Talk:Model entry

From Turtledove

Going north around Norway is pretty dumb. It does sound like a good book, though.Turtle Fan 06:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm totally new here, but I was thinking it might be helpful to have a set of different model pages - for characters, locations, etc. I see a lot of different styles in entries, e.g. under Category:Living Persons. PonderousMan 04:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome. That's a solid idea. TR 04:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, so to expound on that a bit... I think pages tend to fall under either Real stuff, or Story stuff. Real stuff is things like story/book entries, the Collaborators category, etc. Story stuff is the entries done "in character", as it were - entries done from the perspective of a historian of that AH. Dunno if it makes sense to flag that as a category set, but as a concept it's pretty important. I think the idea of multiple models applies mostly to Story stuff, but it might be handy to have some for Real stuff also. (Is it kosher to go check other wikia for how they handle this sort of thing?) Within story stuff, we clearly have people (characters), places (locations), things (tech, gadgets, etc.), each of which could get its own model page. One of my questions is, do we have a place where we can write about these things as Real Stuff, instead of Story stuff? I.e., do we mention somewhere that characters are POV or not, or just flag it as a category? OK, I'll stop rambling, but hopefully this moves this forward at least a bit... PonderousMan 21:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

"Is it kosher to go check other wikia for how they handle this sort of thing?"

Yep, do it all the time, especially for site-operations stuff. I swiped the character templates from the "Cloverfield" wiki. Obviously, this place is unique in that we write in the more formal/academic sounding past tense about fictional works.

"One of my questions is, do we have a place where we can write about these things as Real Stuff, instead of Story stuff? I.e., do we mention somewhere that characters are POV or not, or just flag it as a category?"

Just flag it as a category.

As for the "Real" vs. Story: we have one or two articles that have "trivia" or literary critique sub-sections, so that would be a starting point for such subjects.

I'm not opposed to discussing the literary aspects of the work, or how HT's work relates to OTL. Obviously, for Turtledove, who wallows in sly references and reworkings of OTL, this would be a useful thing. My concern is that it must be more than simply "Daniel MacArthur (obviously this is the analog of OTL's Douglas MacArthur)...." If it's obvious, then why type it? HT's readers are smart enough to have picked up on that. But if you want to do an article/essat comparing and contrasting the two men, well that's probably going to have something useful and substantive.

I should probably point out at this point that the founder and administrator has been absent for over a year. What we have right now is 4 or 5 regulars with bureaucrat powers who devote a fair chunk of their free time here. Consensus is critical. TR 22:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, and the background. This all makes sense, I'm just trying to get my head around it. I know from widely scattered wiki reading that there are subtleties about what fits and what doesn't, so I hope I don't get too annoying by asking all these questions - if I do, let me know. I prefer to work with consensus, after all this is basically a group project. PonderousMan 22:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Ask away. Speaking for myself, I didn't start this place, but I do want it to grow, and growing it requires more participants. That means giving the new guy a chance to get into this place. I do like your ideas about multiple models. It's also pretty clear that the main page should be more informative. I'm looking at other wikis, and they have all manner of categories and images, etc. TR 22:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)