User talk:Ptmc2112/El Goonish Shive

Dan Shive's Edits

I've been asked a few times now, so I'm adressing this here (which I hope is the right place). My username is Danshive, and I am the real Dan Shive, and have been making edits and additions to this wiki entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danshive (talk • contribs)

Hi, Dan! Welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for the contributions. I've had a quick look through the edits you made and they all look good to me, but just to be on the safe side I should bring up the guideline Wikipedia:Autobiography and the policy Wikipedia:Verifiability. It can sometimes be tricky when writing Wikipedia articles on a subject one has deep personal knowledge about since one must keep in mind that other editors will need to be able to verify the information provided. If you find yourself wanting to add some information here that isn't publically available anywhere else, you should make sure to put it up somewhere verifiable such as the El Goonish Shive website so that it can be referenced. Again, the edits you just made don't look controversial, I just figured I'd bring these things up preemptively just in case it comes up in the future. Oh, and to automatically sign a comment on a talk page, type the string ~~~~ at the end. Your username and the time and date will be substituted. Bryan 20:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Kemonomimi

Where it says anthro-cat and anthro-skunk, referring to elliot and nioi, the word anthro previously linked to the entry for 'Kemonomimi'. These forms are not Kemonomimi, as Kemonomimi characters only have a few body parts from the animal they're mixed with, whereas the half-cat and half-skunk forms are more of a merging between a human and a cat or a skunk.

I agree with you on the first count, but not on the second. The author himself, Mr. Shive, has stated that Nioi lacks fur, and the patterns you see on her exposed skin are actual patterns of skin pigmentation. She has a tail, ears, and skin coloration analagous to that of a skunk, which is not enough for anthro consideration, but does fall under kemonomimi. -Darryl Hamlin 19:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Elliots cat form is a Antho form, but Nioi, even though it is a skin pigmentation, has fur on her ears, tail, and some other places I forget he mentioned. Kalga-han

External Links

Why change "External Link" to "External Links" when there's ONLY ONE OF THEM??????

Because that's how it's done in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The header "External links" signifies a place for all external links. Like "External links go here".

In any case, it's really annoying. People don't change the header when they add an external link, so then you have "External link" with more than one article underneath it! It's much simpler to have the plural to start off with, and it makes it easy to add more underneath. Dysprosia 00:38, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I use "External Link(s)", indicating that there is room for more than one link. --Guthrie 29 June 2005 17:58 (UTC)

Status Quo

“ El Goonish Shive does not have much of a status quo. Storylines are most often long and convoluted and rarely result in anything returning to the way it once was. The storytelling of The Matrix makes dodging bullets perfectly sensible; the storytelling of EGS does the same to the scream "I'M TOO YOUNG AND TOO MALE TO BE THE MOTHER OF A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD FEMALE ME!!" ”

Maybe it's just me but I really can't get my head around the second half of this paragraph, not that the first half is that great, either. And is the writer saying that any of this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing anyway??? I've deleted the second half, but if anyone wants to rephrase it more comprehensibly, feel free... Lee M 02:30, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, now it's rewritten I can actually figure out what it was trying to say in the first place! Lee M 19:10, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Word Removal

I have removed the words "anime style" from "anime-style martial arts". The martial arts are not derived from anime (Japanese animation), they exist in real life, and anime does not have its own special style of the martial arts. Starwind Amada 14 January 2006 17:58 (UTC)

Reverted because the comic itself describes the place as an "Anime-Style Martial Arts Dojo". --AySz88^-^ 23:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. "Anime-Style Martial Arts" is the name of the school itself, as given on the sign on the front of the dojo. While Dan has expressed misgivings about the name since then (which was intended as a joke), he has stuck with it so far. -- Schol-R-LEA 17:16, January 17, 2006 (UTC)

---

My apologies for being the cause of the discussion above; I've a bad tendency to veer into incomprehensibly convoluted linguistical acrobatics. The article could benefit from the insertion of the scream to replace the second mention of shapeshifting squirrel-girl, but that's just my opinion, please ignore it. Anyway, the edit I've just made effectively reverts many of the rather drastic changes done by 66.226.112.59 under the explanation of 'fixing stupidity'. In my arrogant opinion, said changes ranged from unnecessary to counterproductive, and besides should certainly have been explained in more detail than just 'fixing stupidity' (66, it's considered polite to drop a note on the talk page if the article's any size). I'll explain my edit in more detail:

- This is just nitpicking, but giving Grace's name in the opening paragraph serves no purpose. - EGS' sight gags didn't last for much more than the first week. The increased focus on Grace is quite clearly only temporary - and besides ending as the current story arc closes. - I don't see how the changes in the next paragraph add to the article. Several things are left out outright. - The mention of the Keenspot forum is, well, dead wrong. The usage of the word 'bunnies' to describe fans predates it by a great deal. - And off comes the "Judging from the..." line of mine again. I've brought it back because no reason for its removal was provided - and besides, bunnies enthusiastically agree with it, and have on a few occasions edited it to make stronger statements about their weirdness. - Mentioning Nioi in Ellen's profile doesn't have much point, at least until we know enough about her to add her to the side characters list and/or what she did to Ellen is at all clear.

If there's disagreement about this, I'm of course completely willing to discuss where to go from here. -- Kizor 22:55, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Character List Addition

The Goo should be in the character list, IMO.

Even more, the Demonic Duck as a minor since it appears several times throughout the story, interacts with Justin here and here etc. 151.20.156.186 21:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Both of these characters have small descriptions on the Characters of El Goonish Shive page, so it is unnecessary for the descriptions to be in the main article. Jervill 00:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Author Question

"Dan Shive" should go to its own page, instead of redirect to here. (Compare: A Modest Destiny and Sean Howard.) I am going to go ahead and make this change, if anyone has a good reason why not to do this, please post an explaination. --Figs 21:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the difference is that Dan Shive is only known for his role in this comic, and barring anything informative to say about him, doesn't warrant his own page. Thus, a redirect to here (the only wikipedia discussion involving him) is appropriate. On the other hand, Sean Howard's page discusses stuff other than just his comics, and thus warrants its own page. - Matthew0028 11:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

If Dan Shive were to ever become more widely known he might deserve his own page, see Sluggy Freelance and Pete Abrams. although Pete's page is likely to remain a stub for a while, he is very well known as an indivual and just as Dan and EGS arm'e the same thing neither are Pete and Sluggy. If anything Pete is more Sluggy. He updates daily that is, all us bunnies know all to well that Dan has other things he does. That said I'm fine with this until we come up with something interesting to say about Dan. I am going to remove the link at the top of this page for now tho (and reminder anyone writing a Dan Shive Page in the future, add the link back) it being a link to a redirect to this page. Olleicua 23:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC))

Spoilers

I have my doubts about the efficacy of an "end spoiler" tag given one practically has to be reading the spoilers to spot it, but eh... That's more a Wikipedia problem. -Fuzzy 11:42, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

"were-squirrel"?

What exactly qualifies grace as a were-squirrel? According to the lycanthropy article, lycanthropy is the ability of a human to become an animal, however, grace is not human. She is a human/alien/squirrel hybrid who can shapeshift as a natural aspect of being part alien.Ziiv 01:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Grace was originally referred to as a were-squirrel both in story and filler comics, as well as by many fans, possibly due to the name of the secret government project that created her being called "Project Lycanthrope". Darryl Hamlin 16:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Characters

I think there are far too many characters listed here. This is an article about the comic, not a fansite. Besides the main ones, I think there should only be a few, such as Lord Tedd, Nioi, and the demonic duck. --OGoncho 10:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, Grace's full name is "Grace Sciuridae". I'm not aware of ever actually being explicitly stated, but it's the last name of both her mother and her grandfather. While she could adopt the Verres name Fdgfds 00:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, she was artificially created using the DNA of Grace Sciuridae, among others. While there is attachment between her and Dr. Sciuridae, I don't believe she adopted his name. Also I don't believe she's legally recognized under any name at all. --OGoncho 21:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

One could argue for either 'Sciuridae' or 'Guyur' (the name of her Uryuom 'father'), I suppose, but it's a moot point in the end. Grace's legal identity was completely fabricated by Mr. Verres; he could have given her any name he chose, and even with Damien's death, there might be good reasons for her to retain the 'Claire Kent' identity in public. OTOH, Dan has mentioned that he was thinking of using the name 'Grace Guyur Sciuridae' (though he didn't want to speak authoritatively on the matter until it actually comes up in the comic), and it is not unlikely that Mr Verres would have used the surname Sciuridae for her new legal identity. --Schol-R-LEA 07:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, is there any evidence to back up the claim that Elliot is the most powerful fighter in the group? I can think of no comic which suggests that he is a better martial-artist than Nanase, and that's without taking magic into account. -Xiroth 03:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't remember the exact comic, but Elliot has mentioned at least once that he holds back his own power for fear of hurting his friends/damaging property. He's also stated that his power is actually much greater than he's ever shown. However, Grace may be the most powerful by pure "strength" comparison, because her Jeremy form, and presumably her legion forms involving him, are shown to have extremely strong ki, in this comic 75.0.67.82 08:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Elliot has stated that he holds back from using his full power because he's afraid that he will hurt someone, and of his power corrupting him. Seemingly contradicting this, Nanase states here that she and Elliot were "tossing on all the drama," possibly implying that he was not being completely truthful about his strength. Elliot also states that he and Nanase have "hyped up the finish." However, when Greg heard Elliot say he was going to use his "full power" he panicked, thinking, "Full power?! My insurance doesn't cover that!" which seems to indicate that Elliot's full power is in fact devastating, and presumably dangerous to his surroundings.

Technology and Artifacts

Would the Fairy Doll spell fall under this catagory? Fdgfds 00:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC) Maybe the doll made, but the whole thing is a spell....Kalga-han

Merge from article on Dan Shive

I think the information in the article Dan Shive should go into a section of this article. There does not seem to be very much (i. e. enough for a separate article) to say about him (as opposed to EGS) at the moment (not very much verifiable stuff, at least). Any opposition^Wopinions? —xyzzy_n 00:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I’ve done the merge. Also, I trimmed some things from this article, mostly where I thought the descriptions were too detailed. Something that still must be done is the addition of secondary sources (reviews etc.). —xyzzy_n 16:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have a link to some kind of evidence supporting the statement that Grace is Dan Shive's favourite character (currently at the bottom of the page)? Last I heard regarding the matter, he refused to pick any kind of favourite amoung his characters. -Xiroth 12:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement removed pending verification. —xyzzy_n 13:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Reviews and references

OK, so now the article says just about everything that might possibly be contained in an earnest answer to ‘What is EGS?’. Here’s what I think it still lacks, though:

• Links to reviews. EGS may not be the most popular thing out there, or, for that matter, in the top ten, but did some reasonably serious magazine, newspaper or website review it? (Note that ‘reasonably serious’ ideally exludes, among others, reviews posted as comments to something else, forum posts and blog posts as well as any mentions that basically reduce to a non-strict subset of the name, the author, the URL, a brief description and the update times.)
• References. A Wikipedia article says what others have notably said about the article’s subject. For this article, the parts for which this currently looks feasible are the introduction and the plot section.
• Recent panels. Dan’s style has changed a bit since Painted Black, I think.

—xyzzy_n 14:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• • This article is still lacking in third-party writing about the site. That's an essential element to notability. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Forums

Considering their current levels of energy, it may be worth mentioning the Keenspot forums of EGS. They're certainly not major enough for their own article, but the community about them seems a little too strong to ignore and still do the webcomic justice. It's worth considering the WC.net forums, but given that they unfortunately seem to have quietly died they're probably not worth mentioning. -Xiroth 12:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Name one notable, reliably documented thing that the forum has done so far. —xyzzy_n 13:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, as I'm only looking for a mention of it rather than a full page, the notability requirement is less than is listed - I would say that it only is required to be notable in the context of El Goonish Shive. Bearing that in mind, I would point out a forum-inspired filler, that Dan Shive gives out a lot of information on the comic there (both incidental and specifically released), as well as the insane amount of fanart (and fanfics in Mayhem) that's been posted there, and the curious fact that there are comics made about the forum by a few of the forum-goers, such as the now regularly posted (twice weekly) Keenfans (despite the name, it's entirely centred around the EGS forums and often includes EGS characters as well as Dan Shive's squirrel avatar). -Xiroth 07:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Dan’s computer has a filler, too, but we are not going to write about that, are we? Basically, the forums are not part of EGS (the same goes for the fillers; fanfiction aside, they are neither part of the story). The influence of the forums on the story is negligible (the biggest influence of which I am aware is one half of the second panel here, and that’s not very much). Dan’s clarifications and hints aren’t part of the story. The community as a whole (maybe one hundred people who post regularly at any given time) is fairly small by global standards. EGS defines the community, but not vice versa, and while EGS is notable, the community is not. So why is it encyclopedic? —xyzzy_n 10:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What a difficult concept, encyclopaedic. Essentially I have no position to disagree with you except expressing that I give the points that I raised more importance than you do, so it's doubtful that any minds will be changed. All I'm basically looking for is something along the lines of El Goonish Shive has a small but vibrant forum-based internet community, who contribute relatively large amounts of fanart and discussion on the comic. Dan Shive regularly participates in these discussions with his fans, and often releases information about the storyline and world in which it is set which is never revealed in the comic itself, as well as discussing storyline decisions and alternate paths he may have taken with the comic. -Xiroth 08:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Even leaving aside the fanfiction and so on, I would say that serving as a vehicle for "press releases" including the revelation of such interesting 'behind-the-scenes' material makes the forums worthy of a mention in this page. Since I had never heard of them until reading about them just now, I think I can safely consider myself neutral on this subject. Copy/Paste time! (Apologies if you object, Xiroth.) - Final-Fan 15 August 2006

What the heck is a "Timmy"?

Justin's character description ends with "note that he's also a Timmy." The word "Timmy" is a link to the Wikipedia article for "Magic: The Gathering", but word-searching there for 'Timmy' yields nothing, so that isn't too helpful.

Is a "Timmy" any relation to a "Mary Sue"? In any case, why is it linked to "Magic: The Gathering"? I ask anyone who can answer at least the first question to edit the article.

Found it:List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_terms#Timmy_players. I think the sentence should be cut as it's slang, and subjective. It's based, as far as I can tell, on this comic: http://www.egscomics.com/d/20030430.html

If you disagree, feel free to reinstate.AlmostReadytoFly 10:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Edutopia

Could the Edutopia mention here make a useful note in the page? --OGoncho 03:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It could. A mention wouldn't be notable, but here EGS is a lead-in and as such a significant part of the article. --Kizor 23:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Is an article split possible with both parts surviving?

In the last few days, I made some small changes, starting with correcting entries, then expanding the previously short head. Then I took a closer look at some other articles, and came to the conclusion that the most part of the current article is made up by information not important to those trying to get a proper overview on EGS, yet this information is probably answering recurring questions by casual readers who don't want to consult Dan Shive or the forum.

So I arrived at the idea of a radical split: the main article would consist of the head and the sections "Author", "Collected editions", "External links" and the current subsection "Main characters", the remaining information would go into another article called "Cast and world of El Goonish Shive". This would leave the main article much shorter, make it much easier to build up a proper references section, and then expand the main article with meaningful sections like "Recurring Themes" or "Reactions to EGS" (rather than to add these to an already long article).

The question is, how will Wikipedia react to it. If EGS is judged to be on the brink of deletion, then the split may lead to deletion of either the newly created "Cast and world" article or even both articles. Those prospects are quite discouraging to making this step towards improving the main article in terms of getting a better overview as well as well as in better compliance of Wikipedia standards.

So my question is, would such a split be dangerous? Ambi Valent 21:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It irritates me greatly that Wikipedia has come to a state like this, where editors are afraid of making improvements to an article on such a well-established webcomic for fear of exposing some technical vulnerability that could be exploited on AfD. But I don't think it's right to let fears like that prevent such improvements, so I'd suggest going ahead and trying it. El Goonish Shive is a significant enough webcomic that I doubt an AfD on the main article would succeed, and if any split-off bits get deleted the main article can just be reverted to merge the material back into it again. The history will still be there.

However, I'd recommend a different line of division. "Cast and world" is an awkward and non-standard sort of title. Instead, I'd create Characters of El Goonish Shive and put it in Category:Webcomic characters where there are already a number of similar articles to act as precedent. Put the entire contents of the "cast" section in there and leave just a small bulleted list of the main characters here in the main page, linked to the appropriate subsections. The "Aliens" section would also fit reasonably into there even though it's describing species rather than individuals. The "locations" and "technology and artifacts" sections should stay in the main article for the time being, they're not very large.

Also, at the same time it would be a good idea to put some references into the article. It would help deflect deletion attempts based on "CITE/RS" technicalities, and would coincidentally be an improvement in its own right. I'll get to work on doing some of that right now, in fact. Bryan Derksen 03:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

More references would be cool (assuming you can find some that meet WP:RS). My suggestion on the forum was to fork the cast and world details to a different wiki (Comixpedia or something custom). My concerns are that

1. it is IMHO impossible to write a separate article on these topics that would satisfy Wikipedia’s {in,ex}clusion criteria,
2. we could approach the issue of sourcing more liberally, using Dan’s forum posts and referencing the comic a lot and just not sourcing compulsively in general and
3. nobody who hasn’t already read the comic seriously wants to read the lists of trivia—they’re write-only ballast.

The editors who compiled those lists have done a good job in terms of completeness, but this doesn’t seem to be a good place for that material. —xyzzy_n 03:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm focusing on primary sources for starters since that's easiest (at least it would be if the site weren't loading so slowly right now). I'm not a forum reader so if people from there could provide some of that it would help. I think the cast does fit in okay on Wikipedia, though; take a look at some of the other stuff in Category:Webcomic characters and you'll find at least as much detail for other webcomics. If someone wants to copy this stuff to another wiki they are of course free to do so under the GFDL, but I'm a Wikipedia editor first and foremost so I prefer to improve Wikipedia's coverage wherever possible and don't think we need to delete this stuff from here in the process. Bryan Derksen 04:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I’ve looked at a random sample (OK, I’ve looked at the ones where I recognised the names, but it was still random) and didn’t find any secondary sources. Primary sources are usable only in very limited ways before the use becomes original research and they certainly don’t do anything to establish notability (of which inclusion is not an indicator). Some of those articles have good prose, but, IMHO, an encyclopaedia entry should be able to offer more than that. In case you’re interested, the thread I mentioned is [1]. I’ve noted this page there. —xyzzy_n 04:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately the vast majority of the material present on this page right now is plot summary and primary sources are perfectly fine for that sort of thing. It's not original research to simply restate facts "right out of the book" as it were. Bryan Derksen 05:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but the plot summary shouldn’t be the raison d’être for an article. Also, according to WP:WAF, ‘Another reason to avoid both in-universe perspective and lengthy, detailed plot synopses is that, in sufficient quantity, they may be construed as a copyright violation. Information about fictional worlds and plots of works of fiction can be provided only under a claim of fair use, and Wikipedia's fair-use policy holds that "the amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible."’ —xyzzy_n 05:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You needn't quote basic policy at me, I've been around since 2001. :) As for the WFA guideline and copyright violation, this particular objection is really strained, IMO. This article is nowhere near being sufficient to count as a copyright violation, especially considering that it's not a narrative summary, it's not in an "in-universe" perspective, and is in a completely different medium to boot. Copyright only protects a particular expression of facts, not the facts themselves.

As for the proposed split, I've taken a look at the forum thread and some of the recent deletions it mentions and unfortunately there does seem to be blood in the water at AfD right now. I'm still hoping that the version tagging feature due out Any Day Now is going to take the edge off of the deletion/inclusion debate, so it might be better to just let things ride a bit longer and hope for things to settle into a more comfortable compromise. I believe EGS is a prominent enough webcomic that the main page here should be secure, so if we improve what's already here first then that work at least should be safe until then. Bryan Derksen 06:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I’m trying to make this reasonably transparent to as many as two or three people from the forum who might be reading. Anyway, what I’m failing to say is that we really shouldn’t go any further overboard with the not-quite-narration. In addition to WAF and other policy/guideline pages, who will reasonably want to know that ‘CMDs have a number of safeties in place that prevent transforming under dangerous conditions. CMDs will have no affect on someone who is pregnant or too weak physically to handle the transformation.’ or ‘Once they have taken on a form, Uryuoms can morph back to their “base” form and access their new form at will.’? Even if we had any reviews etc. in the article, this level of detail would have undue weight. —xyzzy_n 07:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh. The TF gun's entry was something even I, a rabid inclusionist, was thinking of trimming; all the other technology entries were just a single line but that one filled up my nice new widescreen monitor. I've given the tech section a shot, and I'll see if I can tighten up the alien descriptions too when I resume citationing tomorrow. My main concern is for the character bios, which are the best-developed part of the article and look just about "right" to me as far as detail goes; each main character gets a paragraph or two and the minor characters each get a line. For five years' worth of storyline I hope you'll agree that's pretty well condensed. Bryan Derksen 07:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, everyone. Ambi Valent 01:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Plot section reorganization

I have continued with small changes in the article, and have now reached the next problem: reorganization of the Plot section. Currently it shows a few stories (out of many more existing), if they are deemed to contain important events, as important stories, and the events as sub-points. What I want is to reorganize all of the continuous plot into 4 completed story arcs and the currently running one. The problem is, officially only the single stories and the multi-part arcs exist - which might mean I'd be guilty of both original research and leaving the neutral point of view.

The reason I see major story arcs each containing a number of single stories and a final multi-part arc are as follows:

• The multi-part arcs provide conclusions; the single stories immediately following it have to provide a new start
• The multi-part arcs contain the high points of action or drama (climax)
• Each multi-part arc has a central story element that mostly appears in the first single story of the proposed major arc
  • Sister has the goo, first appearing in the first story Goo, being finally defeated in Sister Part VII
  • Night Out has the clone form, enabling Grace to go to the movies in Night Out, which already appears in Lady Mysterious, the first single story after the end of Sister
  • Painted Black has Uryuom reproduction, first explained in Tam Eh Tedd, becoming important in Painted Black V: The Truth about Grace
  • Grace's Birthday Party has Ellen's second life, first shown in Second Life, the second single story after the end of Painted Black, playing an important role

Would it be enough if I state that officially, the plot is only divided into stories and multi-part arcs, and document the elements connecting the single stories and the multi-part arc to a major story arc? Ambi Valent 01:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

There are rather a lot of individual stories between the four big multi-part arcs, I think it would be a bit cluttered to list them all. And as you say, it's in original research territory to be trying to group the individual stories and the multi-part arcs that way. How about just mentioning the four big arcs by name, and then describing in general detail how the many individual stories that lie between them connect to elements in them? If particularly significant events occur in these stories they'll be referenced in other sections anyway, as I started doing a few days back. Bryan Derksen 10:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

To-do

In the AfD discussion, it was noted that this article is in need of improvement. Could any experienced editors suggest ways in which this article could be improved? Suggestions on implementing the changes would also be useful - for example, for a primarily web-based subject such as El Goonish Shive, what type of sources could be referenced? -Xiroth 02:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Xiroth. I hope my section-by-section discussion (below) will help to find out what is necessary. Ambi Valent 17:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Building consensus on a better Wikipedia article

As the EGS Wikipedia article is about to survive a deletion attempt, I'm starting off this discussion to build a consensus on how to improve the article. I'm posting this both in the forum and the Wikipedia article discussion page, to get information both from author and fans (who might have material to provide, if they have the sources for it) and from Wikipedians (who can provide information what is possible under the Wikipedia rules).

NOTE: Wikipedia articles are not for readers, as they have the comic itself, but for the general public. People should be able to understand the article without having to read the comic. It should contain the necessary information, but no unnecessary details.

First we should try to build a consensus between information providers and Wikipedians on what needs to be done, section by section, then proceed to make the change.

Here are my thoughts, feel free to add your own:

HEAD: Probably needs to be partially trimmed and/or rewritten, but be careful in doing so. Needs references on what's already there. New information on notability can go here, with references.

AUTHOR: The part about the avatar can be trimmed, but without any information about the avatar people might think he uses Elliot (because of the names: Daniel Elliot Shive, Elliot Daniel Dunkel). Some of the new information might belong in this section.

WEBSITE CONTENT STRUCTURE: Correct information, but is it necessary? Keep, trim, merge or delete?

PLOT: Currently a list of stories with important events, and the events themselves. Should probably be a synopsis in plain text. How long or short should this synopsis be (some webcomics have quite long ones)? Should this be divided into sections, and should these sections be the content of the published books (or those to be published)?

RECURRING THEMES: Should be improved and referenced with great care, following Megatokyo's example (featured article). I think this section should be kept because it is hard to collect this information from other sections of the article. (Concluding themes from plot content or vice versa won't work well for EGS)

CAST: The by far longest section of the article. About 2/3 are information about the 8 main characters, about 2 paragraphs each, the remaining 1/3 is about a lot of secondary characters, sorted in groups, 1 or 2 lines for each character in most cases.

Keep and improve? Put characters in their own article, and keep only the most important information about the main characters in the main article (this was part of my previous proposal)? Or is trimming unavoidable? (I have looked into several other articles, many have long character sections as well)

TECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFACTS: Probably needs trimming, maybe radical trimming, maybe a section lock to prevent re-adding unnecessary material that was removed in consensus after this discussion. (Article is for the general public)

ALIENS: Improve, try to find a proper structure, maybe trim a little.

DIMENSIONS: Doesn't exist yet, but the concept of dimensions is important for the EGS plot. Should there be a section, or should material about dimensions put elsewhere?

COLLECTED EDITIONS: Is the 3rd book about to come out any time soon, or was there no decision yet when to publish it?

I'd like to get answers from fans and Wikipedians alike, so that there can be a true consensus, and a definite improvement in quality. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ambi Valent (talk • contribs) 17:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

Sorry, forgot to sign this Ambi Valent 18:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Reading the current page, I like how it has been edited, but I still think that there's too much concerning the technology of the comic. Taking a look at the Featured Article, Megatokyo, they don't even touch on technology and such. I know they are listed under plot elements, but still, is there enough of a reason to keep them? If there's good reasoning, I'll support it, but I'm not seeing a reason myself.

On the plot synopsis and stuff, I'd suggest to write up a more direct plot summary than currently exists, breaking it down by sections. That's how the Megatokyo article is done, for the most part.

I'd also suggest possibly shrinking the character descriptions a bit, and rearranging the article to more closely fit the pattern found in the Megatokyo article.

Finally, there was a link to a minor publication that had a short review on EGS on the AfD discussion page and such. Was it forgotten or deemed too little to include? 76.0.31.101 23:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)Lomgren, no wikipedia account at the moment.

For reference, that was a newsletter by a chapter of Tri-Ess. I'd say trivial. --Kizor 16:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Ambi for removing the website section. The archives are quite well-constructed, but there's nothing spectacular about the website in itself (as opposed to, f'r example, that of Kid Radd. --Kizor

I've went through the alien and TF-gun parts and cut some pieces away, and also moved the themes section out of the plot elements section again. Today I failed with the synopsis section; the Sister part alone was almost longer than the current list; next time I'll try more radically. I'll also add a history section, which will contain the changes in art style over the years as well as the changes in plot ideas, whatever I can find mentioned in the strip, including the ideas before EGS went online (probably the oldest are the fillers showing Tedd, Elliot and Sarah's roleplaying sessions). And at some point in the future I will look how I can make the Cast section shorter, but that's not on top of the list now. Ambi Valent 17:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Re-rated as B-Low

After a long series of edits from me and a few other editors since the AfD I now think it is time to re-rate the article. It surely is no good article yet, but IMHO it's more than halfway between Start and GA, and so belongs in B. I also think EGS being a leading Keenspot webcomic and being cited in Campbell's History of Webcomics is enough to give the article Low-importance instead of No-importance. Ambi Valent 01:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the referencing issues mean that this has to go in class C, for now. It's not very far off class B, though. GreenReaper (talk) 01:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

POV concerns

I don't really like this sentence: "The characters are complex, and believably presented, despite humorous overtones." I like EGS, but the believability of its characters is entirely a matter of opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.252.243.66 (talk)

Nice catch. (: Generally, however, it's best to be bold and fix obvious POV like this yourself. There's no possible way that there's a verifiable source that would support in a quantifiable way that the characters are more or less complex than Foo or more or less believably presented than Foo. Octane ^{[improve me]} 15.07.07 0212 (UTC)

Done, and advice noted. Actually, I cut out the entire paragraph -- on careful examination it all appears to be either POV or at least unverifiable, or just a point that doesn't need to be in the summary (because the article already has an entire section on the comic's themes). (And it's now been reverted by someone asking if there was any good reason to remove it. Lovely.)