Talk:Snowy (character)

Boy or girl?
Is Snowy a boy or girl? Because I can not tell... ImmortalTimebender (talk) 04:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point, and this has been clarified in the article and even the infobox. Prhartcom (talk) 16:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Reverts
I notice that User:Prhartcom has reverted my extensive rewrite of the article from this to this. If the user has individual sentences or information that they want to keep, that is fine, but please bear in mind that by restoring the old version the user violating a large range of guidelines, policy and is generally acting as if they WP:OWN the article. I will reinstate my edits. Wikipedia is a colloquial work which anyone can edit and it is not appropriate to resume ownership of an article. The old article on Snowy was an okay start, but I saw the possibility of improving it in several ways. If anyone has specific concerns about individual pieces of information and what should and should not be included, I am more than happy to discuss the matter. However, reverting an article to a clearly inferior version under the statement "It is disrespectful to the article and to all of the article's previous editors..." is a clear violation of WP:OWN. Regards, Arsenikk (talk)  09:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The old version had 2704 characters, compared to 5274 in my version.
 * The old version of the article contained two refs, one which was to a blog and thus is not reliable. My edit added four sources and both books have inline page numbers (as recommended according to WP:V). Ironically this results in a correctly added Refimprove being restored.
 * The old version actually include false information (the naming of Milou after Renaud Milhoux), which no reliable source make mention of. As the old version also mentioned the Marie-Louise source, the article was actually contradicts itself.
 * I have search extensively for information about Snowy being yellow in the Angola version, but have not been able to find any such sources. If this had been referenced when it was added it would have saved us the trouble now. As I cannot verify that the information in correct, I have removed it. If
 * The old version claims that Terry was inspired by a wire fox terrier, while the sources that I have consulted say that he is not based on a particular fox terrier but rather of mix of multiple races. (again the old version contains false information).
 * My version has a lead which complies with WP:LEAD and summarized the article, unlike the old version.
 * The old version had several one-sentence paragraphs and even a one-sentence section. This is poor writing style, so I have taken the liberty to write more compressed to heighten the prose standards.
 * Nearly all the old version was concerned with Snowy in-universe, while my edits expanded the article considerably in relation to design and adaption. The amount of in-universe information is roughly the same in both versions. The old version didn't even address Snowy's gender, despite a request on the talk page.
 * As far as I can see (please excuse me if I have overlooks something), the only information that that I removed which can be verified is the reference to Flight 714, which I regarded as rather trivial. I am more than happy to add if I can find a source.

I'm looking for a truly reliable source for it, but I can confirm that Snowy was yellow in the early coloured versions in O Papagaio (Portuguese), and thus was probably also yellow in any early Angolese publications (being a Portuguese colony). Again, these are not reliable sources, but they give you an aidea: here, here, and here. Fram (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I know it would be suboptimal, but perhaps using the album itself as a primary source would be acceptable? Arsenikk (talk)  10:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with using a primary source for such information, it isn't perfect but it is not problematic since anyone can check it (the way I did above). Fram (talk) 10:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Arsenikk, great job on the recent edits. I have copyedited where necessary. —Prhartcom   (talk)  13:38, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism
For some reason, the following IPs have repeatedly changed Snowy's name in the article to "Snowy Thompson". No idea why. Each time, they are reverted. It has occurred thirteen times since 17 February 2015, here, but by March 2016 the vandal finally gave up. By IP address, those futile attempts were:

207.210.129.21 (Bridgeport, Connecticut, US)   

71.83.60.122 (Worcester, Massachusetts, US)  

70.215.20.1 (Windsor Locks, Connecticut, US) 

2600:1000:B113:D0E8:C13E:907B:9189:AE37 (Livingston, New Jersey, US) 

2600:1000:B10B:4F9B:0:12:CE22:6A01 (Livingston, New Jersey, US) 

207.210.129.61 (Bethel, Connecticut, US) 

108.162.53.214 (Westport, Connecticut, US) 

96.39.81.142 (Southbury, Connecticut, US)  — Prhartcom (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

This page was protected for a period of two weeks (log is here). — Prhartcom (talk) 20:54, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

After 1st page protection expired
Immediately after protection expired, the strange vandalism started again; happening three more times (below). Page protection was again requested.

12.86.47.50 (Danbury, Connecticut, US) 

207.210.129.31 (Bethlehem, Connecticut, US) 

207.210.129.30 (New Milford, Connecticut, US)  — Prhartcom (talk) 13:02, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

This page was semi-protected for a period of two weeks. — Prhartcom (talk) 13:02, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

After 2nd page protection expired
After page protection expired, the vandalism did not immediately resume. Prhartcom (talk) 17:40, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

However, the strange vandalism resumed today, a month after the 2nd page protection expired.

207.210.129.2 (Easton, Connecticut, US)  — Prhartcom (talk) 20:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

75.135.185.248 (New Milford, Connecticut, US)  — Prhartcom (talk) 02:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

By March 2016, it appeared that the childish vandal finally gave up. Prhartcom (talk) 15:15, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Then the childish vandal returned in April 2016.

75.135.181.165 (New Milford, Connecticut, US)  — Prhartcom (talk) 18:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Still going years later

 * This is still a problem. Numerous IP's have been making these edits to this article and other TIntin articles. The latest protection was for one month, and the first edit after the protection expired was the same name change again. Meters (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Now pending changes protected for next year. Meters (talk) 23:33, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm glad it's now protected. The vandal's IP address changes but always geolocates to the vicinity of Milford, Connecticut. For example, 68.191.55.129 did this vandalism and also vandalized many other articles, was warned, acknowledged the warnings, but was never blocked. —Prhartcom ♥ 12:49, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

68.191.55.129 (New Milford, Connecticut, US) Numerous edits of vandalism to this page, never blocked.

24.177.36.227 (Washington, Connecticut, US) Numerous edits of vandalism to this page and edit requests to continue editing made to the talk page after page protection.

2600:1000:b166:20f9:953e:c05:b8e9:cfd6 (Meriden, Connecticut, US) The same vandalism. — Prhartcom (talk) 02:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC) not sure what happened with this sig, but this was actually added at 13:08, 5 July 5 2019. Meters (talk) 19:41, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Infobox link to the other Tintin main characters
Ages ago, Wikipedia editors removed all of the separate articles for Tintin characters (I think the limit was when an editor created an article for "Uncle Anatole") and consolidated all but the ten main characters onto List of The Adventures of Tintin characters. Sometime after that, a link to this page was placed in the See also section and the infobox of each of those remaining ten main character articles, including this article, Snowy. The infobox linked to the Main characters section of that page. These links to that page from each of the ten articles are helpful to readers, as it reinforces that each main character is part of a larger list of all characters, and within that list, this main character is part of a group of ten.

However, today an editor removed that link from the infobox of this article, saying it is "not useful or appropriate". On my talk page (instead of the appropriate place, here), they further argued that the place the link was placed is meant only for U.S. comics characters and that one shouldn't fill out all the parameters of this infobox just because they exist. For the first point, yes, since U.S. comics accounts for the largest subgroup of comics in the world, that was certainly the shortsighted reason for the creation of that parameter, but of course there is nothing wrong with, nor it is inappropriate, to use it for any kind of comics article as the place to provide a link to the group this character belongs to (e.g. The Yellow Kid). And we are not using parameters just because they exist, that's silly; there are about twenty other parameters of this infobox template going unused. The editor agreed that consistency is good, such as this consistently applied link. The editor further argued that the whole point of an infobox is to give information at a glance. That's a fair point. I had assumed that, at a glance, the reader can see that this main character belongs to the group of main Tintin characters, but if it can be better handled while still providing this helpful link, I'm in favor of it. Lastly, the editor said we should not include the link because Snowy is "just a dog." I don't think I need to justify that one with an answer.

Let's restore the link. Prhartcom (talk) 15:15, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm an infobox minimalist, but see this as kind of a grey area (meaning I'd rather see it out, but wouldn't fight for it). I think the biggest problem is the name of the field: "Team affiliations".  Perhaps another name for the field would solve the problem ("Associated characters"?)—or, more drasticaly, having a "character" infobox with a "superhero" one as a subtemplate (with a "team affiliations" field).  Just thinking out loud.
 * (As an aside—US comics definitely don't account for the largest subgroup of comics in the world. Both Japanese and European comics have far greater output, even if articles on the English Wikipedia don't quite reflect that.) Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:54, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts Curly Turkey, but as you can tell, we are not discussing long term plans for the infobox, nor are we writing about comics at the moment (sorry about getting that fact wrong). I'm just dealing with this editor about this one field, which is "alliances", populated with the character group this character is a member of. For Tintin, we use it to identify the main characters, as they appear in the Main characters section of the List of The Adventures of Tintin characters. I'm going to go ahead and restore the link. Prhartcom (talk) 00:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I realize that, and I think the issue is that the field is labelled "Team affiliations". Tintin and Snowy aren't part of any "team" that can be named.  This could be solved with a relabelling of the field. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll be happy to work with a template editor to relabel the field and even do additional template programming if you want (I want to earn my right to be a template programmer) if you would please go through the process of getting consensus to do so. Prhartcom (talk) 00:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, in my experience working with the WP:COMIC folk, that would be rather tiring. I'll leave a note at the template talk page, though. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)