User:Serendipodous/Discworld

Broken Links
I'll fix the redirects/links I mentioned; I'm still in the process of wading through the "What Links Here" dealing with the fallout from the nullification of "Discworld Characters" so while I'm over there, I might as well do them too. The creation of "Discworld characters by geography", if done by me, is going to have to wait until after I finish that, plus there's a couple things I'd like to do in the spirit of the season to the non-Discworld-related pages Jack Frost, and possibly a few other Winter holiday mythology related articles, first.

After that, I was planning, before the idea of a Discworld task force was (re?) brought up, I was planning to systematically go through all of the Discworld articles trying to update them to be less in-universe(or, at least, less likely of being accused of being in-universe) and fix links and things, but the first part of that seems.......unnecessary now....but I'll still work on the second part. Not planning on adding any new content(yet) or making any major changes, just cleaning up what's there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mobtown Mongrel (talk • contribs)

Notability of separate character pages

 * As far as I'm concerned: No non-primary reliable sources = No notability = No independent articles outside of the list. Don't get me wrong, I love the Discworld series, but that's all it comes down to for me. Size is not an issue, as most characters can be sufficiently covered in a paragraph if we're conservative enough, and generally in my opinion, better one slightly cramped article that 10 useless articles. Harry Blue5 (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, first, terms. Could you define what, specifically, you mean by "non-primary reliable sources"? Because if your definition matches my definition, then that would eliminate all descriptions of, not just Pratchett's, but Rowling's, Lucas', Tolkien's, Lee's(as in Stan), Kirby's(Joe), Siegel and Shuster's, Cameron's, Carpenter's, etc, ad infinitum universe and characters because they were described by their creators and not just by others. Are you honestly claiming that none of these creations are notable enough for their own articles? Then, you'd have to attack things like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and other folkloric items. And I'm sure I could go on from there. The point is that (1.) you can't use the same notability qualifications for fictional, folkloric, or cultural items that you do for, for lack of a better adjective, scientific items and (2.) identifying something as non-notable solely because of a lack of non-primary sources, *especially* in describing fictional universes, characters, or ideas, means that wikipedia's coverage of the fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, mythology, folklore, subcultural, and countercultural(and probably many more that don't occur to me) genres and areas would be practically non-existent and wikipedia would, in essence, become a science encyclopedia with no coverage of any cultural items.

The way things are organized now, the only characters that have their own pages are the ones who are the lead characters or, at the very least, secondary major characters in their own subseries within the Discworld series(i.e. Death, for the former, Susan Death, for the latter). As far as I'm concerned, being a lead or secondary major character in as popular a cultural phenomenon as Discworld qualifies you as being notable enough to have your own article. On the other characters: similar to the above, the secondary characters(meaning the ones that are more than just throwaway gags) are notable enough, *within the context of the subseries* to have blurbs on that subseries' lead character's page. What would happen if all of these characters were put into a list is (1.) it would open the door for subjectiveness to enter into who goes on the list and who doesn't, leading to edit wars and/or wasted energy of editors in adding characters that would later be removes, (2.) lead to loss of editor morale when it comes to covering Discworld on wikipedia because of 1, (3.) would be a list of essentially random information, something which is frowned on in wikipedia, and (4.) be so long and unwieldy that users of wikipedia would find it difficult to learn anything from it, thus denying it any kind of usability.

Lastly, "better one slightly cramped article than 10 useless articles". Would you elaborate on this? Given the richness of the cast of the Discworld series, I'd hardly qualify a list of characters as just "slightly cramped". And what 10 "useless articles" are you referring to? I'm not aware of any minor character of Discworld who has its own separate article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mobtown Mongrel (talk • contribs)
 * I didn't say it couldn't use primary sources. But it needs other sources to justify its own standalone article. Take a look at Mario. Does he have an article because he is the star character of the Mario series? No, he has an article because of the massive Reception and legacy section. Now take a look at Fawful. Not important at all in the long-run to Mario series, but he has his own article. Why? Because of the Reception section. Now, Koopas don't have their own article. They are incredibly important to the Mario series. But because no one has found enough non-primary sources to establish notability, do they get their own article? No, they don't. I know WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but they are great examples of what I'm talking about.
 * Unless the Discworld characters can get enough non-primary sources, they simply don't get articles. Notability is incredibly important in giving something an article. Harry Blue5 (talk) 20:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And, just because their major characters in a major book series, doesn't make them instantly notable. Just saying. Harry Blue5 (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

First, thank you for linking the concepts you described....very enlightening.

Proving Notability: WP:Fiction states, on the subject of notability of fiction, that "fictional elements are presumed to be notable if there is significant coverage in independent secondary sources about the fictional element; when a fictional element is presumed notable, a separate article to cover that element is usually acceptable." Using the Discworld character of Death as an example, a quick search on google books reveals that independent secondary sources that have covered Death include lspace.org(obviously), a Professor at Australian Catholic University's book, the Encyclopedia of Fantasy, an independently written book on "the myths and legends of Terry Pratchett's multiverse", another independently written subtitled the Discworld's story, unauthorized", and that's just the first two pages, AND that's not even getting into the volumes of criticism that have been written about the Death sub-series/individual books.

But, wait! There's more! WP:Fiction also redirects you to notability guidelines for books. Now, this is somewhat irrelevant/tangential, but as I'm perusing down through this article, it is perhaps of note that one of the books in the Death subseries(Hogfather), meets, arguably, all five of the requirements for book notability: See above for the first, has been nominated for a major literary award(if nomination counts) as have other books in the Death subseries for the second, has been made into a notable(meaning non-independent or fanmade) movie and cartoon for the third, has been covered in a course at Harvard and has a teacher's guide at an online website for the fourth(and I'm fairly confident that a more competent searcher would find more courses in Pratchett and/or Discworld and/or Death of the Discworld), and Pratchett, in some's view, fits the fifth. More importantly/relevant, though, is that, further down in this article, under "derivative articles", it basically says that splitting off articles of elements of a book into their own articles is generally discouraged however, "Exceptions do, of course, exist—especially in the case of very famous books. For example few would argue that Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol does not warrant a 'subarticle' on its protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge." Given the fact of the number of Discworld readers, the fact that Death is the primary character in a number of famous books, not just one, as well as the scholarly and critical attention to Discworld, it is my view that he is one of these exceptions.

Lastly, there's the "Notability is inherited" fallacy that you brought up. In that section of the article you linked to is the following passage


 * "notability of a parent entity or topic (of a parent-child "tree") does not always imply the notability of the subordinate entities. That is not to say that this is always the case (three of the notability guidelines, for books, films and music, do allow for inherited notability in certain circumstances), or that the subordinate topic cannot be mentioned in the encyclopedia whatsoever. Often, a separate article is created for formatting and display purposes; however, this does not imply an "inherited notability" per se, but is often accepted in the context of ease of formatting and navigation, such as with books and albums."

Emboldening(if that's a word) is mine. So, even if you don't buy my argument based on the notability guidelines for books above, even for "formatting and display purposes", it's better to have Death, and the other characters, with their own article rather than as part of a list for "ease of...navigation".

Though I used Death as an example prevalently above, I could do similar arguments for any of the other Discworld characters who currently have their own articles.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If there are independent sources discussing Death, then try to add them to the article. I generally work under the idea that unless I can find sources, then they probably aren't there (as otherwise I would have to check every webpage ever made in order to make sure they didn't exist). If they do exist, then great, Death can have his own article. I don't think it's better for formatting and display purposes, as divided into one section on one page is easier. But that's just my opinion. (When I brought the guideline up, I was merely addressing something you said.) I sadly do not think the Discworld is one of the exceptions for the rule, however, if there are the sources for Death as you said, then I stand corrected, and would presume that Rincewind and the other main characeters would be fit for their own articles and leave the matter alone for a while. However, List of Discworld characters would still have a use for guilds and stuff, IMO. Harry Blue5 (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you mean by your last sentence. Would you elaborate?

I'm aware of the Pratchett/Discworld-specific wiki, but I'd rather work on improving wikipedia(the most reputable/central wiki)'s discworld coverage, mostly because I believe that wikipedia should be a one-stop spot for information and should strive to make other wiki's obsolete for pure informational purposes....leaving the other wikis free to contain fan speculation, fan fiction, that kind of stuff.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 22:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, elaboration time: Pteppic and other standalone characters could go into List of Discworld characters. Using the wonders of main, we can probably link to the Death, Rincewind pages, etc. If guilds can be managed to be trimmed enough as well, they should also go into characters page as well. From what I understand, Wikipedia isn't necessarily a one-stop spot for information on everything, just everything notable. And mostly real-world notability. Discworld specific wiki's are much better at explaining everything in incredible detail, while Wikipedia is better at explaining everything in only a few articles or so. Not saying Discworld isn't notable or anything, just saying. Also, I'm going to contact WP:NOVELS and tell them about this discussion. It'd be better to get the opinion of more than two people. Harry Blue5 (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Took a look at the Guilds of Ankh-Morpork page. Not sure how that would be made to fit into a list of Discworld characters.

on wikipedia vs. pratchett wiki: See, I think that's where our fundamental disagreement lies. For me, "explaining everything in incredible detail" for Discworld would mean listing every person that's ever been mentioned in a Discworld book, no matter how trivial the reference is, for example, listing all of the philosophers who were recited by Didactylos in Small Gods when Brutha was looking for books on godhood......but things like describing major characters, locations and ideas doesn't fall into that category(and the Guilds of Ankh-Morpork are a necessary part of describing Ankh-Morpork), in my view. Whereas you, on the other hand, are(seemingly) in favor of short, concise articles, period, and anything more seems to you to be "incredible detail".....contrasting philosophies, and it seems to me that if you look at wikipedia's guidelines alone, they tend to fall within your philosophy, but if you look at the underlying reality of what wikipedia is/should be, they tend to fall within my philosophy. Not sure what the answer is.

Added to that is the fact that wikipedia's guidelines on fiction leave something to be desired, in my opinion. The guidelines of what's notable for scientific info(things that are discovered/analyzed) can't be applied to fiction(things that are created), because, in scientific info, the initial discoverer/analyzer is necessarily treated with skepticism, so non-primary sources are necessary but in fiction, the foremost authority on what's created is the creator, so it's necessary to use the primary source to describe what's been created. Also, unlike scientific info, popularity should play a role in fiction's notability, i.e. if something is raised to the level of pop culture phenomenon, that should be equatable with being notable. But enough soapboxing. Truth is, I've considered many times abandoning wikipedia because too many people pay attention to the words of wikipedia's guidelines rather than the spirit of what wikipedia is and/or should/could be, and just going to the pratchett wiki(for example), but my belief in the need for a one-stop well-known wiki for notable(using my definition) info.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 13:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * explaining everything in incredible detail" for Discworld would mean listing every person that's ever been mentioned in a Discworld book, no matter how trivial the reference is, for example, listing all of the philosophers who were recited by Didactylos in Small Gods when Brutha was looking for books on godhood ... That... That is what I meant. but things like describing major characters, locations and ideas doesn't fall into that category Have you been listening to what I mean? I do not disagree with those. I completely agree with describing major characters, locations and ideas. A list is not the same as deletion. It's totally different. popularity should play a role in fiction's notability Popularity doesn't matter. Actual responses (which is pretty much the same thing for what we're talking about) play an incredibly role in a fiction's notability. Negative reception is just as notable as positive reception. The point is, there has to be reception. If it is truly popular, it will have reception. Does Rincewind have "reception"? Heck, no. To the people who read Discworld is incredibly popular. To people who don't read Disworld, he is totally unimportant. Darth Vader is important to people who don't watch Star Wars, that is why he has an article. Not to further indulge people about what happens in Star Wars. Plot summaries for what happens in Discworld go in their respective book articles. Otherwise it's just duplicative. Harry Blue5 (talk) 17:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Separate List of Supporting Characters article vs. Supporting characters merged into main character of their sub-series articles
Okay, look, please don't take this the wrong way, but even if Rincewind and the like do get their own articles... well.. the whole "supporting characters" stuff... in my opinion, it looks awful. Takes up loads of space and fills up more than half of the entire article. I still think that all supporting characters should be merged into List of Discworld characters, split by subseries of course, even if Rincewind and etc. get their own articles. Harry Blue5 (talk) 11:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether it's in it's separate article or merged into other articles, the "loads of space" supporting characters take up would be the same...establishment of a List of Discworld characters page is a more problematic method for a number of reasons:


 * A separate article where it's not needed,
 * would neuter some articles in exchange for "prettying" others(i.e. neuter Witches, City Watch, Unseen University, and Inventors in exchange for prettying(in your opinion) Rincewind, Death),
 * not all supporting characters can easily fit into one subseries. Example: The Canting Crew, any of the characters of the standalone books.
 * some characters, even if they are featured in only one subseries, may not be notable within the context of that subseries, but may be notable in the context of Discworld itself) i.e. Queen Keli(who's impact on the Sto Plains is notable, but who is not that notable as one of Death's supporting characters),
 * line between who's a subseries central character, who's a supporting character, who's a minor character, and who's a trivial character is fine and arbitrarily drawn,
 * as richly populated a world as Pratchett has created, the article would end up being very long and unwieldy regardless of being separated by subseries(and see above for why that's problematic in and of itself) or not.

I can't argue against consensus, so show me that a separate List of Discworld Characters page is more desired(or resolve the problems above), and I'll keep my mouth shut(hands clenched?) but otherwise, I'm still in favor of keeping things as they are.
 * We can put a "Standalone" or "Other" section section. And about characters that don't fit into subseries... well, that's sort of how they're done now, isn't it? The way it's formed... I mean, the City Watch, Wizards, Rincewind, Witches, Death, etc. are moreorless separate series, and you've grouped them together. I don't see how it would be any different this way. And, well, if they're not notable to the goshdarn subseries they appeared in, why on Klatch would they be notable to the Discworld as whole which is, by definition, a larger scope? If you mean because they appeared in more than one book across different subseries, then again, the "Other" section might be good for them.
 * And again, about the neutering... Main is awesome. We can link to those articles there. Btw, I'm mainly proposing list because of the standalones. They don't really fit neatly into anywhere else. Harry Blue5 (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry it took a while. Physical life called. Dislike(but just slightly) a standalone or other section because it would still be prone to being as lengthy and unorganized as if the list wasn't even broken down according to subseries. If we're going to have a list(which I'm not yet in favor of), I'd much rather it be sorted according to where Pratchett has placed the character in Discworld geography.

"Characters that don't fit into subseries...well, that's sort of how they're done now, isn't it? The way it's formed, I mean, the City Watch, Wizards...are moreorless separate series, and you've grouped them together"  If I'm understanding what you're saying, you're mistaken. The only place those things are grouped together are on the Discworld (world) page, where it makes sense in the context of the article and the Discworld (geography) article, because of the characters that didn't really fit anywhere else(and those might have eventually become part of a separate article (Discworld characters by location)--Serendipodous and I had discussed it but have not, as yet, taken action on it). Otherwise, each page for the main character(as in Death or Rincewind) or main characters/concept(as in Unseen University or Witches) has character blurbs in those articles.

When I say notable to the sub-series, I mean how big a part they have played in the existence of whichever article contains character blurbs for that subseries. When I say notable to the Discworld, I mean how big a part that character has played in the Chronology/Existence of the Discworld. So, to use Queen Keli as an example: she was in a Death book but she hasn't had that large of a role in Death's existence; however, in the context of the political setup of the Discworld, as ruler of a kingdom of the Sto Plains and someone who's indirectly responsible for the unification of the city-states of the Sto Plains, she's notable in the context of the Discworld as a whole.

As far as your main concern being the standalones: like I mentioned above, Serendipodous(who's really the only other editor I've talked to about Discworld coverage) had suggested the establishment of a "Discworld characters by location" article similar to the current Ankh-Morporkians by Institution article in order to get the non-germane character blurbs out of the Discworld (geography) article since they really have nothing to do with Discworld (geography).....but neither of us has (yet) taken action on that. So, that's an option....if you do tackle this, though, please redo all of the necessary links, particularly the one on the Discworld (world) page.
 * Sorry, I'm a bit late to the game. I thought that if you created a suppage to your own talkpage, WP placed it on your watchlist immediately, but apparently it doesn't. Only redisovered this by accident... Anyway, I'm glad that the discussion appears to be moving forward regardless, and yes I still think that the creation of a "characters by locatioon" article would be a good idea.  Serendi pod ous  19:11, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Discworld task force
Alright, these discussions are getting quite big. I've suggested that we make WP:DISCWORLD a task force here. It might be for the best that we decide whether to do it or not so that we can move the discussion's we've been having to the task force. Harry Blue5 (talk) 19:48, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Is three enough for a taskforce?--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If we made a task force, we'd get a load more members than we have currently. Harry Blue5 (talk) 15:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm in.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you comment on it here then? Harry Blue5 (talk) 23:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Will a simple "I'm in." satisfy or would you like me to say more? I'm also going to start leaving message on the talk pages of those I notice making significant content-related changes to Discworld articles. Something along the lines of "Your edits to Discworld-related articles have been noticed, and are appreciated. A few of us are trying to establish a Discworld taskforce to monitor and improve Wikipedia's Discworld coverage.  If you are interested, please go here and leave a comment that you wish to participate." If you have some rewording ideas on that, or think it's a bad idea period, let me know, whether supportive or critical, in the next couple of days.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 01:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A simple "I'm in." will satisfy me. And about the messages on talk pages, go for it. Harry Blue5 (talk) 13:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Concerns on your recent Discworld (world) article changes
You changed the Physics section title to Magic. I'm not going to revert that, yet, but I do disagree with it. Reasons why: First, The power of belief and narrative causality subsections(and topics) aren't stated by the author and, in my view, aren't portrayed as aspects of Discworld magic...and in that case, as you well know, the classification of them as magic is speculation. Second, titling that section Physics provides parity with the other section titles in a way that titling it magic doesn't.

Secondly, does it actually say that hatnotes belong up top in Wikipedia's article format standards? Because the See Also on Witches and Gods are germane to the sections they were in moreso than the whole article in general, and as such, it seems more appropriate to put them closer to/in the sections they're meant to expand on. Even if Wikipedia's article format standards explicitly state that hatnotes have to go up top, would you be willing to support common sense over authority and leave them where they were?--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 18:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Pratchett goes into great detail on the nature of magic on the Disk in both "The Discworld Companion" and "The Science of Discworld". "Narrative causality" is a term used by Pratchett himself multiple times, though "The power of belief" is not. Narrative causality is essentially a corollary of the power of belief, which is a function of the absence of reality, which is how Pratchett defines magic. "Physics" is not the right word to use in a Discworld context, because physics implies natural laws, and natural laws are swamped by magic on the Disc.  Serendi pod ous  18:54, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Schooled. What about the hatnotes, though?--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 21:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean. The only issue I've had with those so far is that you put them on the bottom of sections, when they're supposed to go on top. And while I'm on the subject, section headers not supposed to be fully capitalised unless they're proper nouns. It's an in-house style thing. First word only.  Serendi pod ous  21:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Reposted from my talk page
"Got your note on an IP-user talk page (User_talk:98.228.48.11) regarding the Discworld cleanup. I'd be glad to help, but won't have much time until July 30th -- I'm finishing law school and getting ready to take the bar exam, which is (ahem) nontrivial.  If there are any specific tasks, let me know via my talk page;  I'll try to check it on weekends. MJustice (talk) 12:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)"--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Witches and Wizards
Regarding your recent changes to Discworld (world): Could you provide some examples from the books of wizards using narrative causality and witches using the type of Discworld magic that mirrors roundworld physics?
 * Wizards frequently employ million-to-one chances; The Science of Discworld is all about wizards employing narrative causality. Granny Weatherwax employs "whiz bang" magic in her duel with the Archchancellor in Equal Rites. Both are equally capable of performing the other type of magic, they just prefer not to.  Serendi pod ous  06:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, but...first, I don't recall the wizards employing million-to-one chances--I remember the Guards doing it in the first Guards book. But larger than that, since (1.) the strong majority of magic that witches and wizards are directly shown to use in the books falls under one kind or the other, (2.) Pratchett makes a clear distinction between witch magic and wizard magic which pretty closely fits the delineation between roundworld-physics type magic and narrative causality, and (3.) as you mentioned above, witches prefer to practice primarily the one sort while wizards prefer to practice primarily the other sort, could we please just leave the article the way it was?

Here's where I'm coming from/why I feel strongly about this: redirecting people who are seeking more info about narrative causality to the Witches page makes more sense to me because that page will give them more information about narrative causality in a way that it won't about roundworld-physics magic, and with the obvious substitutions, the same is true for redirecting to the wizards page. Believe it or not, given your probable view of our history, I'm not just being argumentative and an edit-warmonger, I'm trying to make the article the best for seekers of info.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 10:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My issue with your layout is that it draws too strong a connection between witches and narrative causality. Indeed the article says that Granny Weatherwax tries not to use narrative causality, because it messes with free will. We can agree that both witches and wizards use magic, and that narrative causality is a part of magic, so there's nothing leading about the current layout. "The Science of Discworld II: The Globe" is an entire book devoted to the wizards employing narrative causality. In "The Last Hero", Ponder Stibbons employs the million to one chance to get the Kite out of a fix. Granny Weaterwax's "frost to fire" trick is an example of what wizards call "the law of conservation of reality". Magic is magic. The same rules apply in either case.  Serendi pod ous  10:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks.--Mobtown Mongrel (talk) 10:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge into WP:DISCWORLD
I think we should move all of this discussion into WT:DISCWORLD. Harry Blue5 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 29 April 2011 (UTC)