Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Firefly task force/Archive 1

=2006–2007=

Do we need a stub template?
Do we have any stubs that we should mark? If so, we'll probably need to apply for a stub template -plange 04:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I just created Companion (Firefly), so though I have quite a bit of information there (and a picture), I'm guessing it would still be a stub of sorts. We probably should apply for a stub template, though. I expected there to be one, and was surprised when there wasn't one. After all, there's also been talk of creating an article on Serenity Now/Equality Now, and probably there will be an article on the next comic book miniseries once a title's announced, and those will very likely start out as stubs. Runa27 22:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * After I wrote the above, I found out that to be approved for your very own stub you have to have at least 60 articles in stub status, so there's no way we'd qualify, unfornuately, even though it would be very shiny! plange 00:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tags up for deletion
Thought you guys might be interested in weighing in on this debate-- someone is requesting the removal of spoiler tags. -plange 01:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia
Beginning cross-post.
 * See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★ MESSED  ROCKER ★  23:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

''End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.''

Revised episode format proposal
Not so much different, but more specific to Firefly.


 * 1) A general description of what the episode/serial is and when it was first broadcast.
 * 2) A teaser Synopsis with no spoiler content.
 * 3) A more fully detailed Plot with spoiler warning.
 * 4) Trivia
 * 5) "Standard" trivia information
 * 6) Guest cast, with the name of the character followed by an em dash (— or &amp;mdash;) followed by the name of the actor
 * 7) Allusions to earlier episodes
 * 8) Foreshadowing
 * 9) References
 * 10) External links, to include a link to the BBC on-line cast list.

Just a few tweaks; the allusions/foreshadowing sections work well as children under the Trivia heading, in my opinion. I stuck the guest cast section in there as well, since rarely is it significant enough to warrant its own section (for example, Objects in Space only has a single guest star). EVula 19:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I've made the change. Everyone, definitely help with things like this as I just put up a skeleton. Some of you are more experienced Wikipedians than I am :-) -plange 20:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Happy to help. I've tagged a few articles with the project template, and tweaked a few other things. When I have some time, I'll see what I can do about improving elsewhere. EVula 20:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Character format
Okay, I just put up something, just so we'd have something to work against in coming up with what we'd like to see the article format appear. This is NOT me saying it must be this way, so please, if you have changes or alternatives, let's discuss :-) -plange 00:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's pretty good. My only concern would be "Motivations" and "Goals". Unless they redo the series through the eyes of River, we're not likely to be able to poke around inside the heads of characters, and so those sections are liable to be full of original research. The two characters who spring immediately to mind are Book and Jayne. What ARE Book's motivations, especially when the hints to his backstory are taken into account. Why DOES he stay on the ship? With Jayne, is he REALLY as mercenary as he likes people to think? Fans and people who watch the series can come to their own conclusions, and a lot of them'll be different- but none are supported by canon, and so nearly anything put in those categories will be or tend towards OR. Barnas 11:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
 * yikes, yep, you're right, and I definitely don't want to encourage OR as we already have a problem with that....


 * Expanding on the idea of "Conflicts", with whom or what does the character get along especially well? I would suggest a section such as "relations to other characters" or somesuch which describes significant or consistent trends in relationships between characters. On another note, the tag, which was brought in for the needs of WP:Buffy, might be helpful for people who don't immediately realize that they will be reading spoilers for the series, the comic, and the movie. (For instance, knowing that Jayne is a member of the crew in the film is a pretty good indicator that he doesn't get sucked out the bay doors at the end of Ariel.) - Che Nuevara:  Join  the   Revolution 11:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

new image
I uploaded the image and rationaled it as fair use. If anyone wants to take a look and comment on it, please do so. Thanks. - Che Nuevara:  Join  the   Revolution 12:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds great to me, though this isn't my forte ;-) plange 16:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources
I've updated the examples of cite web and cite book to reflect the following ideas:


 * Specificity is important in book sources. Without page numbers or at least a chapter name, readers must hunt through the entire work to find the relevant information. There should be no excuse not to include page numbers for Firefly citations because the three (so far) canonical books have only 1 edition each, so there can be no confusion about the numbering. (If we're good about page numbers, we probably don't need the chapter names.)


 * Adding some space around the wiki template markup makes it MUCH easier to spot references and decipher their content. This is critical because the new ref format embeds the entire footnote in the text. (There is currently a bug in the book and web templates that requires the first parameter be on the same line as the template name, but the rest may be space-indented safely, and the closing ref tag is placed unindented on its own line to visually mark the end of the reference, and, not incidentally, prevent errors when adding or deleting optional parameters.)

I didn't tweak the cite podcast, cite episode, and cite visual examples because I haven't personally tested them, and some of them seem to be somewhat fragile and inflexible. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Jeff! One tip too for using page numbers. If you're citing from the same book but from multiple pages throughout, it can get quite cumbersome to have to keep putting in the full cite book template each time, so you can do a simple markup in the ref tag and then do the cite book template citation in the references section, like I did here: CSS Virginia II -- You would put your in the Notes area and the full book in the References section. SOOO much easier to cite things that way and cleaner when editing. And I didn't just make this up as a way to do this, it's the way the MILHIST project recommends their articles be done for these cases. plange 16:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point. That is a well-established mechanism, even in print publications. Another way, which avoids having 2 sections, is to provide a full citation for the first reference to the work, then to use the abbreviated version (e.g., "Finding Serenity, pp. 3-4") for further citations. This is also a very common system in publishing. (We should probably use abbreviated titles rather than author surnames, given the ambiguity of "Whedon" in this situation.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation work
Hi. I've done some refactoring work on your Project's categories and templates today (along with several other WikiProjects). I'm confident you'll find that the new organisation a big improvement. For more information and a rationale please see what I've written at WikiProject/Best_practices or drop me a line on my talk page.

If you're not yet assessing articles for Wikipedia 1.0 and using Mathbot, you might also find Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects and it's talk page very useful. --kingboyk 17:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks kingboyk, yep, we're already participating in 1.0 and are listed on that page - Mathbot's been very helpful! plange 17:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * :) Yes, I know you are. I copy and pasted this message, should have been more careful! Anyrode, thanks for the thanks! --kingboyk 18:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Date format

 * "Full dates (including month, date, and year) should be linked to allow preference-based formatting. Any of the following formats will accomplish this, and will be displayed exactly the same to any reader, based on their preferences:"

This is actually only partially true -- if the user hasn't specified a preferred date format under his preferences, then they will show up differently. For that reason, any single article needs to be consistent in its date formatting to avoid disorienting readers. If the particular format bothers the reader, then he can go change his prefs. - Che Nuevara:  Join  the   Revolution 16:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tags up for deletion
Thought you guys might be interested in weighing in on this debate-- someone is requesting the removal of spoiler tags. -plange 18:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk page templates and assessment scale
Hi, I'm working on creating a WikiProject for Pink Floyd (I haven't gone public with it yet). I love the talk page template and assessment scale you guys use at this Wikiproject. I took a quick look at the template and I can see it's got coding it in way beyond my abilities to comprehend. Would you mind if I adapted it for my project? I'll give you guys full credit in the code, of course. - dharmabum 02:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Be my guest, though I also got help from others who are credited in there, so if you could carry that over too, that'd be great. You're free too to copy anything we're doing in our Project structure-wise as well! If you do the assessment scale thing, make sure you make all the categories that are needed so that the bot can pick it up.... Good luck! plange 03:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Shiny. ;) Thanks, and I'll certainly carry over your credit to the military history and Beatles projects. I'm finding the complexities of creating these more code-level aspects of a good WikiProject a little daunting but challenging and fun. - dharmabum 04:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree but it's so worth it when you figure it out :-) plange 14:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The Onion.
The Onion has noted that the Firefly article is one of the most detailed on Wikipedia, rivaling the American Inderpendance article. ;) -- Jeandré, 2006-08-02t20:06z
 * OMG, that was a riot! Cracked me up! Thanks for the notification! plange 20:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Companion (Firefly) has been created
BEHOLD! And then edit the hell out of it (or assess it, at least). :) Runa27 22:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone going to Dragon*Con?
I'll be there this weekend - was going to see if any of you might be going? plange 03:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

created a new template
Firefly Character

I can be thanked in pies. ;) --KrossTalk 23:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar userbox
Just an FYI, I've created a userbox for people who are given a Browncoat Award. You can find it at WikiProject Firefly/Award userbox. EVula 06:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:
 * User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
 * User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
 * User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 13:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

List of Firefly curse words
I think this page should be renamed to something like "List of Firefly curse words and slang", or something to that degree so we can add shiny, verse, sly, etc... -Xornok 14:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Or Firefly dialog? That way we can get away from a list and write some prose about the dialog, etc.? --plange 16:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Trying to write an article about the dialogue would inevitably lead to OR. But I agree that slang and such should go in the article. - Che Nuevara  21:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Zoe vs. Zoë
Hi, folks. If you look at Talk:Zoe Washburne you'll see that has kindly provided proof that the shooting scripts spell our favorite first mate's name as "Zoe", not "Zoë". I've moved the page accordingly, and am about to embark on a quest of correcting the references in Firefly articles — however, it's likely that I'll miss a few. Should any brave knights care to join me on this adventure of diaeresis removal, all are welcome! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Free-use images
I replaced the fair-use images at Nathan Fillion, Christina Hendricks , and Sean Maher with free-use alternatives. I also replaced the existing free-use image at Alan Tudyk with a better one. Thoughts? —  pd_THOR  undefined | 01:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

New WikiProject: WikiProject Science Fiction
To give some coherency to the many little sf-oriented communities on Wikipedia.--ragesoss 20:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Image source?
Any idea where Image:Zoe 23.jpg came from so we can keep it from being deleted? EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 17:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The image (provided a source and a detailed fair-use rationale are applied) would be fine for the Zoe Washburne article. However, it cannot be used for the Gina Torres article per WP:FUC criterion #1 and WP:FU counterexample #8.  —   pd_THOR  undefined | 17:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

CFD notice
Removed cfdnotice, cfd has completed. --Kbdank71 15:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Please also note Deletion review/Log/2007 February 20 for a review of the decision regarding Category:Actors by series. Tim! 08:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Browncoat image up for deletion
I'm sure what the exact origin for Image:Independent flag.jpg is, but it is currently up for deletion. I'm arguing that it should be kept, for no other reason than that there isn't a real reason to delete it (remove it from the two mainspace articles, and at worst, it is a userbox image).

Anyway, please join in the. Thanks! EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 15:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

CFD notice
Please see Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_16 for a category deletion nomination of Category:Firefly (TV series) producers. Tim! 07:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

List of Firefly episodes images are gone, thought you should know.
List of Firefly episodes images are gone, thought you should know. - Peregrine Fisher 04:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

i tried reverting the deletion of the images, but the actual images themselves are deleted, not just from the page. when i reverted all the images came up as red links. Anyone know what happened????

- Three ways  round  20:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * They were all deleted on February 8th by User:Thebainer. The deletion logs   state that they were Speed deleted.  Would have been nice if we have been notified.--SirNuke 21:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

was any reason stated for their deletion???- Three ways  round  21:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The deletion log message says no fair use rationale. I assume the images were screenshots from the episodes, and would have following under Wikipedia's Fair Use Rational.--SirNuke 22:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

well from my understanding screen shots are ok with the fair use rational. But anyway would the pictures of episodes in the menus of the dvd be a good replacment for those pictures (under fair use)????? - Three  ways  round  22:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter where the screenshots are from, as long as you say what the source is. Also, they should be of a key scene in the episode, not just a random screengrab. The image page should end up looking something like what I did for Image:Man vs. Wild season 1 episode 8.jpg. - Peregrine Fisher 22:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

so the images really didn't need to be deleted, as long as they had a source listed right? can we undelete them???, if they didn't have a source listed could we just right the DVD's as a source because that is where they would have gotten them????- Three ways  round  22:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * They may have had the source already listed, it's hard to tell since they're deleted. What they were lacking was the fair use rational.  You might ask the admin who deleted them if they would put them back so we can fix them.  Or, apparently there's a template for this, Template:ImageUndeleteRequest, and some random admine might help. - Peregrine Fisher 23:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Firefly Old Wounds
Hello Folks! And what an amazing page that's here! Well done! I just wanted to request that Firefly: Old Wounds be submitted as an external link. As the saying goes... I'm not doing this for page rankings or the esteem. Our little audio drama was the first Firefly fully developed full cast series of Firefly and I think it nicely ties in between the television series and the comics. I'd love to see it placed here so others who love firefly can find it, and listen to it.

Thanks so much, Jack

Jack Ward —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sonicsociety (talk • contribs) 14:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC).


 * Sorry, Jack. Wikipedia is not a collection of links. However cool your drama might be, it is not appropriate to the article, any more than a link to somebody's fanfic site would be. Just sayin'! -- Orange Mike  14:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

List of Firefly slang words AFD Notice

 * Thought I'd let y'all browncoats know that the above article was nommed at AfD. Link: List of Firefly slang words (AfD discussion).  Please note that I did not nominate the article, nor do I expect to participate in the discussion.  Just conjured that y'all might want to know in case anyone wanted to try a barnswallow.   Laughing Vulcan  04:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Episode coverage
The WikiProject Television episode coverage taskforce have recently been working on a review process for episode articles. There are a rash of articles about individual episodes which fail notability, and are unlikely to ever reach such requirements. Many contributors are unaware of the specific guidelines to assess notability in episode pages: Television episodes. We have expanded these guidelines to make them more helpful and explanatory, and we invite you to read the guidelines, and make any comments on its talk page. After much discussion, we have created a proposed review process for dealing with problem articles. See: Television article review process. We invite discussion of this process on its talk page. General comments about this whole process are welcome at the episode coverage taskforce talkpage. Thanks! Gwinva 10:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

New guideline on fiction: Delete Firefly-related articles?
I would like to call the attention of members of this project to the recently revised guideline at WP:FICT, which now states that all sub-articles on fictional subjects must independently meet a new (stricter) notability ruling than what was in place prior to the new guideline. If enforced, the new guideline would likely result in the deletion and/or merging of hundreds of articles on fictional subjects, such as fictional characters, television episodes, fictional locations, etc. There is active discussion / disagreement related to this issue at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction), and in the interests of ensuring the topic is fully discussed by interested editors, I would invite members of this project to participate in that discussion (whether you agree with the new guideline or not). Fairsing 22:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Can't Stop The Serenity charity event - needs an article?
After a bit of going back and forth on the Can't Stop The Serenity section on the Serenity (film) article regarding how much detail should actually be included, it's been suggested that we simply create an article for the event so that we can have expanded, accurate, detailed coverage of it without overloading the film itself's main article too much.

Keep in mind that the event is international in scope, has made local press at least a few times, is increasingly successful, and as far as I know, unique amongst charity events relating to films. Oh, and now with two such events in the past and a third on the way, it's officially an annual event (which in 2007, took in over US$113,000), making it even more notable.

If we get enough news articles in, and enough details on the history (you could probably copy-paste some of the previous versions of the event's section on Serenity (film), if you want a starting point to work from, as it's not there now but has been there before), and a good lead, as well as a good perspective as to exactly how unique the event is (as in, are there any similar charity events that have ever been done with a film, let alone cult film, and have they been so widespread or international, or annual in nature, and if so did they ever raise more than US$100,000... or is Serenity really 100% unique in this?), I think we can put together a pretty good, accurate, well-written, well-sourced page where notability is established quite well... which, you know, might actually stay up even! (/AFD joke)

Any input on this would be much appreciated! Runa27 23:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing Character Merge Discussion
Following the result of a recent AfD a merge discussion has been started on the talk page of the main Firefly article here. The discussion seems to have slowed down a bit and I thought people here might like to give their input. Guest9999 15:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)]]

Browncoat page
Per the deletion discussion for this article, I cast my vote for "keep" conditioned on the removal of all fan events and other fancruft. All of this content was in clear violation of WP:NOT, i.e., Wikipedia is not a list of links, social networking site or soapbox. This position was supported by at least one other reviewer of the article. I have now removed all of it, bringing the article more in line with what a Wikipedia article should be. Please do not replace it, and please keep an eye out to prevent others from replacing it. I know there are responsible Wikipedians in the Firefly WikiProject, and I appeal to you to keep this article in line. Thank you. --Boradis 01:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)