Talk:List of Stuart Little characters

A note
Today I did a massive copyedit and linked to this article from the main film article so it was no longer an orphan, however this article still needs to be greaty improved and refined. More characters need to be added (where is Snowbell? Margelo? etc), and the entries for the two existing listings need to be cut down drastically. The listings for each character should be short; this is not the place to recount the story lines of the various films etc. Needless to say, references have to be added, that is essential for any Wikipedia article. Invertzoo (talk) 12:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Message From the Article Creator
Hello Invertzoo. My name is Zucat I am the creator of this article. And I thank you for being concerned about the issues involving this arical. Yes unfortunately I have yet to list ALL of the Stuart little characters and I understand your frustration. But Sadly I don't access Wikipedia that much and the only thing you could kindly do is be patient that I will list all of the characters. But You can help me by editing this article and add more SL character information so that way this article will look bigger and more like an article. And About the references I sadly cant do anything about that As I am new to Wikipedia and don't know how to add references to an article. But if You or somebody else out there who knows how to add references and know any reliable sources out there that can accompany this article. I Would Gladly appreciate that. (Zucat) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zucat (talk • contribs) 00:44, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Article issues
This article has more than a few problems including, but not limited to, excessive capitalization, grammar problems, misspellings, bad punctuation, over linking, original research, excessive trivia and an in-universe presentation. I've started to fix some of this, but have been partially reverted. Time to partialize. I'll be taking these issues one at at time, starting with the ones I feel are least controversial. If anyone disagrees with any of this, please discuss the issue(s) on this page. Thanks. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 02:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization
In English, capitalization is used: - at the beginning of sentences: "It is hot today. Tomorrow it might rain." - proper nouns: "My friend Bill is a doctor. He works at Mercy Hospital in Philadelphia." - the word "I": "Jim wanted pizza but I wanted tacos." - titles used as part of a proper noun: "Jane Smith is a doctor. Some people call her Dr. Smith. Others call her Ms Smith." That's pretty much it. One recurring problem in this article is "little". When it means "small", don't capitalize it. When it refers to the family, capitalize it. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 02:28, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Over linking
As the capitalization, grammar, punctuation and spelling fixes continue, I am now adding over linking to the mix. Far too many words are linked in this article. Most readers will understand common words like "boat", "red", "parent", "underwear", etc. in the context of the article. They should not be linked here. Please see WP:OVERLINK for more details. If you disagree, please discuss the issue here. Less common terms, such as "birth parents" (which are rare in an article such as this), and proper nouns (actors' names and such) are reasonable links. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 05:41, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Original research and trivia
Building on the capitalization, grammar, punctuation, spelling and excessive capitalization, I'd like to start work on original research and trivia.

Original research and trivia will involve comparisons between the novel, movies and animated series. The article assumes that they all blend together or should blend together to form one story. I see no indication this is the case: the novel is a stand alone novel. The movies do not continue the stories in the novel and the series does not necessarily continue the stories in the movies. With this in mind, there is no reason to point out differences between them: a character's hair color in one of the movies might be different from the series because they are different portrayals of the same character. Unless independent sources talk about it, the difference is trivial and doesn't belong in the article.

I'll hold off on starting this part to allow for any questions. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 04:09, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * , most of the information you added or restored with these edits is plot-based trivia (such as the name of the video game a character was playing, a character's middle initial, how many students were in a class, the room number, etc.) and/or original research (differences in who gave Stuart a car, the color and make of the car, changes in hair color, whether or not Stuart had previously worn shorts, etc.). This material does not belong in an encyclopedia.
 * We could list every detail about every character in the novel, films and series along with everything they said or did. We would end up with a very long article that no one would ever read or use for anything. We don't want that. Instead, we want articles that give significant information about the characters. The easiest way to decide what should go in the article is to take the information from sources other than the novel/movies/series. What do newspaper and magazine articles say about Stuart, his family and the rest of the characters? Adding sources to the article will be very helpful in improving it. It will also help with one of the other problems with the article: notability.
 * Right now, this article does not have ANY "independent" sources (sources that are not part of the novel/movies/series). All Wikipedia articles must have sources to show that the topic is notable. If the article has enough sources, the subject is notable and we keep the article. If there aren't enough sources, the topic is not notable and we will delete the article at some point.
 * You seem to be very enthusiastic about building this article and I would hate to see much of your work removed. Please slow down with your additions to the article and look for some sources that we can use. Thanks. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 22:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The name of the video game is trivial. Hair color is trivial. A character's middle initial is trivial. A guess as to what the middle initial might stand for is both trivial and original research. "There is no known information about her father." is original research. The number of students and the room number are trivial. I will be removing all of this tomorrow. If you disagree, please explain have these random facts are important here. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 02:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Removed. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 03:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Characters' descriptions
The descriptions of some of the characters are overstated with verbiage that doesn't make sense, or contain too much information that is insignificant to the plots. Yet, there are some characters in both the novel and movies that do not receive as much text for their respective roles that are actually much more important than many insignificant details in some of the other sections. In particular, those describing Stuart, Margalo, Monty, and Smokey should all include more information. One character that is omitted from the article is Anton, George's rival in the Central Park boat race, who should have his own section of text as well, but shorter than the others. As a general error in all of them, there are too many grammatical errors, cut-up sentences, and fragments that must be altered to allow a better flow of text for a reader to understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlbv123 (talk • contribs) 17:08, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

In universe
WP:INUNIVERSE

Material about fictional characters, events and locations must not be presented as real. For example, Stuart is NOT a "fun-loving, friendly, well-mannered, brave, and down-to-earth, two-inch mouse..." Instead, "He is presented as a fun-loving, friendly, well-mannered, brave, and down-to-earth, two-inch mouse...". This occurs throughout the article and needs to be cleaned up. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 05:16, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

"brave" and "never afraid of anything"
The whole sentence: "He is presented as a fun-loving, friendly, well-mannered, brave and down-to-earth, two-inch mouse who is never afraid of anything and a member of the Little family." is very wordy. One easy removal is "never afraid of anything". Essentially, this is redundant with "brave" (yet somewhat contradictory: how can you be brave (facing something you fear) if you have no fear?). I'm taking that much out. Before going any further with that and similar problems, I would like to reiterate the major problem this article faces: it is almost completely unsourced. At the moment, we have one source which barely discussed characters in the Stuart Little franchise. What little it does say is that Stuart is "both valiant and very polite". At the moment, it's listed as a bare link under references. I am going to reduce the list of traits to reflect the source and move the bare link to its proper usage as a cite. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 17:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

"Falcon" vs. "falcon"
In this article, the word "falcon" is sometimes used as a proper noun for a falcon named "Falcon". When the word is used as the falcon's name, it should be capitalized. "George is amazed by the falcon." "George is amazed by Falcon." "Her ring was stolen by Falcon." "Her ring was stolen by a falcon." Sum mer PhD (talk) 19:42, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

African-American
"...George's loyal African-American best friend..." There is no reason to bring his race into this. For example, we haven't identified the race of the Littles. Ignoring race except when discussing a person of color is pointless, establishing white as "normal" and everything else as "other". - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 19:47, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Outside Information
Any information regarding any of the characters must come from either the built-in rerefrences or straight from the source. The films, animated series, video games. Any outside information regarding the characters that was NOT acknowledged within the franchise Incarnations must require another reference or else the info will result in deletion. Thanks.(talk)
 * The overwhelming majority of information in this article should come from secondary sources (in other words NOT from the novel, films or series). For example, the section List_of_Stuart_Little_characters is a good start. It gives a very brief statement of who Stuart is: "the titular main character in (the franchise)". Everything else comes from secondary sources.
 * Adding a lot of material from the novel, films and/or series results is an article that is essentially a confusing, jumbled plot summary. This article is supposed to be a summary of what independent reliable sources have to say about the characters in the franchise.
 * If I worked on this article for a few solid hours, most of the sections would be reduced to one or two sentences (a bare bones description of the character). Some sections would have bits and pieces culled from various reviews. A precious handful of sections would have material similar to the depth in the Stuart section. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 15:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me Mr. PHD but I think you seem to be misunderstanding what I am trying to explain here. I didn't say that you COULDNT use information from references, all I am saying is that if content for the characters were to be added that was not acknowledged in the franchise were to be added. It must require a reference, because most articles that I have seen on Wikipedia that are about fictional character's appear to contain info that was taken strait from the source of the characters novel, film, cartoon, music piece, Ect. And If something different were to happen it must contain a refrence. Thank you very much Zucat (talk) 15:48, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I know what Stuart’s parents do for a living!
Mr. Little works at the New York Museum of Natural History and Mrs. Little works as an art teacher at the same school that Stuart and George go to! I learned these facts from the Stuart Little 2 director’s commentary! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:8BF9:45F0:2999:DD7:7B36:125E (talk) 23:05, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Stuart’s age
This article currently states that Stuart is probably in his late teens or early 20s. I don’t think that’s true. Stuart certainly doesn’t act like he’s in his late teens or early 20s. I think he’s actually about a year younger than George. George was 9 in the first movie, 12 in the second movie, and 15 in the third movie. This would make Stuart 8 years old in the first movie, 11 in the second one, and 14 in the third one. Also, in the first movie, George says he wanted a little brother and not a big brother. In the second one, Stuart’s mom says that Stuart is about as old as a baby (but mice and humans obviously age differently). Seinfeld429 (talk) 00:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)