the exception to in-universe material? For a section that is summarizing the plot (such as our television and film articles), the content is usually in-universe. Rarely is it written from a real-world perspective (such as referring to a writer's intentions/views), or to state that "the film begins with" or similar. This revert reminded me of this topic. If the plot section is told from a real-world perspective from the beginning, I'm fine with stating "the film ends with" or similar. But if it's told from an in-universe perspective throughout and all of a sudden switches to a real-world perspective for the end, I dislike that (unless it's necessary), which is part of the reason I made the aforementioned revert. And I know that a number of other editors dislike that style as well.

I'm thinking of changing the "Many fan wikis and fan websites (see below) take this approach, but it should not be used for Wikipedia articles." sentence to "Many fan wikis and fan websites (see below) take this approach, but, except for plot summaries, it should not be used for Wikipedia articles." Thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree in principle, the reason for at least some of my changes was to try and make it more explicit where in-universe writing is "bad" i.e. so in most cases its OK within the plot synopsis. I've rarely seen plot sections written from a real-world perspective, but I think your revert was correct. I'd propose that the message in this guidance should what you said wrote above; the plot summary should be framed consistently. However, I don't think making the change as proposed in isolation is a great idea, because some of the recommendations 'are' relevant to a plot synopsis (present tense, bridging narrative gaps, references to other works, in-jokes) and if that change were made, I'd suggest that the plot summary section be updated with those points. That section could probably do with a pruning / re-structure as its quite dense and a little hard to read at the moment. I might have a go at that at some point. Scribolt (talk) 12:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I know what you mean. I considered the other stuff too. Maybe "except for some plot summary cases," or something like that, would be okay? After all, the rest of the guideline goes into detail about what we mean regarding "in-universe perspective." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
For many works that employ a fully linear presentation of the story and no other story telling tricks, the difference between an in-universe and out-of-universe presentation is nearly minimal (eg we don't require "The film begins..." always). There can be a few gotchas in these cases, but for the most part, they will appear one and the same. When the work uses narrative tricks such as flashbacks, in medias res, and other forms of non-linear storytelling, that's where there can be clear differences between in-universe and out-of-universe writing, and where we want to make sure editors stick to out-of-universe. Even some appropriate linear story elements may be better described out-of-universe; Reservoir Dogs makes a note that we do not see the heist, which is narratively important to understand all the arguments that follow the rest of the movie. So it is easiest to have editors keep plot summaries to out-of-universe for all plot summaries.
This also helps to make sure editors are writing plot summaries from a more dispassionate, clinical view of the work. If you start getting too far into in-universe, you can start sympathizing with characters (because you are writing as if you existed alongside them) that can lead to emotive writing which can start to lead to interpretations on intentions, etc, adding in the random adverb or adjective that may be a reasonably assumption but not a clear conclusion on a character's motivation. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
"It is easiest to have editors keep plot summaries to out-of-universe for all plot summaries."? I disagree. Not only is it something we do not commonly do on Wikipedia, I've seen the real-world perspective approach for plot summaries take on WP:OR/WP:Synthesis wording, or the matter turn into a "this source says this, but another source says this" matter. For plot summaries, it is usually easier to stick to the source material and to not have to worry about the real-world perspective.
On a side note: I've separated my initial post from the previous section and have made this topic into its own section. This separation will also be better in the case that I alert WP:TV and WP:FILM to this discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:13, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I've never seen editors take out-of-universe perspective that far, and there is a point where that starts to become analysis rather than actually part of the plot, so that's a separate issue. We still want the plot summary to be reflect what a person seeing or reading the work will experience as a viewer/reader and not as an invisible third-party character of the work itself, and thus drawing a distinction in how they see the storytelling. The reason we want people to write out-of-universe is to help keep their writing on plots neutral and encyclopedic, which in-universe tends to work against. --MASEM (t) 15:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Analysis, from what I've seen, happens more so in the cases I mentioned in my above response. Sticking to the source material is neutral. And, in my opinion, a reader experiencing the plot section in the way they would a film (for example) usually means having the plot section written from an in-universe perspective. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
That's not what in-universe means though. Let's take a really easy example, Memento, where there is clear differentiation between the order of narrative events and the order presented to the viewer. To write truly in-universe, Memento would be written in the narrative chronological order since that is how an invisible character would experience the work. Obviously, that's not the case here, we write it out-of-universe, and necessarily the structure of the film. Citizen Kane establishes that the bulk of the film is a flashback (though it doesn't spell out the word, it keeps present tense in the flashback sections, and says "Back in the present" when the flashback is over).
The distinction is not as clear with most other films and works because they follow a much more straight-forward narrative direction, and a good well-written out-of-universe summary could be indistinguishable from an in-universe one. At that point, most of the concerns are simply a few words or the like , such as saying "In 1883, ..." rather than "It is 1883, and..."; or establishing a setting as fictional if non-fictional places are used, or establishing when narrative devices are used.
Let's put it more accurately that a plot summary may or may not be either in-universe or out-of-universe; there's a "neutral" position that most works lacking narrative "tricks" that would fall into this, and as long as we avoid the small bits of problems above, these are fine. It's when the work gains narrative tricks that the viewer or reader sees but a character in the universe would not (eg like extended flashbacks), and at that point, its where one can write in- or out-of-universe, and we absolutely want to make sure the out-of-universe viewer/reader experience is captured and not ignored by hiding it in an in-universe description. --MASEM (t) 17:18, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
The guideline states, "An in-universe perspective describes the narrative from the vantage of characters within the fictional universe, treating it as if it were real and ignoring real-world context and sourced analysis."
That is exactly what most of our plot summaries do, which is why Scribolt acknowledged this as well. The "don't use an in-universe" style is not about plot summaries, and this should be made clear in the guideline. Scribolt's suggestion below is a fine remedy for this. Exceptions exist, and you and Thincat have noted them, but they are exceptions. I've acknowledged that a "plot summary may or may not be either in-universe or out-of-universe." That fact is not my issue. My issue is with the guideline not noting that plot summaries may be validly in-universe. They usually are, after all. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:12, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
There is one aspect of that, being the "sourced analysis" that I think is appropriate for how most articles about fictional works/elements that have had time to get to a quality level have been presented: if there is sourced analysis of a work, it is nearly always set separately from the actual plot summary. So I would be fine to remove this to avoid people trying to establish analysis in plot sections.
The first part is still true though, about real-world context, for the same types of articles. But as I tried to explain for most works that use no narrative tricks, the only difference between a true in-universe style and a true out-of-universe style are phrases like "At the start of the film...", because that's rather clunky if there's no need to state that, and is general omitted. When you do that, it is nearly impossible to determine if the plot summary was meant to be in-universe or out-of-universe, which means it is otherwise fine by the out-of-universe standards. When you go to films or other works that have more complicated narration, then out-of-universe is required to establish if the film uses flashbacks/etc.; that we use present tense if the film does use a flashback (ala Citizen Kane or Titanic), and so forth. This is why it is important to stress that we avoid in-universe summaries and encourage out-of-universe wherever possible. For many works, these two approach actually overlap strongly, so its hard to say "avoid in-universe" when the out-of-universe looks like the in-universe one. Key here is we do not want editors to start from the presumption that in-universe is acceptable at all, because while this is not harmful for most works, it does cause difficulty on more complicated narratives. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Whilst I agree with some of what you say, I don't really see how you arrive at your conclusion. Forgive me for simplifying things:
  • This part of the guideline is designed to help people write articles that look encyclopedic.
  • Writing from an in-universe perspective is generally bad because it ends up looking like fancruft, and is not encyclopedic.
  • This guideline currently tells people not to write in-universe with no exceptions.
  • Plot summaries are part of the article and therefore cannot be written in-universe according to the guideline.
  • It is neither common practice nor in many cases stylistically desirable to make a plot synopsis explicitly out-universe.
  • The guideline fails to explain how to that that within a plot summary.
I do not accept Masem's assertion that there is a 'neutral' position. You either write as though a person was existed and experienced events which is in-universe writing, or you don't which requires in accordance to this guideline as written, presenting the events and characters as fiction throughout. I am also of the opinion that as long as the rest of the article is encyclopedic and the writing in the synopsis is not emotive and well presented, that there is very little risk to the summaries complex narratives. Therefore, the guideline as written makes 95% of our plot summaries out of 'compliance', and more importantly confusing people who want to figure out how to write a decent summary for what appears to be very little benefit. Scribolt (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to suggest you give a few examples of plot summaries that you think are written strictly in-universe on WP presently, because I really think there's a lack of clarity of what makes in-universe, in-universe, and the same with out-of-universe. I've seen a LOT of plot summaries, and most fall into what we would accept as out-of-universe per this guideline. --MASEM (t) 15:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Masem, I still don't think that it is "important to stress that we avoid in-universe summaries and encourage out-of-universe wherever possible." We are looking at this topic from a different point of view, and I don't fully grasp your point of view. Do you object to Scribolt's proposed addition? Is there an addition you could agree to so that it's clear to people that a plot section may be presented in an in-universe fashion and that this is not necessarily a bad thing? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:28, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Masem, it's not really relevant as to what I or you think is in universe, it's what the guideline defines it as. But, OK. Going through the list on the page itself, just going to choose a couple. Halo Contact does not refer to fact they are fictional characters at all within the summary, failing the 'treating it as though it was the real world' criteria. 300 ditto. I'm interested in your opinion obviously, but I really don't see what you've said so far clearly written anywhere else in the guidance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scribolt (talk • contribs)
Halo Contact has a "Setting and Characters" section just before the Plot that explains these two areas from an out-of-universe persceptive, so it is not in-universe. In 300, the text "Dilios, a hoplite in the Spartan Army, begins his story by depicting the life of Leonidas I from childhood to kingship via Spartan doctrine. Dilios's story continues..." establishes that the film is an extended flashback, thus describing the film's structure out-of-universe; importantly the extended flashback is all written in present tense - as the viewer sees it. If it were in-universe, either the plot summary would be arranged fully chronologically per Dilios' POV, or the extended flashback would be written in past tense, as the character sees it. Those are both out-of-universe examples. --MASEM (t) 16:36, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Let me add that part of the apparent "confusion" that I see here is that we actively do not want editors using "At the start of the film...", "The fictional character..." etc., which would clearly establish writing as real-world/out-of-universe, in plot sections as 1) the work's narrative structure is a strict linear progression that does not require explaining narrative tricks, 2) the "Plot" section implies we are dealing with the work's narrative, and thus avoid conflation with fiction and real-world (if we didn't write in sections like this, this would be more a problem) and 3) WP:NOT#PLOT encourages brevity of words, and this types of phrases, where normally included if we were going full real-world, waste word count, and thus under the Plot section assumption can be dropped. Hence, why many of our plot summaries might look like in-universe but really are real-world/out-of-universe presentations; it's shortcuts we have taken. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Masem, "many of our plot summaries might look like in-universe but really are real-world/out-of-universe presentations," but many are in-universe as well; I think that most are. This is why I ask again: "Do you object to Scribolt's proposed addition? Is there an addition you could agree to so that it's clear to people that a plot section may be presented in an in-universe fashion and that this is not necessarily a bad thing?" As noted below, I contacted WP:TV and WP:FILM to weigh in, but I guess they aren't interested or too interested in this topic. Even so, I am currently more interested in pressing this issue than the "source or not to source the plot section" issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:00, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Of plot summaries on articles that have been vetted at GA/FA, I have never seen one "in-universe", but using the concise real-world approach I have described. And to that matter that's why I oppose the addition; we want editors to avoid in-universe writing for all situations. We have to be aware that our concise real-world/out-of-universe style might appear in-universe, but when you consider other defining differences between these approaches, these principally are written out-of-universe staying consistent with the previous version of this guideline. --MASEM (t) 19:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply Masem, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree, even on your examples. Not because I'm an expert in in / out universe writing, or an expert on long-standing Wikipedia consensus and undocumented shortcuts. But because I can't read anything that clearly supports what you are defining as being in or out of universe in the guideline. For HALO you state that the narrative section does not need to refer to real world context, because there is a preceding section that does. This seems to prove our point incidentally, because this is exactly what the proposed change would facilitate (keeping the article out of universe, but forcing no requirement on the narrative). You state that because a fictional character (with no reference as such) recounting the narrative means it's out of universe. Maybe that's right, but if that was the case, where is that reflected in the current definition in the guideline? I see no real world context. You state that we actively don't want "the novel begins" etc, but the definition in the guideline actually mandates either that or similar framing devices in order to provide real-world context (and that is also an approach that is also used in several articles on this page, 'The volume begins', 'the novel begins'). And also, your point 2 "the "Plot" section implies we are dealing with the work's narrative, and thus avoid conflation with fiction and real-world (if we didn't write in sections like this, this would be more a problem" is exactly why we can suspend the out of universe requirement because it's clearly presented as being narrative.
To summarise, your argument is that we don't need to permit in-universe narratives because you don't consider that what you're reading in these narratives to be in-universe in the first place. I (and hopefully not putting words into their mouth) Flyer22 Reborn do consider that they are in-universe (based on the definition of in-universe currently in the guideline). Guess we just need more eyes on it now to see how others feel. Scribolt (talk) 08:11, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Most of the concerns I have with in-universe writing is not so much the lack of markers of where in a narrative the story is told (The "At the start of the film..." stuff, but with the long list of points under "The problem with in-universe" in the current guideline, which are more about specific tone, tense, and other aspects of the work. (That's my point on 300 for example, it is that the flashback, which was in the character's past, is told in the present tense as the viewer sees it, which is writing out-of-universe) That said, I do see where there's some discontinuities here; most of the problems do not occur in the plot sections of articles but on articles about fictional elements (characters, settings, etc.). To that end, we should have advice that specifically with a plot section of a published work that an editor can assume that we are talking within the fictional aspect, so some of the elements, like location markers, do not have to be strongly adhered to for conciseness, but editors still need to pay careful heed to avoid using the in-universe techniques that are described in that section of this guideline, and certainly not avoid them if the narrative/cinematic aspect is a major part of the work (Perhaps I see this much easier as my focus is on video games which nearly necessitate thinking it from the interactive player's POV rather than the character). This follows suit that plot sections are presumed to be sourcable to the original work and thus why we don't required sources. The absence of location markers does not make a plot summary in-universe as there are several other ways one can write in-universe. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Masem, since you stated, "Of plot summaries on articles that have been vetted at GA/FA, [you] have never seen one 'in-universe', but using the concise real-world approach [you] have described.", I also don't understand how you are defining "in-universe." When I look at the current state of the Plot section at Titanic (1997 film), I see no "out-of-universe" approach. The fact that the section states something like "Back in the present" is only there because that is what happens when viewing the film; we have to find some way of conveying that Rose is no longer thinking about the past. We don't, however, state "Out of flashback." I view the Titanic (1997 film) summary as in-universe. It appears that Scribolt does as well. And I'm sure we're not the only editors who view such sections as in-universe. Plot summaries usually do not acknowledge the real world, which makes them in-universe. Contrast the Titanic (1997 film) plot summary with the Chloe (film) plot summary, which currently acknowledges the real-world just a bit by stating, "In a voice-over, Chloe discusses her business as a call girl." All we are asking for is that the "plot summaries usually do not acknowledge the real world" aspect be addressed in the guideline as the one place in-universe material may be allowed. The only issue I see with a plot summary being an in-universe problem is when it has a heading such as "Biography" or "Life," but the guideline already addresses that issue. I can agree with your suggestion that "specifically with a plot section of a published work that an editor can assume that we are talking within the fictional aspect, so some of the elements, like location markers, do not have to be strongly adhered to for conciseness, but editors still need to pay careful heed to avoid using the in-universe techniques that are described in that section of this guideline, and certainly not avoid them if the narrative/cinematic aspect is a major part of the work." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
I think you're focusing far too much on the absence of location markers (the "At the start of the film" type language) as the only defining factor between a real-world/out-of-universe approach and an in-universe one. There are many other factors at play, such as the fact that the events in the flashback are presented in present tense as the viewer sees it. But, that said, the current Titanic summary has a very explicit out-of-universe line: "While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by the life she wanted to live with Jack." (which actually is interpretation to a point about if she was alive or dead, but that's neither here or there); the characters don't see this play of the camera during this scene. Further, the last line (the one that was used as a diff) is very much in-universe and problematic, becuase it is treating the very final scene as a "real" event in the film's universe, and that the version it was changed from (describing the camera pan through the sunken vessel) is the proper language we want to see.
I completely understand that we don't not strive in plot summarize sections to be wholly detached from the work and use every "required" out-of-universe trick; eg, if we really were pushing it, then Titanic's plot would need to identify the film consists of a mix of fictional characters and characters based on historical personalities, for example, but I am confident no one would demand that be included as 1) this is the "Plot" section so it can be isolated from real-world fact, and the character section that follows establishes that. The absence of these does not make a plot summary in-universe however; it just makes it vague whether it is in- or out-of-universe given no other context; though that's again why a separate Plot header makes it clear we're talking the narrative. What we do not want are editors to use in-universe writing style tricks, like the final line of the Titanic plot summary, ignoring the presentation of the work in favor of a more emotion/emphatic treatment of the work. That's why any advice here that suggests in-universe writing is appropriate is not acceptable at all. Yes, we can adapt the language that plot summary sections do not need full-bore out-of-universe establishment compared when we are discussing characters or other elements but they still must avoid the use of in-universe approaches. --MASEM (t) 13:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
The guideline explains what in-universe is and what real-world context is. If I am "focusing far too much on the absence of location markers," it is due to what the guideline currently states. Are you sometimes defining the terms out of universe and real-world context differently instead of interchangeably? I don't consider the following wording to be real-world context: "While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by the life she wanted to live with Jack." Yes, it's more about what the audience sees, but I don't view it as acknowledging the real-world any more than it does when we watch the film. We are left to think that Rose has died or is asleep. Or even that we saw her dreaming and then die. And that content is there in Plot section because it is addressed by Cameron and the actors. See the last paragraph of this section. To state that she died is POV; to state that she is asleep is POV. We've had issues with editors changing the content to suit their POV. So we've acknowledged both. It seems that you are defining in-universe as content that is strictly from the characters' point of view. That is how most of our plot summaries are written, or are mostly written, and such a setup usually is not problematic. Again, I understand what you mean about Rose as dead or asleep being something that the audience sees rather than being something that the characters see, but Rose is experiencing it as well. And, if she's supposed to be in heaven there at the end, then other characters are experiencing that matter too. Furthermore, in what way could that content be written without acknowledging the final scenes in her room and in her dream or heaven? You make it seem that editors are going to take "in-universe" to mean content that the audience doesn't see; I've never seen anyone write a plot summary like that. As for the closing part of the section, I disagree with you that we want to see the bit before my revert. Usually, we don't. If the section does not explicitly acknowledge the real world early on, it is not good practice to have it suddenly do so at the end with words such as "the final scenes" or with film terminology such as "the camera pans." And, as previously noted, we usually don't have our plot summaries explicitly acknowledge the real world early on anyway. Stating, "The final scenes are of traveling across Titanic's sunken deck to a set of doors, as it changes to when it was new again. Going through the doors, Jack is seen on the Grand Staircase and a young Rose reunites with him, applauded by those who died." is also too much detail. We are trying to keep that size of that plot under control, per WP:Film plot.
Clearly, we won't be agreeing. And it doesn't appear that any compromising will be happening at the moment. So I guess that the RfC Scribolt is looking to start is next. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
The key factor of in-universe writing is not about what the audience doesn't see, but ignoring what the audience exists and pretending the work is real. It's ignoring framing elements of a work - that's the core matter here, to keep the summary of the work at the encyclopedic level. --MASEM (t) 21:31, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
Plot summaries are not pretending that the work is real. They are simply summarizing the plot of the play, television or film, whether acknowledging the real world with "The final scenes" wording or not. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:57, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
Try rewriting the plot of Citizen Kane solely in universe, or even consistently. Thincat (talk) 14:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I've made an initial suggestion directly in the article (it was easier than doing all the typing in here). Obviously, anyone can revert it/modify it if they hate it. Scribolt (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Actually, I really don't know the etiquette here. We're talking about it, I probably shouldn't change it in the article before its been discussed? Or is that OK? Anyway, this was my suggestion Scribolt (talk) 14:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I really thought you'd made some changes to Citizen Kane but you haven't. There's a terrible irony here! Thincat (talk) 14:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Scribolt, the following addition you made seems like a good solution to me: "For the purposes of effectively communicating a narrative, a WP:PLOT summary within an article may be either written with or without explicit reference to the real world, but the framing should be presented consistently throughout the synopsis." I'll contact WP:TV and WP:FILM to weigh in. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. Ideally I'd like the emotive language addition to be considered in conjunction with it to make clear that we're not supporting overly flowerly prose as a consequence (but maybe the example I provided needs re-writing though). Scribolt (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Consistent framing is difficult when the framing of the work is uncertain or inconsistent, Orlando: A Biography, The French Lieutenant's Woman. Thincat (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
True, but as long as it's presented consistently, that seems OK to me. So, the Titanic example that Flyer22 Reborn cited above is not presented consistently, it suddenly switches right at the end, so that's not recommended. Citizen Kane is not so straightforward because although the reveal could have been made without reference to the film itself, its such a visual moment I think to convey it otherwise would have been clunky. And the French Lieutenant's Woman is complex and changes through out the summary, but the way it presents those changes is fairly consistent. Scribolt (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
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