Talk: List of policies

Interviews as source[]

Mostly based on a conversation with User:Kanamekun on the Talk:Lex and Lana page, I added the policy that writer/producer interviews can be used as sources for the site, but I am hesitant to extend this to actor interviews as well. They often have some knowledge of upcoming plotlines, (like how Tom Welling told a reporter that Lana was going to get "pregnant" in S6 before it started) but how much insight do they actually have? Allison Mack has an interview on her blog where she states that Chloe's power is "empathy" but I'm just reluctant to include this... Any thoughts? Should the writer/producer interviews even be included? (There is also a comment like this on the Clark and Chloe page. Marikology 04:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge Policy[]

I haven't been editing here for very long but it seems to me that there isn't a clear policy on Mergers. I propose that we institute some sort of policy involving a time limit because there doesn't appear to be enough voting to create a clear consensus. Any thoughts? --Adam Arredondo 01:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to propose a policy around Mergers! One thing though: when there isn't consensus, it's often because a solution hasn't emerged that satisfies both sides of the debate. Wikis tend not to do well at dispute resolution through voting... until a solution emerges that satisfies both sides, and that's what ends up getting embraced by all parties (and quickly too!) --Kanamekun 01:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a loose policy, based on good faith editing and proactivity. If you feel like you can merge two articles well, while making the wiki better and not losing any information, then go ahead and do it, no discussion required. If someone doesn't agree with the merge, it is up to them to be equally proactive and start a discussion. (This is what I basically did with the Kal/Red K articles. Even though there wasn't a clear discussion afterall, no one seems to object to the finished merged article, so for now it'll stay that way.) The idea is that people don't just suggest merges and debate back and forth. Instead, they actually do them to (presumably) make the wiki better, at which point users can discuss the finished product. I will try to hammer out some sort of policy that makes sense, and you guys keep an eye on it and see if it covers everything. Marikology 03:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Has there been an issue with merges languishing? I've seen some pretty dubious merges proposed, and the talk/discussion process has reigned them in nicely... so felt like the discussion process was usually a good thing. When things get bogged down, it's usually because the proposed merger isn't solid? Just my sense though... --Kanamekun 03:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and that's what I'm trying to articulate-- if the person who proposes a merge can't pick some guidelines out from the discussion and never actually goes through with the merge, then the discussion has done its job and the merge tag should be removed, which brings us to the original question: I think a time limit, like User:Adam Arredondo suggested, is a good idea. Just throwing this out there, but how does 2 months sound? Marikology 04:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

2 months sounds good to me. --Adam Arredondo 06:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Great, sounds good! One thing that helped me a lot in understanding why we should have time limits: the person who puts in the merge tag is supposed to take the lead in making the decision and doing the merge. Once I saw that written up in the merge policy that Marikology was kind enough to draft, it all made sense - and two months sounds totally reasonable! Thanks for bearing with me... :-) --Kanamekun 08:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Relationships[]

Perhaps we could add a note that the relationships don't necessarily have to be romantic to count? For example, Clark and Kara or Clark and Pete, Clark and Lex. Just a thought, but the additions to the policies page were a great help to clarify what's expected without having to just read all of the completed articles to get an idea. --TrumpetManLA 07:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Image Standards[]

Can we establish some standards around image use? I guess the big things are:

How many pixels across should the main image be (the one usually on the right side of the page) - 280 px?
Sometimes I see articles with what seem to be too many images. Should we have any guidelines around number of images (and/or rules for whether or not a particular image is wiki worthy)?
Are there any guidelines around having images without captions - should the goal be to have a caption on every image?

Let me know what you guys think - thanks! --Kanamekun 23:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

There might be some guidelines for wiki encyclopedias in general on Wikipedia, but there hasn't been an established policy for this one. Mostly we've just been going off of "good faith" edits, meaning that people put pics that make the page look as good as it can. I'll jot down my thoughts based on what's been going on so far, but as you will read, none of these are really "rules".

The main image can't be one established length across because pictures of varying sizes are used. Some are more oblong and others are screencaps. I try to go by what makes the layout look best, but I have a really wide screen, so if other users feel like it's not laying out correctly, they can feel free to fix it.

Too many pics on a page can indeed make a page almost unreadable (like the Phantom Zone page), so once again, good faith edits come into play. If a user feels like a page has too many images, they can remove some or include more text to support them, so long as they feel they are helping the page and making it more useful. This also applies to how the pics are laid out. If one feels like they look better right-aligned instead of left (like for bulleted lists), then they are free to realign them. I sometimes delete pictures that are clearly irrelevant to the show or of extremely poor quality and unused, but I think it's fair to establish that images go through the same deletion process that articles do to decide if they are wiki-worthy. If a user feels like an image isn't, please place a delete tag on it and the community will vote.

As for captions, I feel like screencaps in narrative should always have captions so the user knows which scene is being illustrated, but lots of times some promotional pics or the only image on a page don't always need one. (Like the portraits in "Personality" sections.) I say just use your best judgement (for now, anyway). Marikology 02:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts! I'm down with good faith... it's just that, images have been confusing to me for a long time. Sometimes the main picture on the right will be 280 pixels, other times it will be 250. I'm cool with having it vary, but it'd be nice to have general guidelines to help newbies get a sense for what's kosher? --Kanamekun 13:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Speculation/Spoilers[]

I would like to see us adopt a policy that is specifically against personal speculation. "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball," according to their own site. I have been monitoring the unaired episode pages and removing speculation posted in the spoiler sections. Every page already has a section for speculating, the talk pages. The spoiler section should be left to information from reputable sources. LanaIsDead 07:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that speculation compromises the quality of an article and a policy would be useful, but I'm not sure if it will prevent anonymous users from adding what they think will happen. I reason that it will all just be deleted anyway when the episode actually airs. However, a policy would be useful in that it will give other users justification for deleting it. As far as speculation on already-completed episode pages, (included as "Notes" or "Continuity") I think that they should be worded to make sense and prevent argument, otherwise they should go on the talk page as an observation. Marikology 18:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion was originally located on the Community Portal. It has been moved here because it applies to Spoiler policy.

I have a vague memory of there being some discussion about adding spoiler tags before, but I think it would be a good idea to use one so that editors who don't want to read spoiler information don't accidentally see anything (which I have narrowly escaped doing several times). Here's what I have in mind:

SPOILER ALERT:
This article pertains to one or more episodes that have not aired and may contain plot details. Please limit addition of unverified information or speculation to the [[:talk page]].

Feel free to edit this page, but please do not remove the {{spoiler}} notice until the pertinent episode or episodes have aired.

What do you guys think? - Adam Arredondo 09:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me!

When I first joined the wiki, I really wanted a spoiler tag. But over time, I got the vibe that the only spoilers that really mattered were on shows that haven't aired yet... and you could avoid those by not going to episode pages for shows that haven't aired yet. But you're right, there was a learning curve there.

The other key place for spoilers is character pages. If it's a new character (like Patricia Swann), then I'm willing to let that page have spoilers. But if it's an existing character (like say, Pete Ross), then I'm much less willing to see spoilers. So in that case, I would prefer there to be no spoilers on the page at all. It'd be a real bummer if people started putting spoilers on character pages, and saying "It's ok, because I used a spoiler tag".

As long as that doesn't happen, I've got no problem with this. But if people start putting the spoiler tag everywhere, then maybe we can revisit? --Kanamekun 15:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and make it a template and create the category. - Adam Arredondo 22:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Can you add a note about the suggested usage of the spoiler tag to the Spoiler section on the Smallville Wiki:List of policies page? --Kanamekun 00:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This is really cool! :-) I tried it on the Patricia Swann page and it worked great. One thing I noticed though - this part of the template didn't really seem to apply: "Please limit addition of unverified information or speculation to the talk page." If the spoiler template is only used on new episodes and new characters, do we need to limit speculation to the Talk page? --Kanamekun 04:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Policy[]

Is there an actual policy followed here? If there are already specific steps taken we should include them on the page. Here are some questions I would like to see addressed in that section.

What percentage of the votes does it take to finalize a decision?
Is there a quorum?
Is there a time limit before a delete tag is removed?

LanaIsDead 07:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Before I started editing, there didn't seem to be one in place, things were just redirected. Then we had a huge case of vandalism in which some users had written all these garbage pages (like, 30 of them), and a bunch of things that had nothing to do with SV, so I got admin status to help clean up. Then I realized the power of being able to delete and I went around and deleted a bunch of random irrelevant things, because it doesn't seem like any of the other admins (whoever they are) ever do and nobody seemed to object. Eventually I realized that I can't just delete whatever I want, so I created the Delete tag and wrote the deletion policy on this page. It's vague cos I didn't want it to seem like I was writing all the "rules". Now that we have more editors, I think we can decide on how many votes before we delete and specify some of the things you bring up. Marikology 18:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think 3 logged-in users or 6 total votes (from different IP addresses) to delete is enough to reach a consensus. On the reverse, if 3 users or 6 votes vote to keep it, the delete tag can be removed. Marikology 18:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good starting place. Simple majority, no time limit? LanaIsDead 07:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Recurring Characters[]

What is the convention for what makes a recurring character? Five? Because Victoria Hardwick was in 4 and is listed as a guest but Steven Hamilton was in four as well and is listed as recurring. It's not that big a deal, I just think there should be some sort of convention. Marikology 05:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Two: I think that two appearances make a character a recurring character. -Samantha's Mom 09:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Episode conventions[]

I made a list of episode page conventions, but none of them are "mine". They have all been in place longer than I've been editing. Marikology 05:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Character Conventions[]

I'm going through the Character pages, and cataloging some possible conventions/standards for the various sections!

So far, this is what I have:

Minor Characters - These don't really need sections (or can use ad hoc sections if needed)
Recurring Characters - These don't need sections either, but an Appearances section can help if the character appears in more than a few episodes (e.g. Sheriff Adams, or even Jimmy Olsen).
Major Characters - For these characters, the usual sections are:
- upfront summary (unnamed section, in present tense)
- Personality
- year by year summary
- In the comics
- Trivia
- Relationships
- See Also

If a character has powers, sometimes a "Powers" and/or "Vulnerabilities" section is useful. Also, if a character has a history before Season One... sometimes an "Early Life" section is useful too.

One thing I'm noticing: the year by year summaries are pretty unevenly named. Sometimes they're named "Life in Smallville, Year One" or "Life in Metropolis, Year One" (e.g. Lex Luthor & Jimmy Olsen), other times they're grouped by HS/College (e.g. Chloe) and other times it's a mix (Clark Kent). Other times, it's just a mess (Lana).

I'm considering standardizing them all into "Season One", "Season Two", etc. - like Lionel Luthor. Any thoughts or objections? --Kanamekun 15:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I've contemplated what to name the sections on various occasions. Sometimes I lean towards personalizing them to the character, describing their status, because it doesn't break the narrative quite as much as "Season One" will, which is why some of them are mixed (Clark dropped out of college) but I can also see the value in standardizing them all.

Minor recurring chars have a little bit of standardization. Personality, Life on the show (plot summary), then any other separate plotline they were involved in (like Helen's relationship with Lex or Jason Teague's search for the stones/Lana relationship). I hope this helps. Marikology 20:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Citations[]

Sometimes I come across some really cool information, but it seems a bit speculative or suspicious. Rather than just delete it, I thought we'd try out a new cite tag. To use it, just put {{cite}} in the article and it will automatically add a citation notice to the article (and add it to the Category:Articles needing citations category). --Kanamekun 15:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Templates policies[]

Thanks for adding that! What do you think of giving a bit more context around when each template is useful... especially like WIP versus Cleanup versus Stub? I had a lot of trouble figuring that out when I first started editing! :-) --Kanamekun 02:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

In-text links to episodes[]

I've been expanding the one-word links to include the relevant parts of the sentence referrencing the episode's events where and when I can, because I find the one-word links a bit confusing at times, thinking they might refer to an article about the word linked rather than an episode. I'd like to recommend making this a policy, or at least a suggestion for editors. Questions? Comments? --Noclevername 02:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

We've traditionally used just one word to link to an episode, a verb that links to when the action was done. This is done to reference back to episodes without breaking the narrative (there is a policy about this). I never had anybody bring up an issue of confusion, because it's almost always a common word like "ran" or "found", so why would there be an article about that? I find an entire string of words linked to be distracting, myself. The links on Wikipedia are also just one word. Also, since almost the whole site links with just one word, for conformity, I would ask that you not change any more links until we decide as a community what's best for the site. If others agree that the one-word links are confusing, then we'll work together on changing all of them. Marikology 03:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't find one-word links confusing, but I do have a related question. Sometimes we do the one-word links as mentioned above... and other times we reference episodes at the end of a sentence, like we do here: Lana Lang's near-death experiences. Sometimes also, we reference episode names at the beginning of a sentence, like here: Pete Ross' near-death experiences.

I have really had a clear sense for when we should choose each of the three options. Right now, it's kinda ad hoc on the site. Any thoughts? --Kanamekun 04:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Policies linked from Sidebar[]

I went ahead and linked the Policies from the sidebar... swapped out the link to the Help page, which didn't get a lot of edits or usage. Let me know if anyone misses having access to the help page! --Kanamekun 14:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)