Forum:Articles on actors

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I've noticed that the DS9 episode pages have lost the format I've championed for years of including full information on the who plays thech character Could we come to a consensus on what happens when articles like Fritz Sperberg are unlinked and become orphaned articles? I don't see the problem of having the actors name included and I am a bit unhappy at my work and others being erased. - DS9 Forever (talk) 19:01, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

===Characters===
;Main characters
*Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks)
*Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor)
*Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell)
*Odo (Rene Auberjonois)
*Miles O'Brien (Colm MeaneyMA)
*Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig)
*Worf (Michael Dorn)
*Quark (Armin Shimerman)

Imho, Memory Beta should cover the same information that M-Alpha does - plus licenced material. Thus, if they have articles on actors and link them in the episodes, we should too. Kind regards, -- Markonian 19:11, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, MB should allow realworld info not just for topics relating solely to licensed publications (like it does with authors), but official works as well. I believe the character reference format that DS9 Forever mentions was abandoned because it can ONLY apply to episodes and movies (and, maybe, in a VERY limited way, to audio sources) and was replaced on episode and movie pages with the format used on novel and comic pages as a way to introduce some consistency. (If, however, that was not the case, then please feel free to correct me. This was likely done at a time when I was not as involved in this wiki as I am currently, and I don't know of any prior discussion concerning this topic, or any vote that was held. If there is one, please link me to it.) That, I believe, was a step in the wrong direction. Official material is NOT (in my opinion) on the same level as licensed material. Furthermore, it orphans already existing pages and serves to discourage the creation of new ones, even though the topics (that is, information on the casts & crews) seem (to me, at least) worth including in this wiki. - Bell'Orso (talk) 22:34, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

Keen to get Captain Mike's opinion on this as well before we start reverting edits. - DS9 Forever (talk) 19:20, February 7, 2018 (UTC)

I'm the one that's been making these changes. As I haven't checked the forum in a while, I hadn't realized until now that anyone had a problem with it. I've been doing it to make the character lists on the DS9 episode pages consistent with the vast majority of character lists on the wiki. I felt that it looks messy and unprofessional when different pages have completely different formats. No one complained when UESPArules removed the actor information from the TOS episode pages back in 2008, so I didn't think anyone would mind if I continued his work on the DS9 pages. I would caution against reverting my edits because in many cases, I have added missing characters to the character lists in addition to re-formatting them. --NetSpiker (talk) 12:27, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

If the actor hasn't done something a licensed publication, they don't get an article (or a link) -- we're not Memory Alpha. Canon episode actors don't get articles here. We've got quite a bit to do otherwise and copying MA's entire episodic performer database does not meet with our mission statement.

This was decided years ago, btw, and followed as a rule of thumb by the former copyeditors and admins. I can try to find whatever conversation we used to ratify this policy, but I really don't understand the confusion about this at this late date -- captainmike 13:08, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

As an aside, NetSpiker's work in reformatting the lists has been much needed and i would like to express appreciation, i have been trying to take those deadlinks out for years, but with going on 800 episodes and movies, its a handful. -- captainmike 13:11, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

also, Fritz Sperberg has an article here as a performer who played a part in a licensed video game. I think this kind of reciprocity shows why things work the way they do here -- MA cannot be matched on their actor/performer articles - its something we can aspire to match - without being redundant - by doing an equally good job with the actors who have appearaed in video games and other voiceover or live-action material -- captainmike 13:13, February 14, 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

I had a thought about how the policy on licensed-realworld articles allows for Avery Brooks and Fritz Sperburg to have articles, but the focus is off of their episodic ocntribution creates kind of a gap in our coverage of linkages.

How about we create a 'notability' policy - any performer, writer, producer, director, artist, etc who worked on a licensed work can be linked from any episodes they also worked on - from a subsection, NOT under 'References' > 'Characters' --- but instead from a specialized subsection under 'Appendices' > 'Background' > 'Notable cast and crew'

In this way, we can continue the process of eliminating irrelevant actor article links, and especially get them out of the References>Characters section (where they do not belong) -- but we keep the ones that are relevant to our wiki by dedicating a section to promote linkages -- captainmike 04:31, February 16, 2018 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you propose to add (for example) a subheading of 'Appendices' > 'Background' > 'Notable cast and crew' under every single one of the DS9 episodes saying "Armin Shimerman later wrote 'The 34th Rule'." and adding things like "Andrew Robinson later wrote 'A Stitch in Time'." or "J.G. Herztler later wrote 'The Left Hand of Destiny'." in those episodes in which their characters appeared. That might work. - Bell'Orso (talk) 05:18, February 16, 2018 (UTC)

Not quite that ornate - Armin's article states he wrote the book. just note in each episode that he played Quark in that episode. after all, Shatner has written numerous things and Nimoy narrated many more - we couldnt list them all in each episode. but linking to their article whenever relevant -- The list will not be complete because not every actor has narrated or written something licensed - but it would help keep our episode articles using a maximum number of relevant links. i started one in "Rapture" -- captainmike 05:23, February 16, 2018 (UTC)