Forum:Article Meat

To Answer your questions

In Content Universe vs Real World View of the Universe
1) I noticed you removed my "In the Books" section markers. I put them there because I though that in the case of people, places, and things that exist in the real world, it might be a good idea to differentiate between real facts and information relating only to the NUMA universe. Obviously anything that exists only in the books would not have such a section marker. Do you disagree with this system?


 * I feel the entire wiki is In the Books, but I might be misreading to what you meant, so if it is actually something else, let's do it. --Farragut79 04:08, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I got it and my first assumption was correct, the articles should be In Universe because it is assumed to be already in the book, that is why it got an article. I mean the introduction will be laced with Our World stuff, while the main body will be what's described in the book. --Farragut79 04:23, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I had forgotten that you wanted the wiki to be entirely in-universe. That isn't how I would approach things, but if you feel strongly about that we can go with it. I would like to keep focusing real-world facts at the top of the article as we've been doing before getting into universe-specific details, though, if only because we don't want to make book facts seem like real facts. I have a feeling that with Cussler's level of realism that could possibly happen... --KalebPSpector 08:32, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do feel that this should be a in universe wiki or else it would be essentially the main Wikipedia transported here. After reading Cussler's books, they are in their own little universe especially in the early Pitt books where they establish that this is a separate universe. Yes, I included the Fargo and the Bell series, but I believe that they are in the same universe as NUMA, but their stories are not world shattering like the Pitt, NUMA Files, and Oregon Files. I am thinking of adding Hotsy Totsy and Vin Fizz just to be consistent as well. --Farragut79 14:12, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I personally think we can separate basic background information from information pertaining to the book universe without making it seem like Wikipedia as long as we don't do any cut-and-paste stuff, but that's just a personal preference and not that important. And adding Hotsy Totsy and Vin Fizz is probably a good idea since they are works of Cussler, but I won't be able to help you on them. --KalebPSpector 21:58, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Real World info should just be a very small part of the article. Essentially, only what the book mentions should be the main feature of that article. The real world fills in some of the pieces. I can pick up those two books. --Farragut79 14:26, August 17, 2011 (UTC)

OutLinks vs InLinks
2) I also noticed you wikilinked a lot of stuff from my articles. I'm trying to avoid overloading pages with links that won't go anywhere, so I'd prefer defaulting them to Wikipedia links. If a book requires one of those things to get a wiki page then we can go back and change the link later. I'd rather do that than have every other link lead nowhere.


 * I do agree with about links going nowhere, but I do not like having the majority of the article being linked to the Wikipedia. I have edited with other Wikis that have done this and soon it became over done with an end result of the majority of articles being either copied from the Wiki or heavily linked to it. I feel that if an article is associated with the real world one, its good to put in the reference section because I am trying to keep it In the Universe. They way I write articles is to write the associated links along with the main article, maybe that's why I burn out and take long breaks. I guess the red links, also, show what we need to get done and instead of trying to write as many articles as possible, but to make a complete article. --Farragut79 04:08, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I feel like part of writing a complete article involves not linking to things that aren't really relevant. For example, in the Langston Overholt III article, you added links for Langston Overholt I and Langston Overholt II. I removed those links because those two people are mentioned once each in a single paragraph and never mentioned again, in any book as far as I know. They don't actually play any role in the books, so there's no reason for them to get pages of their own. I left the war links in because I'm pretty sure they'll get articles eventually (Revolutionary War for The Navigator, Civil War for Sahara, and World War I for something I'm sure). And yes, I tend to write articles breadth-first, so I write all the articles I need, giving them links where I think they need them, and just letting the system connect the dots as more articles get written. Also, I'm going to make another forum post which I think you should look at, because it's my plan of attack from here until the Oregon Files are completely finished. --KalebPSpector 08:32, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * In all honestly, I feel that if they are mentioned in the book, they deserve an article. They are not using up valuable space, besides the more expansive and complete our wiki is, the better, especially if we get competition. --Farragut79 14:12, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * If we get this wiki going fast enough, then hopefully there won't be much competition. I don't know how Wikia works with metatags and Google results but hopefully if we get this one big enough people will see it and not go building their own elsewhere. Also, my only concern with your "one mention is enough for an article" policy is that for example, with Golden Buddha, I'm pretty sure if I gave every named person, place, or thing an article, I'd need to write at least 30 more articles, most of which would be one or two lines long since we're not going to be cutting and pasting from Wikipedia. Since creating all those pages takes time away from writing the bigger and more important articles, I feel like those mini-articles would be better wrapped up in a larger article UNLESS they also get mentioned in another book, in which case it should have its own article for the purpose of cross-referencing since last time I checked that was one of the primary functions of this wiki. --KalebPSpector 21:58, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * That's one of the biggest pet peeves of mine, is the combining of small articles into one even though there is a redirect on the original page. If it is just a single line, then yeah, it should be in a larger expansive article. Like the Langston Overholts, we can easily put enough information about them, yes they maybe generalized, but at least if you are a casual reader you wouldn't have to read stuff that you don't want to know about yet or at all. --Farragut79 02:37, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying Langston Overholts I and II should get their own articles? If so, I'm still not sure why you think that. As for Overholts III and IV, those two should definitely have their own articles because both of them play specific roles in Golden Buddha. --KalebPSpector 03:25, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, they need their own pages because I feel if it is mentioned in the book, it needs a page, especially information that could only be found in the books. I am not saying do it all now, because they can be added later --Farragut79 14:28, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm curious as to why, though. I feel like our goal in writing this wiki is to allow people to learn more about the characters, places, and things that make up Cussler's stories and be able to cross reference them between stories. If you want to get super-detailed, then I can understand making pages for even the most minor characters who are directly involved in the story (like Ignez Macco, one of the jailers during the exposition mission), but making pages for the first two Langston Overholts still doesn't make sense to me. I mean, the article on Langston Overholt I would say "Langston Overholt I served as a spy in the Civil War." and an article that contains only a single sentence doesn't make sense to me when said sentence can be used as background information for Langston Overholt III. --KalebPSpector 19:19, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * The completist in me and also, I have been a part of many wikis that do just that. If the character is named and somewhat of history, it is given its own article. I don't see why it would be a problem. --Farragut79 18:00, August 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * Very well. It's also occurred to me that since this is a wiki, while I may not be interested in creating articles for Langston Overholts I and II myself, I would certainly have no reason to delete those pages should someone else create them. All I ask is that if you are going to add detail pages that you feel I've overlooked, please either wait and do so after I finish organizing the Golden Buddha page or make sure to categorize them under the "From the Oregon Files" since that's where I'm assuming I'll find all the pages that need to be sorted for Golden Buddha. --KalebPSpector 18:14, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

Other Stuff
3) I feel like there's a better place for all this admin talk than on your profile's talk page. Is there somewhere else we can post and discuss this so your talk page doesn't get jammed up with all these discussions? :) KalebPSpector 03:34, August 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Article Meat Forum Thread --Farragut79 04:08, August 16, 2011 (UTC)