Characters of Smallville
- A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to get more outside views on how to improve the article before eventually taking it to FAC (This includes copy editing opinions on how to tighten up some of the prose, help finding additional sources other than the companion books, anything that will improve the article). To take care of any immediately questions/concerns that might pop up I would just like to say that the section on "Kara", "Jimmy Olsen", and "Grant Gabriel" are not completely developed because I do not have the season 7 companion book yet that covers the real world perspective of their characters (it's in the mail, so I might get it before anyone reviews the article). To address why some characters are given sections and why others are in the "list" section, that is because without real world information there is no need for the additional context provided by the in-universe information (i.e. no need to bog the page down with information that is present in each of the season articles when you don't have real world information to go with it). If there are concerns about the size, the readable prose is approximately 58kb, and per WP:SIZE I think the scope justifies the additional length as most of these sections, though they seem large are only about 5kb of readable prose themselves which is rather small to separate on their own.
Thanks, BIGNOLE (Contact me) 17:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Comments
- I have been watching the development of this article since you started it (because I was and still am trying to also find the optimal representation for character lists for a long-running TV show). What, in your opinion, distinguishes the second half of the list (in particular the Guest appearances) from a directory, as adviced against by WP:NOT#DIRECTORY? I ask because I think that's IMDb's job (feel free to disagree), and because I have come to the conclusion that character lists are the most informative and the least crufty if they are only about main and recurring characters (2+ episodes, better 3+).
- My lovely dab tool says Dark Knight, Matthew Walker, Kendall Cross and James Marshall need to be disambiguated. :-)
– sgeureka t•c 18:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- To answer your first, they are there because I didn't want to have to fight fellow fans that think Françoise Yip, who played Dr. Tang in several episodes, warranted mentioning in a section when there is no real world information on her character (or even her acting in the role). It seemed better to list any recurring guests that don't have real world commentary than fight any edit wars where people come in and say "how come she isn't listed anywhere...I guess they missed her, so I'll just add this long plot description of her in for them". It sounds bad on my part, but I've seen it on other articles. Most every character (except the one episode ones) started out with a section and when I felt like there was not any real world info to put them them (or sometimes just "enough"...like in the case of Terence Stamp. No one really talks about him beyond his connection to the Superman films) I removed the section and placed them in the list to save space. Or...did you mean just the one episode people? Well, to me, I find the list no more a directory than List of Harry Potter cast members, as they are pretty much the same except this list doesn't identify every single episode they appear in.
- Yes, I meant mostly the one episode people. Since the reader doesn't even know when these one-time guest stars appeared (without clicking the refs), there is hardly any added encyclopedic value in listing them. If it's a really notable guest appearance, s/he may be mentioned in (brackets) in the ep summaries in the LoE. That's just what I have found to work for my fiction list-articles. – sgeureka t•c 06:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- To the other comment, I actually intentionally left "Dark Knight" unambiguated, because I was directing the reader to the name "Dark Knight" and not Batman. If I redirected to "Batman", anyone unfamiliar with the character (you'd be surprised) might not realize they are one in the same. I have fixed the other you listed (we do not have a page for the Matthew Walker...at least not the one that was on Smallville). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 18:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- Reply to point 2: Some dab MOS or hatnote MOS says to link to Dark Knight (disambiguation) in that case, because dab pages should never have any direct incoming links. I thought I had already added Matthew Walker (Canadian actor) to the dab page once, but obviously I hadn't and have done so now (although you likely don't want to use a redlink). – sgeureka t•c 18:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- I checked the history, and you did (or at least someone did) have the Canadian actor in there, but it was removed. Dark Knight (disambiguation) actually redirects to Dark Knight. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- Dark Knight (disambiguation) actually redirects to Dark Knight - I know, but the guys at WP:DPWL will thank you if you make it clear that the link is intended to go to the dab page. (This may just be the dab geek within me speaking; I have no idea if the FAC guys go that far with intentionally undabbed links as well.) – sgeureka t•c 06:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- So, would you suggest removing the one-episoders, or adding the episodes be their names? I think the FAC people will get on me for not piping a link properly if I use a redirect link. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- I would remove one-episode characters, and I would rather add episodes to their names than only use refs. But the final decision is up to you; you know the show better than me (both in-universe- and real-world-wise), and your experiences for what constitutes a good article may differ vastly from mine (my opinion on TV character lists is almost fully based on my work on Characters of Carnivàle and the ~4 Stargate character lists). – sgeureka t•c 18:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
- So, would you suggest removing the one-episoders, or adding the episodes be their names? I think the FAC people will get on me for not piping a link properly if I use a redirect link. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- Dark Knight (disambiguation) actually redirects to Dark Knight - I know, but the guys at WP:DPWL will thank you if you make it clear that the link is intended to go to the dab page. (This may just be the dab geek within me speaking; I have no idea if the FAC guys go that far with intentionally undabbed links as well.) – sgeureka t•c 06:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- I checked the history, and you did (or at least someone did) have the Canadian actor in there, but it was removed. Dark Knight (disambiguation) actually redirects to Dark Knight. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 20:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- Reply to point 2: Some dab MOS or hatnote MOS says to link to Dark Knight (disambiguation) in that case, because dab pages should never have any direct incoming links. I thought I had already added Matthew Walker (Canadian actor) to the dab page once, but obviously I hadn't and have done so now (although you likely don't want to use a redlink). – sgeureka t•c 18:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- To answer your first, they are there because I didn't want to have to fight fellow fans that think Françoise Yip, who played Dr. Tang in several episodes, warranted mentioning in a section when there is no real world information on her character (or even her acting in the role). It seemed better to list any recurring guests that don't have real world commentary than fight any edit wars where people come in and say "how come she isn't listed anywhere...I guess they missed her, so I'll just add this long plot description of her in for them". It sounds bad on my part, but I've seen it on other articles. Most every character (except the one episode ones) started out with a section and when I felt like there was not any real world info to put them them (or sometimes just "enough"...like in the case of Terence Stamp. No one really talks about him beyond his connection to the Superman films) I removed the section and placed them in the list to save space. Or...did you mean just the one episode people? Well, to me, I find the list no more a directory than List of Harry Potter cast members, as they are pretty much the same except this list doesn't identify every single episode they appear in.
- I already removed the "one-episoders" from the page as a test to see how people react (took out like 35kb of info..lol). I don't know if you're watching the page, but you can see how it looks for yourself. I've also been going through and tightening up the wording to get rid of any verboseness. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 22:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment
- Would you consider creating articles for some other main characters? Martha Kent could definitely be given her own article (you already have great development info, plot info can always be written, and I could help finding some reception info, if there is any), and the same goes for Johnathon. I'm guessing that there's more info for Pete, although he basically did nothing on the show; is there enough OOU info to justify an article for him? They are the main ones that I think are too long, but with a potential and probable ninth season, a couple of other characters may also need to be spun-off (though there's a while yet for that to happen).
- I can't think of much more right now and don't have the time. Maybe you could ask a couple of editors to ce the article, otherwise, I can't see much else to do. Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 02:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- I wouldn't at this moment because what you see with Jonathan and Martha is what you get. There is nothing else that I can find, thus the articles wouldn't grow beyond the size of the section they have. That isn't enough to support a separate article. There is no more info on Pete either. He was a three season character that got cut. Lois is the smallest of the characters to be spun out and she's 12kb of readable prose (and I don't even have her season 7 info yet). Martha is just over 5kb, and Jonathan is the same. That's a really small article for a character that isn't going to appear (at least as a main character) on the show anymore. Maybe, if there were some sources discussing Jonathan and Martha (the couple) one could create a Jonathan and Martha Kent (Smallville) article, and combine the two. But, Dr. Swann is just as big as Jonathan and Martha's sections, but he, like them, isn't notable enough on his own. They fail (by our current standard for determining it) individual notability. As for characters if there is a season 9, I doubt that as well. Clark and Chloe are the only majors left from the beginning of the show. Jimmy has been around since season 6, and this is all we have on him so far. Tess and Davis (the latter I doubt will be back for a season 9) only have a single season under their belt, and other than the reports of when their characters first were announced people really haven't been covering them all that much (not even Doomsday). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 02:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- But I think there is enough to justify a split. I got Danielle Rousseau to GA, and I don't think she has as much info as John or Martha (minus the reception section). If we do manage to find enough info covering J or M in regards to reception (and yes, I know you will probably think the reception section of Rousseau's article is just filler), they would have fully fledged articles, just maybe not as much depth as Clark or Lex. I really don't want to negotiate or argue with you, so if you are not going to agree (no matter how much I persist), I'll just let it go. Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 04:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- My strive is for FA, not short GAs (which is not an attack on the Danielle Rousseau article, but a statement about what an article on either Jonathan or Martha Kent would be able to become). Plus, Jonathan and Martha have limited screen activity. They're there, but they don't really have real story arcs. Martha had that mini-arc being Lionel's assistant, but that's about a sentence or two of information as nothing ever really came out of it. Jonathan had his deal with Jor-El but it was stretched thinly across multiple seasons. In order to have full articles you'd have to put in extraneous details about what each character did in every episode that even remotely dealt with anything involving their characters. Not every main character warrants a page of their own. In regards to size, the Danielle Rousseau article is approximately the size of the Jonathan and Martha sections combined - so they aren't even comparable sizes on their own. If there was real reception on these characters that would be one thing, but if it's trivial mentionings then that isn't reception and is one of the reasons why I never split them off in the first place. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 05:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm, well whatever you think is best. I don't want to further this conversation, but isn't a short GA better than no article at all? Anyways, I'd better let you get back to your other work, I don't want to cause to much of a fuss over nothing. Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 06:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- To me, being a section of an FA article (if this were to even pass at such a time) is better than being a small GA article with no chance of being FA because of the lack of comprehensibility that can be achieved. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 12:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm, well whatever you think is best. I don't want to further this conversation, but isn't a short GA better than no article at all? Anyways, I'd better let you get back to your other work, I don't want to cause to much of a fuss over nothing. Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 06:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- My strive is for FA, not short GAs (which is not an attack on the Danielle Rousseau article, but a statement about what an article on either Jonathan or Martha Kent would be able to become). Plus, Jonathan and Martha have limited screen activity. They're there, but they don't really have real story arcs. Martha had that mini-arc being Lionel's assistant, but that's about a sentence or two of information as nothing ever really came out of it. Jonathan had his deal with Jor-El but it was stretched thinly across multiple seasons. In order to have full articles you'd have to put in extraneous details about what each character did in every episode that even remotely dealt with anything involving their characters. Not every main character warrants a page of their own. In regards to size, the Danielle Rousseau article is approximately the size of the Jonathan and Martha sections combined - so they aren't even comparable sizes on their own. If there was real reception on these characters that would be one thing, but if it's trivial mentionings then that isn't reception and is one of the reasons why I never split them off in the first place. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 05:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- But I think there is enough to justify a split. I got Danielle Rousseau to GA, and I don't think she has as much info as John or Martha (minus the reception section). If we do manage to find enough info covering J or M in regards to reception (and yes, I know you will probably think the reception section of Rousseau's article is just filler), they would have fully fledged articles, just maybe not as much depth as Clark or Lex. I really don't want to negotiate or argue with you, so if you are not going to agree (no matter how much I persist), I'll just let it go. Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 04:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
- I wouldn't at this moment because what you see with Jonathan and Martha is what you get. There is nothing else that I can find, thus the articles wouldn't grow beyond the size of the section they have. That isn't enough to support a separate article. There is no more info on Pete either. He was a three season character that got cut. Lois is the smallest of the characters to be spun out and she's 12kb of readable prose (and I don't even have her season 7 info yet). Martha is just over 5kb, and Jonathan is the same. That's a really small article for a character that isn't going to appear (at least as a main character) on the show anymore. Maybe, if there were some sources discussing Jonathan and Martha (the couple) one could create a Jonathan and Martha Kent (Smallville) article, and combine the two. But, Dr. Swann is just as big as Jonathan and Martha's sections, but he, like them, isn't notable enough on his own. They fail (by our current standard for determining it) individual notability. As for characters if there is a season 9, I doubt that as well. Clark and Chloe are the only majors left from the beginning of the show. Jimmy has been around since season 6, and this is all we have on him so far. Tess and Davis (the latter I doubt will be back for a season 9) only have a single season under their belt, and other than the reports of when their characters first were announced people really haven't been covering them all that much (not even Doomsday). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 02:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)