Forum:Separating Sources

Ten Forward → Separating Sources (Reply | Watch)

I've been thinking lately that it might be a good idea to more clearly separate the sources that we use for the different pages. With the way things are now it can get really confuring trying to figure out what came from where, and which sources are part of the same continuity. A lot of times when I look up a specific character, I'm only interested in what I call the Novelverse, the current interconected continuity mainly used by the current books, but with the way the pages are set up now, the information from those books tends to be combined with the stand alone novels, comics, Starship Commander, ect. and I have trouble telling which stuff just applies to the Novelverse. My idea would be to do seperated sections for each source, so one for the standalone novel/short stories/novellas, one for the comics, one for games, one for the Novelverse, one for alternate universes, ect. Also, when putting together the information, it would be a lot less confusing if we didn't combine information from multiple sources, and instead just listed one source at a time, so instead of saying this happened and then this, this and this, and then listed all of the sources, it would be a lot less confusing if we did this (Source #1), this (Source #2), this and this (Source #1). I mentioned this on The Trek BBS Liturature forum, and some of the posters on there, some of whom contribute here and others who use this as a resource, agreed with me, so this isn't just coming from me alone.--JDB (talk) 18:42, January 6, 2017 (UTC)

My 2 cents: I am absolutely against a bias towards separating things into user created 'universes' - there is no such thing as the 'novelverse' - all novels take place in the Star trek universe, as do the comics and games. If a user identifies a contradiction, the description they are writing should hit a full stop, cite one source, then start a new thought, and cite the second source, and then add a note (with bg formatting) that there's a discontinuity.

We should not be having people treat each contradiction as a reasoning to create an alternate biography for the subject. just because we have a couple of sources that show Ro Laren doing something exceptional to a majority of other sources in her middle years, it does NOT mean there are two ROs -- it means we are writing a biography for Ro with her canon history described/cited; then we have another source, cited, break, and we have a followup timelining with a different source. each thing can have a description, citation to a specific source without editorializing on the validity of the source towards her greater history. There're far too many wikis that allow users to marginalize continuities they personally dislike, thus giving readers a partial and incomplete summation. We're a lot bigger than those and there would be no way to manage Ro-1 and Ro-2 and Ro-616 and so on (to use the Marvel/DC system as an example of what we're not). The new crop of authors are rebooting everything constantly and obviously aren't interested in referencing past works, but we're not deleting Michael Jan Friedman's work to make room for John Jackson Miller's.

Agreeing with JDB -- I would voice (and have voiced) support for a much more specific citation system where an inline "ref" tag citation could be placed after each phrase it cites, thereby minimizing confusion. You would say a ship was a certain class^[1] and was commissioned in a certain year^[1]. In this way, the reader can reference each fact with a source on a one-to-one basis, and can plainly see if they get to a Gold Key section of the biography it is separated and cited adequately for them to notice that it is topically discontinuitous and the citation or a background note can explain why. -- Captain MKB 01:03, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

What you are talking about would still only be part of the issue. My main problem is putting all of this stuff together, when it all comes from different sources. When I'm looking stuff up on here, I'm mainly interested in the comics and books, and I want to be able to just read stuff from the comics and books without having to wade through all of the stuff from the RPGs, video games, ect. and to be able to know at a quick glance which one it came from. And if I'm just wondering what books that are part of the novelverse established about Ro Laren, then I want to be able to read just stuff from the DS9 Relaunch and Terok Nor for example and not have to go through every other thing she has every appeared in. I'm not talking about setting up whole different pages for each version of the character or anything like that, it could all still on one page, just seperated. I'm talking about putting the information under a seperate headline for each source. So that way if someone wants to just know about the novels, they can just find the Novels section and read that and then move on without having to search through the whole page and just read a sentence or two here and there when they recognize the title of a novel. I don't know the names of every novel, or what are novels and what are comics, so there's always the chance I might overlook something from one of the novels because I didn't know the title or might read something from one of the comics because I got the title confused with a novel's title. And maybe we could do subsections for each different series, so we could know what comics stuff came from the DC stuff, or the Marvel stuff, or the IDW stuff. For the novels we could do a subsection for the standalone books and the Novelverse. Definitely disagree that there is no Novelverse, there's a pretty clear point around the early 2000s and the start of the DS9 Relaunch where the books started the become a lot more interconnected. I know it can be a bit messy with some of the Novelverse books referring back to older books, but it's usually pretty easy to see where the books went from being purely standalone to one big interconnected universe with story and character arcs. As much as it might be nice to pretend it's all one big universe, there are way to many contradictory sources for things to all work together that way. I don't have a ton of time, or know exactly what comes from where, but would be happy to help as much as I can and I might be able to get some of the people from the TrekBBS who are contributors to MB to help too. I would be able to at least help seperate the books and comics out. I don't necessarily have the titles all memorized, but it wouldn't be hard for me to find out if we add clearer citations. None of this has anything to do with marginalizing the sources, and I'm not talking deleting anything, I'm just talking about making it clearer what came from where, and making it easier to find out just what is or isn't related to each other. If I'm on here getting ready to read a one of the DS9 Relaunch books I'm going to want to be able to just read stuff that might be related to it, without having to worry about if other older standalone books or comics or RPGs or video games are mixed in with it.--JDB (talk) 04:09, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

JDB, would the Jean-Luc Picard (mirror) article be a good example of the kind of organization you want to implement?

Captainmike, can you give an example of what you mean by "a new crop of authors are rebooting everything constantly"? And when have John Jackson Miller's novels ever contradicted Michael Jan Friedman's novels? --NetSpiker (talk) 04:44, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

I think i see where you are going on the mirror Picard, its similar to what I just suggested, with some flaws in POV. Above i agreed with most of what is suggested, just with the proviso that we not be creating universes. Theres no book source that says 'these soources are one universe separate from those book sources'

As to things being separate universes, you cant just state soething like that without a source. the editorial intent of the novels is that they take place in the 'standard' Star Trek universe. You cant just state its different based on a personal feeling.

I'm not sayng JJM has retconned any Star Trek of MJF, i was calling them as an example (with the clever knowledge that they are both Star Wars authors and thats whhere a definite such situation occurred. But we have the truth - this years books have a new history for Number One, for example, than many other authors who have been disregarded.

We won't be disregarding those sources, we will add them to her biography with the notation that there are different editorial perspectives, but the intention they are part of the standard universe. That will provide clear and explicit reference to readers and even novelists using this site as a resource alike, giving them a clear readout of things they can use -- we should not be 'choosing' what to show them -- Captain MKB 11:08, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the Mirror Picard example is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, with each source fully seperated like that so we don't have something saying a person went and did something in a book, then did something in a comic, and then did something in a video game. I'm not talking putting stuff in different universes, this has nothing at all to do with anything to do with any kind of inusniverse stuff like that, I'm just talking about this from a purely real world perspective. I'm just talking about making it easier for people who are only interested in one medium to just find stuff from that medium. To go back to Picard article, I never really followed the Shatnerverse, so if I look him up chances are I'm going to looking for the stuff from the Mirror Universe novel series with The Worst of Both Worlds and Rise Like Lions, and if I get on here to read about that Picard I can just go to that section and not have to skip through the whole article and just read a random bit here and there that comes from those books. Or if I'm just curious about Dark Mirror or Mirror Images, I can just skip right to those section. I'm not talking about giving one medium more attention or emphasis than another, we would continue to treat them all equally, we would just make it clearer which one things came from. I know that the intention is that all of this stuff (unless noted otherwise) takes place in the same universe as the shows and movies, but they clearly aren't all taking each other into account and it would be a lot less confusing if we took that into consideration when the articles were put together. To be competely honest with you this has bothered me pretty much since I first started coming on here years ago, and it's kept me from coming on here to look stuff up a few times because I just wanted to be able to read about the books, or comics, or games and didn't want to have read through all of the other stuff on here.--JDB (talk) 14:23, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

Memory Beta is not a reference for people who are only interested in looking up information from only one medium, though, so I don't understand how this would be accomplished. The mirror Picard is a bad example for what you propose, because each reference is from an verifiably different continuity

If you look up Ro Laren, you're going to see her canon history, her early novel appearances, her comic appearances, and her newer novel appearances in chronological order in her biography. I can understand keeping that early novel and comic in a separate line and separate citation, with linebreaks/paragraph breaks and section breaks between, and the user is free to go from one to another, but if you want a wiki where her biography includes her relaunch novel biography and excludes her comic appearances and other novels and games, this is not the wiki for you. -- Captain MKB 14:40, January 7, 2017 (UTC)

OK, I'm not talking about excluding anything, I'm just talking about putting the different things under different sections. Everything would still be there and given equal attention, it just wouldn't all be mashed together.--JDB (talk) 16:14, January 7, 2017 (UTC)