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SG-1 Episode notability

As already stated a few sections above (#Some things), all SG episode articles will be up for review some time in the not-so-far future. It is current consensus among most of the reviewers that only those article should be allowed to have their own article if they either assert notability (e.g. by awards, see #SG-1 episode articles possibly worth saving), or offer significant encyclopedic coverage (production, casting, reception, other noteworthy things, see Zero Hour (Stargate SG-1) for an example). Episode notability/review discussion usually take about a month. I am an SG-1 fan (not so much SGA) with some spare wiki time at the moment, so I would like to get a headstart before the results of the discussions (usually redirects) are enforced by consensus. I have already made a list of episodes that received award recognition above; they can survive on their own for now, so they will be exempt from my following plans. I will also ignore every episode starting with Season 4 because of the audio commentaries. So that leaves the majority of the first three season episodes. My plan is to start Stargate SG-1 (Season 1), Stargate SG-1 (Season 2), and Stargate SG-1 (Season 3). All episode plot will be trimmed&merged there, leaving redirects to the respective season article. The articles can still be revived anytime as soon as they assert real-world notability or significant secondary information (as outlined above).

An other or additional option (which I am trying to look into) is transwikiing the full episodes to wikia, which would leave them outside the scope of wikipedia notability guidelines and they can get as detailed in plot as the editor wants. WT:DIGI#Transwiki (the Digimon wikiproject) has already had some experience in this matter that we could draw from. Articles from wikia can also be re-imported into wikipedia very easily if somebody wants to work on an episode article in a more encyclopedic environment.

But before I start with anything, I need to know if there is resistance about these plans from within this project. If it turns out that too many SG-1 editors here want to work from the perspective of fandom instead of a (real-world) encyclopedia, I'll admit that I don't have the stamina to argue the points of WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:FICT and WP:WAF (and some more) to guideline-ignorant editors, and that I'll find other wikipedia articles to work on. Others can then try their luck in persuading consensus in the ep notability/review discussion to keep all articles, which was almost always unsuccessful, as far as I am aware of. (This is not so much a threat, but a likely prediction of what will happen, in case if you have not been previously aware of the procedure.) If you'd like to state your support, you can certainly do so, but I just want to know about resistance now. :-) – sgeureka t•c 01:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, the issues with episode articles can't be described as simply as being "[editors who] work from the perspective of fandom instead of a (real-world) encyclopedia". Having been involved in the development of the episode review process, I honestly don't think it accurately represents a community-wide perspective, and as such it isn't fair to describe it as a consensus. The review process has never been vetted by the larger community, and it is used primarily as justification for merges that are really soft deletes (since no effort is made to integrate material into the destination articles). In fact, there are several rather strident "merge" supporters who are going after articles with a zeal that goes far beyond any typical "cleanup" program, and who have openly expressed disdain for these sorts of articles in general.
Worst of all, there has been little or no attempt to find any sort of middle ground; those who oppose merges are dismissed as "fans", or of being ignorant of Wikipedia's conventions. Editors who oppose "merges" are told - often quite rudely - that their opinions don't matter, or that their work is rubbish, or that they should go to a "fan site" instead. (The "other site" nudge is, I think, quite troubling, as such a move would inevitably lead to articles that incorporate all of the nonsense - speculation, theories, etc. - that we are able to filter out on Wikipedia. Not everyone who opposes merges is interested in a "free-for-all"...)
Sgeureka, please don't take this as a rant against you personally; I actually quite respect the fact that you have made an effort to develop and present your plans here. (All too often, the "notification" consists of a form letter and a lot of pushy statements about how resistance is futile...) I just think that we shouldn't be taking the attitude that the process is automatically correct, and that the outcome is inevitable. Thoughts? --Ckatzchatspy 08:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for adding your last paragraph. It seemed at first like you were opposing (my) cleanup attempts because of the actions of others (with whom I may both agree or disagree). In the end, resistance is futile when you don't have guidelines and policies covering your six, but if I/we can "save" the most important information by bringing it in line with guidelines and policies (and/or by simply transwikiing it), we can prevent any nastiness by preventing an externally enforced review process. And that's all I'm hoping for ...and make wikipedia better in the process. – sgeureka t•c 12:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
As one of those who does not read this portal I came here after finding that the episode articles I often refer to have suddenly vanished. Trim the articles of excessively verbose material if you must but don't delete it all! I doubt I am the first who will come here to find out what happened. Noting my strong objection to this merge/delete/migration. --Shogun (talk) 05:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


Tau'ri does not apply on Atlantis

Can we please just call them human and be done with it? Tau'ri is in universe speak and should be avoided. We haven't heard that word spoken on Atlantis at all, even when Cromwell was host to a Goa'uld. - LA @ 10:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem is (and I have no other solution for this), Jonas is human, but he is not Tau'ri. Vala is human, but she is not Tauri. The list goes on for e.g. Teyla and Ronan. In the same manner, Langaran, Aschen, Athosian etc. technology are not Tau'ri although they are human. – sgeureka t•c 12:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
"from Earth"? "Terran"? Tau'ri isn't really a good choice. How many people even know how to spell it? Probably just us obsessives! --Tango (talk) 12:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
:-) I was talking more from the perspective on how to call the Tau'ri-related articles: Tau'ri characters in Stargate SG-1, Tau'ri characters in Stargate Atlantis, Tau'ri technology in Stargate, and Tau'ri organizations in Stargate. And I am currently proposing a new article called Tauri starships in Stargate (which of course I should have spelled Tau'ri starships in Stargate). I am not really happy about the term myself, but as I said, it's the best we currently have. I think "Terran" is even more obscure than "Tau'ri", and "from Earth" is impracticable in article titles (IMO). – sgeureka t•c 13:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
What about "Earth starships in Stargate", and so forth? It doesn't seem that grammatically offensive. -- Yzx (talk) 23:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Reading this thread again, I wouldn't object to that at all. See below however. – sgeureka t•c 07:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The current "Tau'ri" articles are:

Nothing that requires any immediate attention, but we could keep it in the back of our collective brain. The problem with "Tau'ri" in the article title could therefore solve itself almost on its own. – sgeureka t•c 07:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Stargate Atlantis episodes being transwikied and about to be redirected, Stargate SG-1 episode about to be redirected

Although this has already been announced elsewhere, I'm making a note here in case somone missed it:

– sgeureka t•c 12:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Vala Mal Doran

Vala Mal Doran is up for GA review. If someone wants to read over it, go ahead. I don't see a reason why the GA should fail, and I'll try to rework the other character articles in the same manner by first removing the original research and the unnecessary plot, later by adding real-world content. – sgeureka t•c 12:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Timeline of Stargate

I have experessed my concerns about this page at Talk:Timeline_of_Stargate#Unencyclopedic_and_original_research. – sgeureka t•c 12:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that there is a verifiable source for all the info in the article: the GateWorld Primer.--Aquillyne-- (talk) 14:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
The GW primer (which currently just gives you a a 404 error) doesn't state in which month what takes places, so the months are original research. If the months are removed, the timeline becomes redundant with the List of episodes. What may be salvagable (IMO) is the timeline of what the Ancients did. But I think all of this is already present in prose in the Ori and Ancients articles. I have already asked an admin at the SG wiki if they are interested in the timeline (including a complete transwiki), and he'll get back to me. So once the remaining issues are ironed out, I think AfD is the right action unless someone can come up with a better idea. – sgeureka t•c 15:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Short episode summaries on List of episodes, and long summaries on season pages

Thanks to User:Ned Scott, it is now possible to show short episode summaries in the LoE, while showing long episode summaries in the season articles. To do that, the episode template now allows a new parameter called LongSummary. If this new parameter has not been added yet to an episode template, ShortSummary will be transcluded instead. As per User:Garda40's concern in this thread, my initial plan to remove all episode summaries in the LoE is thus off the table. 

{{Episode list/Stargate
|EpisodeNumber=3
|Title=The Enemy Within
|Aux1=SG Wiki
|WrittenBy=Brad Wright
|DirectedBy=Dennis Berry
|OriginalAirDate= August 1, 1997 (Showtime)
|EpisodeNumber2=102
|ShortSummary=After being...
|LongSummary=After being infested by a Goa'uld parasite in the previous episode...
|LineColor=2A52BE
}}

– sgeureka t•c 21:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Zero Point Module

May God Bless You Always!

I question the edits that an IP Address made on the above page, but do not know much about Stargate. Maybe someone from this group could review the edits and make a more informed decision. Thank you. (Steve (talk) 02:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC))

I've reverted it for the time being. There were so many typos and formatting errors that I saw no other option, but I unfortunately don't remember all the details of the current status. Someone may want to go over it again and restore the changes that are true. – sgeureka t•c 10:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've gone through the version you revert to and it fits with my memory of events except for one missing entry, the ZPM brought to Atlantis by the replicators and kept there (and depleted in Adrift), which I've added. --Tango (talk) 14:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


Stargateproject: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 95 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 14:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Stargate navigation templates

There are currently six navigation templates for the Stargate articles on wikipedia, namely {{StargateLists}}, {{Stargate Races}}, {{StargateTech}}, {{StargateTopics}}, {{Stargate Characters}} and {{Stargate SG-1 Seasons}} (with the new Atlantis season articles, another one could be created). Most of them are overlapping quite a bit. I have thus merged all of them into one template, see below.

(A few of the articles are still up for a merge, so the template may become still a little smaller). Would there be opposition if I replaced the current nav templates with the new one? It can be put on auto-collapse or not. – sgeureka t•c 20:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe something in this template has increased the horizontal margains by a substantial amount. I can't see it actually, but I have to assume it's the template. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 23:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
The template looks fine to me - there was something a couple of sections up that was causing horizontal scrolling (I've now removed it). --Tango (talk) 00:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 00:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Seems rather large to me - do we need that many navigation aids? --Tango (talk) 00:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean the number of nav templates we currently have? If yes, would you rather have them merged into, say, three different nav templates? Or did you mean there should only be one nav template like above, but the number of links given there should be cut down (i.e. leaving out some pages in the nav template)? – sgeureka t•c 08:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
The latter. The merged template seems far bigger than necessary to have on every Stargate article. We should either have a smaller single template, or keep the separate templates so we can just add the ones that are relevant to each article. --Tango (talk) 15:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been giving this some thought, but I am having trouble to find decent split points for the proposed main template and not come up of what we currently have. I'll try to find possibilities for merging some of our current templates (bottom-up approach instead of top-down), to see if that works better. – sgeureka t•c 10:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As comprehensive as this template is, I think its too bulky. I have tried to condense {{StargateNav}} and tried to combine that with {{StargateTopics}} (so as to possibly replace it). The source code is available here.--88wolfmaster (talk) 03:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I like yours better than my attempt. It is very clearly arranged, and the elements are grouped by show or not, depending on common sense. This will/would also make the template easier to expand and maintain if Stargate Universe gets greenlit. The only templates that may be necessary then is one for technology (probably a wise idea anyway - there is just so much, even when trimmed) and one for the character lists by race (although I am exploring in how far it is wise to trim&merge some/most character lists into the respective race articles and collaborate with wikia:Stargate for in-universe detail, like I am currently doing with Ori (Stargate)). Last but not least, it can be argued that the "Universe" section in your template should go below the shows, and that Ark of Truth and Continuum can be moved into the SG-1 section, but that's one of the more trivial decisions for later. – sgeureka t•c 09:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I am glad you like it. As for the trivial decisions, its easy enough to move the universe section and I can just add extra links to the films under SG-1 next to the seasons part - but i wold like to keep them under franchise (kinda like how SG-1 and SGA are still linked there) until we have enough films to warrant a whole article.--88wolfmaster (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
It seems there is no opposition to your template, so I'll go ahead and replace my code for {{StargateNav}} with yours (with credit). {{StargateTopics}}, {{StargateLists}}, and {{Stargate SG-1 Seasons}} thus become obsolete, and {{Stargate Atlantis Seasons}} will not be created in the first place. {{StargateTech}} should/will remain like it is, especially since it seems like the tech lists, the starship lists, and some odd single pieces of technology ;-) are here to stay. The future of {{Stargate Races}} is uncertain at the moment: it is somewhat useful, but at the same time, the article Aliens in Stargate (and by extend Human civilizations in Stargate SG-1 and Human civilizations in Stargate Atlantis) already carries its burden. I am unsure about {{Stargate Characters}} per my comment above, so the decision about its future should be left for later (probably much later). I'll begin work now. – sgeureka t•c 08:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe it took this long to notice this, but we are should to come up with an new name for the second section (Universe) so as not to add confusion with the upcoming series. Also was there a particular reason why you removed the link for that section?--88wolfmaster (talk) 21:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
It was a test, the test didn't work, and while I was trying to figure out why it didn't work (I never found out), I forgot to revert as promosed. I have restored the link now, of course. – sgeureka t•c 09:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
As for the other part of your question - "Fictional universe" or "World [of Stargate]" may work. – sgeureka t•c 10:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Timeline of Stargate

An article that you have been involved in editing, Timeline of Stargate, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Stargate. Thank you. (I have been given this a lot of thought over the past two months, but I always come to the same conclusion that a (proposed) deletion is the best option.) – sgeureka t•c 14:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What should we call the Ancients?

Two IPs are persistently changing every occurrence of the word "Ancients" to "Alterans" in Aliens in Stargate. While this is what they are called in their home galaxy, it is not their name from the perspective of the Tau'ri, or what they are commonly called in the show (except by characters from their home galaxy). Should this be reverted? The equivalent would be somebody going through the entire French Wikipedia and changing every occurrence of "Anglais" to "English", because that is what the English people call it. As Stargate is written from the perspective of the Tau'ri (which I realise is the same thing from a Goa-uld perspective, but it's easier to say Tau'ri than 'people from Earth'), and the article is named Ancient, shouldn't they be referred to on Wikipedia as the Ancients, not the Alterans? —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 19:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The Ancients were introduced in SG-1 Season 2 as "The Ancients", were continued to be called this way until early Season 9 of SG-1. To my knowledge, they are still (mainly) being called the Ancients on both SG-1 and Atlantis. That makes it obvious to me how they should be called. The beginning of the Ancient (Stargate) article makes everything else clear. – sgeureka t•c 19:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
99% of the time on the show, they are called "ancients", so that's the name we should use. The alternatives should be mentioned, of course, but not used routinely. --Tango (talk) 19:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Lists of Stargate topics

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Lists of Stargate topics, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? – sgeureka t•c 08:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Lists of Stargate topics

An article that you have been involved in editing, Lists of Stargate topics, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of Stargate topics. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? – sgeureka t•c 06:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Articles and topics in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Articles

I have re-arranged the articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Articles (formerly known as Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Recent Changes) to see what Featured Topics are possible with Stargate articles. Although this WikiProject has no quality assessment (stub, start, B-class, GA, FA/FL, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Assessment), I went ahead and have added the current quality of each article (minus seasons, episodes and cast&crew) that I perceived as right. I may later add a parameter to {{stargateproject}} so that the assessment is displayed there as well. Articles where I believe a merge may be beneficial sometime in the future per WP:FICT, are bolded; basically, every stub- or start-class article on single fictional elements may be considered for a merge down the line, but I also have no doubt that e.g. the articles on the main characters can be easily improved to at least B-class quality, often even FA-class level. The quality of lists of fictional Stargate elements (mostly characters and technology) are currently of not so much concern, so I left them most of them out of the considerations. Now that the majority of episode articles and the really poor articles are taken care of, I intend on spending my time evenly now on trimming&merging, and expanding the articles that should stay. I think apart from getting the current B-class articles to GA, I will focus on getting the SG-1 characters topic to Featured Topic. Just for transparency. – sgeureka t•c 12:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Tlak'kahn

Who are these guys. The Stargate Infinity page doesn't say. Tutthoth-Ankhre (talk) 16:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

New MOS for TV

The television community currently has an MOS guideline under proposal, and would appreciate all comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines#MOS proposal in order to have the best possible guide for television related articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

New template

User:88wolfmaster and I have designed a new master template for navigation so that all former templates are combined in one - see here. Before I go ahead and replace all former templates with this new version, I thought I'd ask how many people are totally opposed to this idea. The design of the "Fictional Universe" part itself is just one idea for arrangement and can still be changed and tweaked after the fact through the normal edit process. Comments? – sgeureka t•c 12:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I like it. I think some thought needs to go into deciding which parts should be shown by default on which pages (should the list of SG-1 characters be shown on an article about Atlantis? should the Fictional Universe section be shown by default on articles that are part of it? etc). I'm not sure of my views regarding that, but will give it some thought. --Tango (talk) 13:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Per Template:Navbox with collapsible groups, it is possible to hide sections (not line in sections) via the |selected= parameter, but I have left it blank for now (it/they would be huege). I have replaced the old {{StargateNav}} with the proposed code, replacing all the other nav templates. {{StargateLists}} (an old template), {{Stargate Races}}, and {{Stargate Characters}} are orphaned in mainspace and now redirect to StargateNav, while {{StargateTopics}} (an old template) and {{StargateTech}} are also redirects there but are still transcluded in mainspace. Technically speaking, the first three templates could be nominated for deletion. – sgeureka t•c 22:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I have only one thing to say. The sooner we delete or ignore DNA Resequencer the better. It appeared in 2 episodes in a 214 run. That's low notability if ever there was. Remove it from the template, and PROD it too. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 03:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been meaning to merge that article forever... But I could never force myself to read the article to find mergable bits (except obviously the last section). – sgeureka t•c 06:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the template needs a link to Stargate Command and Tau'ri organizations in Stargate, which are important topics (albeit in-show). I actually think those and all related articles should be merged into a single one under Stargate Program (currently a redirect) or something similar, which could then also serve as a parent article for the Earth character pages. -- Yzx (talk) 23:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I've added the two links to the template. I've thought of proposing a merger of Stargate Command and Alpha Site (Stargate) into Tau'ri organizations in Stargate, but I like your idea even better (i.e. to create Stargate Program). This could also hold the SG team article that is long and sourced but unfortunately very in-universe-crufty. But we need to watch out to not blow the WP:SIZE limit, which may require careful trimming. As always, transwikiing excessive material to wikia:Stargate will be the most sensible solution. – sgeureka t•c 06:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Stargate SG-1 Seasons nominated for speedy deletion

This template was in short use for a while, but its purpose is already fulfilled by the general nav template, and it has been orphaned for months. I therefore nominated it for speedy deletion, which can be objected within the next seven days. – sgeureka t•c 22:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Stargate Atlantis Major Cast

Template:Stargate Atlantis Major Cast has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — – sgeureka t•c 22:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Do what with trimmed character lists?

I am currently working on SG character lists. I originally wanted List of Stargate SG-1 characters to become something like Characters of Smallville (User:Bignole's work) or Characters of Carnivàle (my work, a Featured Article now), but the SG-1 char list is already beyond the size limit although it only holds one third of the characters I originally wanted to include (not counting the main characters, which should be able to support their own articles up to GA level and beyond). However, I just finished reducing the plot details in Asgard characters in Stargate to GA/FA-level depth, and it's only 10kB. Generally speaking, only the characters who have appeared in several episodes (3+) got their own section, while the others were moved as bullet-pointed summaries into the Minor characters section. Production info is kind of slim on Asgard characters since they are first and foremost puppets, and info about the puppets should go to the Race article.

Now, I imagine that character lists like Athosian characters in Stargate, Genii characters in Stargate, Tok'ra characters in Stargate, Wraith characters in Stargate, and Artificial human characters in Stargate won't also be much longer after a necessary trim, although some character sections can be expanded with info from audio commentaries and gateworld interviews etc. (I am leaving Tau'ri characters in Stargate SG-1, Tau'ri characters in Stargate Atlantis, and Goa'uld characters in Stargate out of this discussion for their obvious size, and I can't yet comment on Jaffa characters in Stargate and Ancient characters in Stargate for various reasons).

So, the options are:

  1. Leave the lists in their trimmed form and do nothing, period.
  2. Merge&redirect the trimmed lists into the respective Race articles, e.g. merge Asgard characters in Stargate into Asgard (Stargate)#Characters. I have already done this with Ori characters in Stargate once, which now redirects to Ori (Stargate)#Characters and society, and it doesn't look bad, also for improving the Race articles to GA or keeping the Race articles around in the first place in the light of (the still proposed) WP:FICT.
    1. In parallel, merge the characters with their own sections into List of Stargate SG-1 characters/List of Stargate Atlantis characters and turn their sections in the Race article into bullet-points (linking to List of Stargate xxx characters), so that all major characters are first and foremost described in the List of Stargate xxx characters article, but are accessible from the Race article
    2. In parallel, merge a one/two paragraph summary of the really significant characters into List of Stargate xxx characters and link to their (long) sections in the Race article via {{Main}} (or just link their bolded names, as is already done with e.g. the main characters there).
  3. Merge&redirect the trimmed lists into List of Stargate xxx characters and remove the bullet-pointed characters as too insignificant - wikia:Stargate can give detail on one-time characters.
  4. Something different altogether

I personally favor option 2.2 as the best middle ground for presentation, quality, depth, navigation, and pleasing both inclusionists and deletions, but I need the input from others before going ahead with something so drastic. – sgeureka t•c 15:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

2.2 sounds good, but I'm concerned about how long you expect the "long" versions to be. If 2 paragraphs is a summary, the long versions must be pretty long, is there that much to say? I think if you can justify more than 3 or 4 paragraphs, you can justify putting it in its own article. --Tango (talk) 16:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The long versions? Ori (Stargate)#Adria currently has (basically) four long-ish paragraphs, two of them with significant-ish production info, that can't be trimmed much further. She is already borderline to getting her own article back. So I'd say the long summaries can be as long as they need to be, but should have no more than one or two a handful of sentences of plot summary per episode at most. Once there are more than four or so substancial paragraphs for a non-main character, such as for Radek Zelenka, the articles pretty much pass the proposed WP:FICT and become undeletable in practise, so they can their own article, I'd say. – sgeureka t•c 18:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that 4 paragraphs is around the right place to draw the line. A 2 paragraph summary of a 3 paragraph description doesn't seem right to me. If the subject only warrants 3 paragraphs, those 3 paragraphs should go in one place only, with a couple of sentences to summarise them anywhere else it's needed. If they warrant more than that, they can have their own article, and a slightly longer summary elsewhere. --Tango (talk) 18:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
How about the following? (I am still brainstorming; List of Stargate SG-1 characters is still a work pit, and I haven't touched the redirects of characters who have their own Race-char-list article.)
  • no Race article (e.g. Narim, Martin Lloyd) -> all paragraphs in Main char article, redirect redirects to Main-char article
  • 1 paragraph in Race article -> don't mention in Main-char article but if truly significant make 1:1 copy to Main-char article, redirect redirects to Race article
  • 2+ paragraphs in Race article -> 1 trimmed paragraph in Main-char article with {{Main}}, redirect redirects to Race article
  • >4 paragraphs in Race article -> 1 trimmed paragraph in Main-char article with {{Main}}, think about spinning out the character into own article if enough real-world info present
This would make the Main-char article more of a portal of manageable size for the non-fan who found it through hatnotes or nav templates, while redirects and the search box still lead the interested reader to the detail is looking for. – sgeureka t•c 19:30, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. Although, perhaps characters with 1 paragraph in the Race article should get just their name (linking to the Race article) listed on the main-char article under an "Other Asgard", or whatever, section? Also, if you have more than 4 paragraphs in the race article without enough real world info to make a separate article, we should consider trimming the description since it's probably an excessive plot summary. --Tango (talk) 19:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I like your idea as it solves a lot of problems. I've already laid the foundation stone in the main character list now and think the basic structure is set. The only characters that have mostly untrimmable plot summaries but no real-world info are the likes of Moros, who have a huge fictional mythology, but who rarely appear on screen. But fortunately, such characters are rare from an editing view point. – sgeureka t•c 22:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The basic structure looks good. There's lots of trimming to do, especially in the miscellaneous characters section, I might give you a hand with that tomorrow. Moros is a special case, if only because he's based on a real world legend (you could say the same about the Goa'uld, I guess, but not to anywhere near the same extent) - let's worry about him later! I imagine we could get a whole article out of him if we tried, comparing the Stargate depiction to the legends (need to be careful of OR, of course). --Tango (talk) 03:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, guys just got a chance to look at this and it looks good. I was wondering though is there a reason that Richard Woolsey has a main article template and bullet? cause it stands out from the rest of the page.--88wolfmaster (talk) 04:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That was an arbitrary decision. When I restructured the page yesterday with Tango's suggestions in mind, I chose to add hatnotes for each main character, together with hatnotes for the Race char lists. Since Woolsey is likely important enough to get his one-paragraph section in the list, and since he got his own article as an Atlantis main character, he got a hatnote as well (for now). All of this may change significantly as the article gets finetuned (with a chainsaw). – sgeureka t•c 09:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I am currently aiming to get rid of Miscellaneous alien characters in Stargate by merging the characters into List of Stargate SG-1 characters and List of Stargate Atlantis characters. My planned cut-off level is to only move characters that have appeared (or were mentioned) in at least three episodes, but there are some characters who don't meet this level. How strongly do people feel about keeping the following character sections around in some form: Aris Boch, Dreylock, Hale, Larrin, Linea, Lucius Lavin, Ma'chello, Omoc, Shifu, Travell. I personally believe that Shifu (definately) and Linea and Ma'chello (maybe) should be kept, but I can't comment on Lucius Lavin and Larrin, as they are from Atlantis, with which I am not as familiar. – sgeureka t•c 15:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Before all our episode articles were deleted, it would have been easy - character descriptions just go in the relevant episode articles with links between them if the character is in more than one episode but not enough for a separate mention. Without episode articles, it's difficult, because an description of a character that only appeared in one or two episodes is likely to end up being a plot summary of those episodes, so we might as well recreate the episode articles. Do you think we could recreate the episode articles, but take it slowly and get each one (or each small handful) up to a decent standard (not all the way to GA, but close) before starting on the next? When they were deleted they were mostly just stubs with some plot summary and a few bits of trivia, if we could include character analysis (beyond just plot summaries) and production details (from commentaries) and critical reception (from reviews on Gateworld and similar), they might be able to survive deletion. --Tango (talk) 16:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Almost every SG-1 episode beginning with season 4 that didn't have a Peter DeLuise commentary has good chances to become a GA someday, so I wouldn't mind resurrecting those episode articles with popular characters. This shouldn't be the norm though, as the currently existing articles (which usually have a couple of award nominations to assert notability) should take precedence. We wouldn't do anything wrong though if we just merged the mentioned characters into the respective show character articles for now, independent of my arbitrary inclusion critera. – sgeureka t•c 18:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Progress

The table cells below refer to the progress according to trim-and-merge option 2.2 (see above). Some table cells are left blank in the table since a "no" could also imply a final decision, not the lack of progress so far. Most of the trims have been performed by User:Yzx and User:Sgeureka.

Finished Article Merge target Trimmed (+size) Merged into SG-1 char list Merged into SGA char list Merged into Race article
Ancient characters in Stargate ?[c] Ancient (Stargate) Yes (21kB) Yes ?[a]
Yes Asgard characters in Stargate Asgard (Stargate) Yes (11kB) Yes Yes Yes
Yes Athosian characters in Stargate Athosians Yes (11kB) — Yes Yes
Yes Genii characters in Stargate Genii (Stargate) Yes (12kB) — Yes Yes
Yes Goa'uld characters in Stargate ?[c] Goa'uld Yes (55kB) — No (for size concerns)
Jaffa characters in Stargate ?[c] Jaffa (Stargate) Yes (33kB) Yes —
Tau'ri characters in Stargate Atlantis Depends[b] Partial (43kB) —
Yes Tau'ri characters in Stargate SG-1 Depends[b] Yes (45kB) Yes — No (for size concerns)
Yes Ori characters in Stargate Ori (Stargate) — Yes — Yes
Yes Tok'ra characters in Stargate Tok'ra Yes (19kB) Yes — Yes
Wraith characters in Stargate Wraith (Stargate) Yes (15kB) — Yes
Yes Artificial human characters in Stargate Replicator (Stargate) Yes (19kB total) Yes — Yes
Yes Artificial human characters in Stargate Asuran Yes (19kB total) — Yes Yes
Yes Artificial human characters in Stargate Main character lists Yes (19kB total) Yes ?[a] —
Yes Miscellaneous alien characters in Stargate‎ Main character lists — Yes Yes —

Table legend

  • a ^ There are no recurring characters of that race so far.
  • b ^ The Tau'ri character lists could be merged into one Tau'ri characters in Stargate article (currently a dab page) if the trimmed size allows it, or be merged into the Tau'ri article (whose current information may be merge-moved into the planned Stargate Program article), or be left like it is as two separate articles. Either way, it is way too early too tell what to do with it.
  • c ^ Depends entirely on the new article size after the merger. No article should be more than 40-60kB at most (although plot trims are preferable to articles and lists that don't establish notability).

Other notes and discussions

Some/most of the mergers into the main character articles still have to be trimmed down to one paragraph (work in progress). Most of the image boxes in the character lists were removed since they were way larger than the accompanying text, and mostly included information that was redundant with the first sentence in each character description. Images were not removed so far except for those characters who only appear in the main character lists, which will/should only have one main cast image and free images of the actors - the WP:NFC enforcers can deal with the images in the Race articles later. – sgeureka t•c 10:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of merging Tau'ri into Stargate Program; as has been discussed before I favor moving away from using that word as it's an externally applied term in the show and isn't used by Earth characters to describe themselves. I do think that (and the other merges) would make the Stargate Program article too long to incorporate a character list as well; I think a single list at something like Earth characters in Stargate would suffice. I think there shouldn't be two separate lists for Earth characters in both shows, given the degree of overlap between them. -- Yzx (talk) 17:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The character lists will be merged into the Race articles shortly, if they haven't been merged already. The Goa'uld char list is still big despite the trim, and will therefore not be merged anytime in the near future, especially since I expect additional real-world info to exist to establish the necessary notability. It's still too early to decide about the future of the Tau'ri char lists, although I should point out that I just removed 62kB of plot and unsourced material of questionable reliability in the SG-1 Tau'ri list, and am still not finished - so article size may or may not be a problem. – sgeureka t•c 15:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Quality assessment

I have added a rating for quality (and importance) to the {{stargateproject}} banner in each SG article, except actors etc.. The quality assessment was largely based on Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Articles. The importance is based on the depth-distance of the article back to the parent show, e.g. Stargate Atlantis (top) -> Technology in Stargate (high) -> Ancient technology in Stargate (should be mid, but I've rated it high for dominance) -> Zero Point Module (low). I am going to set up the new categories and the bot (Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot) tommorow. – sgeureka t•c 01:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Merging tech lists

I've trimmed and moved the information from Tok'ra technology in Stargate to a subsection of the main Tok'ra article, as I don't think there's enough on Tok'ra tech to warrant a separate article. I think this can be done for most of the currently separate technology articles, which IMO need trimming anyway to eliminate a lot of duplication and trivial material. What do people think? -- Yzx (talk) 21:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that the technology lists should at some time all be considered for a trim and merger into the main Technology in Stargate article, based on their in-universe importance and recurringness. One-off pieces of technology may not deserve more than a bullet point (if at all), although I have several TV Zone magazines covering some pieces of technology (mostly recurring) from seasons 7 through 10 of SG-1 and seasons 1 through 3 of Atlantis in astonishing real-world-production detail to satisfy WP:NOTABILITY to at least support the main tech article. I prefer the merger into one Tech list instead of into the Race articles because alien technology usually only becomes mention-worthy because the Earth teams start using them (at which point the race of origin becomes unimportant), not because the technology defines the races (unlike the alien characters). Sectioning the tech by race in the main list is still a good idea.
Having said that, I have little interest in scifi technology in general and thus have no real desire to edit the tech articles beyond the now-finished mergers into lists. The space ship articles should be kept separate from the tech article mergers for the time being. I suggest to trim all lists first (like is currently being done with the character lists) and see what we've got before taking action - I anticipate that the Tau'ri and Ancient tech lists will still be huge after a trim, so they may be able to stand on their own. Creating two tech lists à la Technology in Stargate SG-1 and Technology in Stargate Atlantis is probably not such a good idea because of the cross-over-ness of the shows, but it's a viable option if the Tau'ri and Ancient tech lists (the main cross-over tech problem) stay separate. I am aware that my opinion may not hold much water in the tech-enthusiastic wiki geekdom. ;-) – sgeureka t•c 05:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
About your work on the Tok'ra tech - yes, that's about how I imagine the depth to be for non-important alien tech (and I don't mind it being summarized like this in the race articles, occasionally linking to sections that cover an important element in more depth like with tretonin). My reply above was more focused on what to do with the more prominent tech, which Ancient technology in Stargate is full of. – sgeureka t•c 06:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename Races in Stargate into Races and factions in Stargate?

Since forever, I have wondered what to do with the article Lucian Alliance. It's obviously not a race and thus can't be merged into Races in Stargate for its supposed lack of real-world notability, but at the same time it has too much in-universe significance to simply be deleted. Well, technically the Tok'ra are the same race as the Goa'uld, and the Ori are the same race as the Ancients; I still don't know the technical difference between Relicators and Asurans except for their fictional creators. The Alliance of four great races is also a grouping per "faction", not race. So, I propose to rename Races in Stargate into Races and factions in Stargate and merge the Alliance there - or would this open a huge can of worms – IIRC, "Bounty" showed humans, Oranians (i.e. Jup and Tenat) and some Serrakin as belonging to the Lucian Alliance. Factions solely made up of humans will keep their place in the Human Civilization articles. – sgeureka t•c 18:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd be fine with the renaming. I've thought about what to do with Lucian Alliance too and I think that Races in Stargate is the best merge target. -- Yzx (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I can't say that I'd be all that happy with the name change but i'd have to agree that Races does seem to be place to merge.--88wolfmaster (talk) 02:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This merger is not high on my current todo list, but if you (or someone else) can think of a better name for the article, don't be shy to let me know. – sgeureka t•c 07:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Lucian Alliance is a pure fancruft page. It needs to be got rid of. Merge it anywhere. Why not rename Races in Stargate to Factions in Stargate? --Aquillyne-- (talk) 23:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

From a real-world perspective, it is easier to justify a Races article (concept&creation, make-up) than a Factions article (only in-universe differences)... at least I associate political differences with the word "faction" in my native tongue ("Fraktion"), but I could be wrong and it just means "group" in English (would Groups in Stargate be an alternative?). If the word "races" is completely omitted, then the Genii, the Tollan and a few other dominant human civilizations would need to be mentioned as well, but I can't tell whether that's a can of worms or something that would help to give a better overview. – sgeureka t•c 14:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
"Faction" has a similar meaning to "group", yes. To be honest though, now I think about it, "Races", "Factions", "Groups", etc., are ALL far too in-universe. Because from an out of universe perspective, there is no race, group or faction at all, only characters in a TV series. Perhaps we need to do something even more radical, and merge all Race information into a unified CHARACTER article. The character article (Characters in Stargate?) will list all the major characters in subsections for each race or faction. There really needn't be a Races or Factions article at all. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 21:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Characters in Stargate comes to mind, which (IIRC) looked exactly like your suggestion and was deleted. (Of course, the wikipedia coverage of Stargate at that time was five times as crufty and redundant as what we now have, so it's like comparing apples and oranges). I'll take a good look around on wikipedia how other scifi/fantasy article groups deal with the "Races" problem, and I'll summarize my findings here then (I won't tackle this before the next weekend, at the earliest). – sgeureka t•c 11:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
The closest I can think of to the "combined race/character" article that User:Aquillyne suggests is List of Doctor Who monsters and aliens (imagine it combined with List of Doctor Who villains for a better picture), which might work for them (because the combined "monsters and aliens" idea has precedent in DW reference literature), but IMO would turn into a real mess if we attempted it. I wouldn't support getting rid of the race articles anyway, because they are topics separate from the characters they contain. A good example is Kull Warrior, in which there aren't really any "characters" to speak of (unless "non-speaking killing machine #1, 2, 3, etc" counts as being a character, in which case Teal'c's staff weapon probably has more of a story arc) and it's the concept of the race itself that's significant (with real-life info). While it may not be pretty, I think Races and factions in Stargate is still the best and least-controversial option. -- Yzx (talk) 20:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

After thinking a while about this, I have felt that a merger of Lucian Alliance into a new section in List of Stargate SG-1 characters#Recurring Lucian Alliance characters would make the most sense. There wasn't much to merge, as most of it was either in-depth plot detail or a plot summary that was already present in the two character sections ("Jup and Tenat", and "Netan"). This keeps redundance low, and I also don't have to think about finding a suitable section in Races and factions in Stargate where to put this under (there wasn't really one). – sgeureka t•c 23:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:StargateWest.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:StargateWest.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. – sgeureka t•c 18:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC) – sgeureka t•c 18:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Scope of this wikiproject

In December 2007, I removed the {{stargateproject}} template (signalling that an article is part of this wikiproject) from dozens of actors who appeared once or twice in minor roles in the series (such as Armin Shimerman‎, Alisen Down‎, Brandy Ledford, ...), because if even their characters are not notable enough to get more than a line (or a mention in the first place), there is certainly nothing to say about the actors from a Stargate perspective. I did the same for a few other people in the production business. Now that almost all characters are trimmed to non-crufty detail, I removed another twenty actors yesterday who appeared in less than five episodes, because that's about the level when a Stargate role has impact on the career of an actor and impact on the plot of the series. (And yes, I could have asked here before performing the untagging, but there is barely enough interest to add real-world information to the fictional elements, and even less interest in adding career information to actor articles, so why make a big bureaucratic deal out of it.) All "important" real people that IMO should be part of this wikiproject are listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stargate/Articles#Cast_and_crew.

Anyway, I removed the stargateproject template from Stuart Tyson Smith (Egyptologist on the SG film) and Patrick Tatopoulos (production designer on the SG film) again today after I had already removed them in December. Each time, another user immediately added the tags again, and he now pointed to WP:OWN. As always, I am trying to not push my views on others when I feel a significant and well-reasoned resistance, but I wonder, what scope do we want to have for this wikiproject? If we keep Smith and Tatopoulos, we might as well tag all actors and people (VisFX, costume designers, cameramen, DOPs, ...) working in the Vancouver television and film business to this project because almost all of them have appeared in or collaborated on the Stargate series at some point in the last 12 years, because in the end the series are just as significant as the film. I wouldn't have a terrible problem with adding these tags, but I consider a ~100/100 (fictional/people) article ratio more desirable for the scope of this wikiproject than a ~100/5000 ratio (wild guess), especially when those 5000 are only vaguely related stubs. Comments? – sgeureka t•c 08:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I am said other editor, and I argue that the guy that created the whole non-English dialogue for the movie and the guy that designed the pyramid and the city are not incidental like some lighting or makeup artist, and most definitely fall within the sphere of this Project, even if you want to tag them of low importance. I hand it to you for broadening the dialogue, and would accept what others decide. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 09:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The key thing isn't how significant they were to Stargate, it's how significant Stargate was to them. If Stargate is a significant part of what makes them notable enough to get an article, then they should get the tag, otherwise they shouldn't. --Tango (talk) 20:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Point taken. With that in mind, I'd argue that Patrick Tatopoulos has worked on many successful films, so SG doesn't seem banner-worthy for him. And Stuart Tyson Smith seems to draw his (inclusion-worthy) notability from WP:PROF, not from working on two films, although I may be wrong about that. As far as my (potentially misguided) backward-arguing goes, neither person is mentioned in Stargate (film) (which I admit is an article of rather poor shape), so that doesn't earn them a banner either. And I am back to square one. (But I'll rather drop this issue not in my favor, than obsess about it for the rest of my wiki involvement until I get my will...) – sgeureka t•c 19:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I think I was a little simplistic in my description. I think Stargate probably is significant to Patrick Tatopoulos' notability because it's equally significant to his other films (at least, roughly). He's not primarily known for one film, he's known for a whole collection of films, so each of those films is significant. If Dr. Smith's article is to be believed, he's best known for his work on the films, rather than his academic work (he's probably known in academic circles for his academic work, but not among the general population), so he should also get a tag. This issue is nowhere near as simple as I made out, sorry! --Tango (talk) 18:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be a pain, but the question of this thread somewhat remains: Should this project cover the creative decisions for the fictional topics, or cover the (biographies of the) creators? If we decide on the creative decisions, which has also always been the wording of the scope of this wikiproject, then that information belongs first and foremost in the articles for the fictional topics (like most of the content of GA-Vala Mal Doran belongs in that article and not Claudia Black), and thus the fiction articles get tagged over the creators. I think that's where I am coming from. – sgeureka t•c 19:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say the former moreso than the latter, much as we (coughyoucough) have been. In your example of Vala vs. Ms. Black, the articles need to be respectively (I feel): (a) the character and everything that went into developing, marketing, and writing said character, and everything that the character, in turn, affected of importance; and (b) the actress and everything about her specifically. Stargate would probably be a large part of that at this time, but in as much saying: this is what Stargate did to/for Ms. Black, and this is what Ms. Black did to and received from Stargate as it matters to her.

Am I rambling? I'm rambling. I'll go now. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 01:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but I didn't want to imply that Black shouldn't be tagged (she should, because that role is far from a blip in her career), but rather illustrate that less than 20% of the 15 real-world info paragraphs of the (very comprehensive) Vala article are suited for the article on the actress. I imagine a similar ratio for other people, which could serve as a basis for deciding what creators (actors, producers, writers,...) get tagged. If all we get for the creators then is one or two sentences in their article, it should really be considered to tag the creators in the first place. Which is the case for the two guys mentioned above. (My ramblings are getting repetitive, so I'll shut up now.) – sgeureka t•c 06:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 241 articles are assigned to this project, of which 96, or 39.8%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=Stargateproject}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Merger of Tau'ri into Stargate Program

Before everyone screams no, please read this proposal carefully.

As through the ongoing efforts to reduce the WP:FANCRUFT in Stargate articles, the articles NID (Stargate), International Oversight Advisory, Trust (Stargate), Stargate Command and Alpha Site were merged into one pretty comprehensive (new) article named Stargate Program. I have found some real-world info for this article in audio commentaries, magazines, and Joe Mallozzi's production notes, and I think it passes/could pass WP:WAF and notability criteria now so that no more up-merging is necessary. Now, after performing this merge, I noticed that there is a significant overlap between this article and Tau'ri, which I was not aware of before. Both articles are not necessary at the same time. Thus, I have merged some bits from Tau'ri into Stargate Program that I thought were missing, like the million years of backstory and the starship program. The latter article has a (hopefully) low lowel of fancrufty detail and synthesis, is still rather comprehensive, and has a size of "only" 31kB.

Now, there are three ways to go:

  1. Merge Stargate Program into Tau'ri
  2. Merge Tau'ri into Stargate Program (or should I say redirect, since I already merged what I deemed necessary)
  3. Keep the two articles separate, but that's the lazy solution and will sooner or later lead to a re-assessment and a merger, as that is just redundant.

The pros and cons are (not all my opinions, but I think other people hold them):

  • Pro Option#1 and con Option#2:
  1. All other races in Stargate have their own article, and so should the Tau'ri, for the sake of consistancy.
  2. Things like List of Tau'ri characters in Stargate SG-1, Earth technology in Stargate and Earth starships in Stargate have more in common with Tau'ri (from where they can be linked via hatnotes) and not predominantly the Stargate Program, where such hatnotes would/could seem rather forced.
  3. Stargate Program doesn't cover the achievements of the Tau'ri, so the Tau'ri article is needed to document that.
  4. Stargate is popular and notable, so we shouldn't worry about the real-world notability of sub-topics, fancruft and AfDs.
  • Pro Option#2 and con Option#1:
  1. Work is mostly done already
  2. Notability is not really a problem, (a) because there are already some real-world info sources present in Stargate Program and (b) because it can be reasonably claimed that the real-world (fan) conspiracy of "Is there a real Stargate Program?" has some real-world notability, which can further be added to establish notability
  3. The Tau'ri are essentially humans from Earth, and wikipedia already has two articles on those subjects, Human and Earth, to which Tau'ri should redirect if we wanted a 100% real-world perspective. The thing that makes the Tau'ri "note-worthy" is the Stargate Program, not the other way around.
  4. There is nothing that could be added to the "Concept and creation" section necessary to turn Tau'ri into a GA. If there is, it can and should be added to Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis first.
  5. "Tau'ri" is a stupid article title, since only the Goa'uld and the Jaffa refer to humans from Earth that way; this name isn't even mentioned in Atlantis, and Earthling (Stargate) or Earth (Stargate) are just as stupid article titles.
  6. The interactions of the Tau'ri and other races can be documented in the articles of the other races and the season articles, so there's no need to for that in the Tau'ri nor the SG Program article.

I've had some weeks to think about it and am really in favor of Option #2, with a redirect of Tau'ri to SG Project. I would have boldly redirected already if I didn't assume this would lead to controversy and edit-warring. I still ask for comments, and will bow to the majority. I think two to four weeks is enough time for discussion. – sgeureka t•c 18:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

As I've mentioned elsewhere I'm also in favor of merging Tau'ri into Stargate Program; the simple fact is that there's nothing to be said about the history or nature of Earth humans in the Stargate franchise that isn't related to the Stargate Program in some way. There's also the fact that the significance of the word "Tau'ri" is simply blown all out of proportion in these Stargate-related articles, when it really only appears in maybe a third or less of all SG-1 episodes and is nothing but a flavor term to make the Goa'uld and Jaffa more alien. So, support Option #2. -- Yzx (talk) 18:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, the work "Tau'ri" ought to be removed from all Wikipedia article titles, it's a completely in-universe term and is an alien word, not a word actually used by the main characters (except Teal'c occasionally). Secondly, I see a 4th option - two articles, Stargate Program and Earth backstory in Stargate (better title suggestions welcome). The only information about the Tau'ri that isn't appropriate to an article on the Stargate Program is stuff that happened before the Stargate Program began (ie. backstory) - that includes all the "millions of years ago" stuff with the ancients and the "thousands of years ago" stuff with the Goa'uld. The article could probably be made quite good by comparing the fictional backstory with real world history and mythology (sources are required, but I expect they exist somewhere). --Tango (talk) 19:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Mythology of Stargate? (I wrote Mythology of Carnivàle last year from scratch, but that was also the damn-hardest article that I ever wrote). Robert C. Cooper likes talking about the mythology of the Ori and how that works with the Ancients (and by extension humans, see Ori (Stargate)#Mythology of the Ori and the Ancients), so that's a plus. However, after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of For Better or For Worse (deleted at Deletion Review), a separate article for just the backstory might be a little dangerous if we don't have sufficient real-world info right away. – sgeureka t•c 20:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not in favour of a single mythology article, since there is so much. For example, the mythology behind the creation of the Jaffa should so in Jaffa, the mythology behind the Ori/Alteran split should go in Ori, etc. (I think, for the most part, that is what we do). I think there is enough mythology about Earth to warrant an article, although I agree we need to make sure we have enough real world info so it doesn't just turn into another timeline article (which has already been deleted once). --Tango (talk) 21:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree that mythologies of respective races belong on their respective pages. With that, I disagree that there is enough for a complete article on Earth mythology; the backstory of Earth humans before the Stargate Program happened can be covered in a single paragraph. I'm also skeptical that there is a great deal of real-world information available that can be sourced; a history versus fiction comparison of the type you're suggesting runs a high risk of incurring original research. I wouldn't support the creation of any article until these sources can be found first. At present, I think that the best place to put it should be on the main Stargate article itself, since it's a very basic part of the mythology in all the shows and movies. -- Yzx (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I am more in favour of option one, as all race articles have the name of the race, such as Asgard, Ancient, Goa'uld etc, so when users search for "Tau'ri", they get redirected to "Stargate Programme" instead? Personally, this isn't very logical, so I think that Stargate Programme should be merged with Tau'ri instead. Matthew R Dunn (talk) 22:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I vote in favor of option 2. However, I would like a note Asgard, Goa'uld, Jaffa, and Tok'ra pages (the ones who use this name) stating that these races refer to humans as the Tau'ri.--88wolfmaster (talk) 22:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support this merger of Tau'ri into Stargate Program. The Stargate Program page can simply mention that "Tau'ri" is the word for earth humans. There's very little more to say about the phrase! This merger is one more step along the way of removing fancruft. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 22:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I had another thought for the Earth humans mythology info; I'm thinking that the Human civilizations in Stargate SG-1 and Human civilizations in Stargate Atlantis articles could perhaps be combined into one article (Human civilizations in Stargate or simply Humans in Stargate), akin to Races in Stargate. The combined article wouldn't be too long (I've been pruning excessive details a bunch), and it would have a "People of Earth" section on top that would contain the backstory that User:Tango referred to. Tau'ri could be redirected there, with a seealso link to Stargate Program and the various character lists. Thoughts? -- Yzx (talk) 08:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this as well, but never had the time to perform the trim and see with which article size we'd have to deal (answer: 35-40 kB of readable prose after the merger). I'd have rearranged the civilizations in the same way you have done now. Some quick notes though:
  1. I support the merger in general, but I am somewhat wary about the resulting article size. Some real-world info might still be added, and when Stargate Universe gets the green light, the list grows even larger, and we're getting into WP:SIZE issues. Of course, this is WP:CRYSTAL balling, and we can worry about that later. I just have to point out the obvious before someone else does. ;-)
  2. Humans in Stargate could also imply a list of characters, whereas Human civilizations in Stargate leaves no doubt what is meant.
  3. The list of recurring civilizations in the SG-1 article spans 3.5 pages on a medium-sized computer screen. This is hard to read and hard to edit. Some subheaders (either alphabetical, by season, or, again, by industrial levels) are necessary in some form.
  4. I like the idea of merging/redirecting Tau'ri (three paragraphs of backstory and a hatnote to the Stargate Program) there.
– sgeureka t•c 10:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
One compromise could be merging just the important civs and leaving the longer SG-1 and Atlantis lists where they are, i.e. turn Human civilizations in Stargate into a proper parent list. My personal inclination though is towards longer, more complete lists despite WP:SIZE, because I think (1) longer lists encourages people to be concise and cuts down on cruft, (2) long lists tend to be more readable than long prose, (3) complete lists offer a better picture of the topic when it comes to multi-series/movie franchises, and (4) the technical issues with WP:SIZE will probably diminish over time with technological progress. At any rate the current merger wouldn't get there yet and it'll likely be years before it does, depending on when Universe comes along. -- Yzx (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, as implied above, I'd be fine with a merger as long as long as we're keeping an eye on article sizes. I should have made it clearer that a 60kB article doesn't pose a problem in my eyes yet, but there is a trend in de.wiki to combine fiction lists to up to 235kB (see de:Figuren_der_Harry-Potter-Romane) just for the sake of a unified top-level topic, which is IMO the wrong direction. – sgeureka t•c 07:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I've merged the Tau'ri myth info into Races in Stargate as a separate section instead, which maintains just the single parent page and I think is a good solution for all. -- Yzx (talk) 20:15, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Nice. It looks good. --88wolfmaster (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

After twelve days, there seems to be a 5:1 consensus to do something with the Tau'ri article; the Tau'ri article content seems to be fully redundant with Stargate Program, Earth starships in Stargate, and a section in Races in Stargate now, which are all interlinked where necessary. So now that the actual merging is more or less off the table, should we discuss now where to redirect Tau'ri? I think Races in Stargate#People of Earth with all the hatnotes seems the best solution (a viable alternate solution I am less fond of is a section in a possible unified Human civilizations in Stargate article in the future). – sgeureka t•c 07:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

No reply after one week, so I was WP:BOLD and have redirected Tau'ri to Races in Stargate#People of Earth as that seemed the best solution. – sgeureka t•c 17:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Stargate participants...WikiProject Media franchises needs some help from other projects which are similar. Media franchises' scope deals primarily with the coordination of articles within the hundreds if not thousands of media franchises which exist. Sometimes a franchise might just need color coordination of the various templates used; it could mean creating an article for the franchise as a jump off point for the children of it; or the creation of a new templating system for media franchise articles. The project primarily focuses on multimedia franchises. It would be great if some of this project's participants would come over and help the project get back on solid footing. Also, if you know of similar projects which have not received this, let Lady Aleena (talk · contribs) know. Please come and take a look at the project and see if you wish to lend a hand. You can sign up here if you wish. Thank you. LA @ 05:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Audio commentary for "The Storm" (Atlantis episode 1x10)

Resolved

If someone has season 1 of Atlantis on DVD with audio commentaries, can he please check out a thing for me? (I stupidly sold my Atlantis DVDs in December without making back-up copies for real-world information.) I want to get the article of Radek Zelenka to GAN soon-ish, and I remember that Martin Gero elaborated on how he brought the character back for "The Storm". Gero says this, I believe, in the audio commentary for "The Storm" around the time when McKay and Zelenka run to Weir in the control room and are all excited about their idea of let's-use-lightning-as-a-power-source. If someone could provide a transcript or a summary of this information, this would be a big help. (I can also ask at two off-wiki places, but I thought I should ask here first). – sgeureka t•c 18:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Got a copy of the audio commentary. Martin Gero said what I remembered, although a little earlier in the commentary. – sgeureka t•c 09:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Franchise naming convention discussion at WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Stargate participants...WikiProject Media franchises is currently discussing a naming convention for franchise articles. Since this may affect one or more articles in your project, we would like to get the opinions of all related projects before implimenting any sweeping changes. Please come and help us decide. Thanks! LA (T) @ 23:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Bold GA delisting of Stargate SG-1

Just to keep everyone informed, I have boldy delisted Stargate SG-1 from GA for wildly failing almost each of the WP:Good article criteria and because fixing it would need significantly longer than an official WP:Good article reassessment. See my more-detailed reasoning at Talk:Stargate SG-1#GA delisting. – sgeureka t•c 21:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I see the "death of a thousand cuts" is ongoing as I said it would be months ago . It would be altogether more quick to put up everything for deletion now .Garda40 (talk) 21:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
It is rather unfortunate that you seem to believe that Sgeureka is trying to harm the project, when the truth is completely opposite of this. The SG articles were havens of fanboy wankery, and have now been appropriately trimmed to more readily fall in line with Wikipedia's guidelines. As I'm sure has been said many times before, if you want a place to detail every little piece of lore, you can always head over to stargate.wikia.com or stargate-sg1-solutions.com. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
And it's rather unfortunate you don't seem to be AGF .As I said months ago to Sgeureka all you get bowing to policies that were changed as time went by was you having to cut more and more so to keep up with policy ( and I see there is a attempt now to make the use of screencaps even more restrictive than the current image guidelines mandate ) . And I also said let Stargate go out with a big bang deletion if needs be .
stargate.wikia.com or stargate-sg1-solutions.com. Ah , such a good advert for wikepedia .Go somewhere else .But I suppose in two years time I will have to so it's useful if early advice .Garda40 (talk) 23:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if my interpretation of your statement was incorrect, but that was the implication. You'd rather see everything deleted if it can't be in the form you prefer? I fail to understand the value in such an action. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry that you feel I am destroying the 'pedia slowly. But the idea is to get them all to Good and Featured Article quality some day, not hide behind some A's that they received in first grade when everyone else is preparing for college. A GA delisting doesn't doom the article to eternal mediocrity, but is rather a sign that more work is required, by you, by me, by everyone. Maybe this article will be my next FA-to-be project, who knows? – sgeureka t•c 08:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Good and Featured Article quality some day .And then the rules/policies will be changed again and the article will be at best removed from that status or at worst deleted altogether .Sorry but I see actions still being taken maybe not as fast as in the past but working their way forward slowly ( I'm not talking about what you are doing here sgeureka ) with the ultimate aim of trying to delete fiction articles altogether . Garda40 (talk) 23:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
If that were to ever happen, I guarantee I will walk away from Wikipedia without looking back. That said, I feel fairly confident that fiction-oriented articles won't be going away any time soon...though the crufty stuff will eventually be condensed and merged into larger articles. Works of fiction are simply too big a part of our modern lives. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Wiki policies and guidelines reflect the experience what is good content and what's bad content. That a lot of popular culture content such as fiction gets trimmed/deleted/downgraded is a sign that their current articles contain bad content (excessive and UNDUE plot summaries, original research and synthesis, not using reliable sources, etc.), not that wikipedia has a systematic bias against fiction. Rather the opposite - there is a massive(!) number of popular culture GAs and FAs, and the way to make Stargate articles part of this is to pull up our sleeves and get to work, not hold policies and guidelines responsible for the lack of quality in our articles. – sgeureka t•c 08:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I am in full support of the delisting (sad but true). I will try and help to improve it where I can.--88wolfmaster (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Thread at WP:NFC

I have started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Intertitle screenshots of TV shows to ask for input on the necessity and number of intertitle screenhots in TV show articles, to know what should happen with the intertitle shots in Stargate SG-1. Comments are welcome. – sgeureka t•c 08:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Stargate

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

To get rid of fancruft once and for all

I've been inactive for a while on this project and probably will continue to be, but I do keep checking up on it. For the record, I'm Aquillyne, formerly known as Alfakim, who more people may remember as being a very active member.

A bit of an essay - please read

  1. A project organised by fans
    • Stargate articles are perhaps some of the worst among Wikipedia for being full of fancruft, and a lot of people are doing great jobs to fix this.
    • However I feel that a huge reworking is ultimately in need, as most pages are NAMED and ARRANGED in a fancruft way.
    • Indeed some articles just need deletion, too.
    • If we want to be recognised as a decent project and really contribute to Wikipedia, we're going to have to be pretty tough and pretty hard-line about editing the Stargate pages.
  2. Keeping it out-of-universe
    • Everything needs to be changed so it's out-of-universe, and this includes our categorisations. For instance, the article Human civilizations in Stargate SG-1 (which emerges from an in-universe notion) is entirely unencyclopedic.
    • Indeed, splitting articles by race in general is an in-universe categorisation. This is because, in the real world, there are no such races, and hence no such categorisations.
      • Imagine it a different way. If you saw the article Scottish people in Stargate SG-1, what would you expect its contents to be? First and foremost, you'd expect it to be about real Scots who feature in the show. In the case of Stargate, you'd probably expect it to be a list of cast members who were Scottish. (And then you'd mark it up for missing notability).
      • There is no difference with the article Goa'uld characters in Stargate - from an out-of-universe perspective, this says "People who are members of the real-world group 'Goa'uld', who appear in the TV show Stargate SG-1". This is wrong.
    • So what are the out-of universe, real world categorisations? Something more like List of Stargate SG-1 villains. Remember, we do not use "The Goa'uld speak with flanged voices", we use, "X decided the Goa'uld characters should have flanged voices to make them scarier".
  3. Keeping it notable
    • There has been a general trend to follow this line of thinking: "If it has importance, give it its own article; otherwise just mention it in an umbrella or list article."
    • This is clearly wrong. If it doesn't have notability, don't mention it at all.
    • That includes most characters in the series, except a few System Lords, SG-1, etc. Everyone else is either mentioned in Stargate SG-1's cast section (or SGA's) as an officially-named recurring character, or not mentioned at all.
  4. Keeping it factual
    • Technology in Stargate and Planets in Stargate are both entirely fancruft articles. This is because:
      • No such technology or planets exist;
      • Nor do they correspond to anything that exist
        • This is unlike characters, which correspond to real actors.
        • You might say, "The tech corresponds to props! We can do those articles up so they have production information!"
        • This is putting the effort in the wrong place. If the fictional technology is so notable it deserves that much information, it should already have its own article, rather than be a part of Technology in Stargate. Just like Stargate (device). To note - Stargate (fictional device) is more appropriate.
  5. Keeping it encyclopedic
    • You may be thinking, "This is cutting out TONS of really big stuff in Stargate!" - but that's of course the problem: in Stargate. If Wikipedia were the Stargate Wiki, or GateWorld, it would be horrendous to cut all this out. But it isn't, and the fact of the matter is that we're writing in an encyclopedia.
    • The general rule for an article is: "Can you imagine this article one day in the Featured Articles list?" If not, don't have the article at all - because an article that doesn't even have FA potential is clearly not hitting Wikipedia's quality criteria.
    • Also bear in mind that the trend we have of LOTS of articles makes our project very hard to manage and bloated. We ought to have a minimal set of very high quality articles, which we can add to if necessary to reach a golden mean.

Comments

Please leave comments on my thinking here, but if you simply agree, move down one section and help me organise a to-do list. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 12:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

New project structure

All articles not mentioned here will exist as redirects to the appropriate page below where their notable information is mentioned.

Stargate (which explains the five canon categories)

  1. Universal topics
  2. The Dean Devlin canon
  3. The Bridge Studios canon (Brad Wright, Jonathan Glassner, Robert C. Cooper) (which picks up the Dean Devlin canon, but is not endorsed by it)
  4. The Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment canon (which picks up the Bridge Studios canon, and is endorsed by it)
  5. The Infinity canon (which picks up the Bridge Studios canon, but is not endorsed by it)
  6. Non-canon works
    • Comics, literature, etc., which each have their singular articles.

If you think this structure misses out anything important please comment below. If you're wondering where articles like Asgard (Stargate) would go, or Technology in Stargate - they wouldn't go anywhere - but their info might. The tech articles are nothing but fancruft and that's pretty much it. We would mention all of their important information in plot synopses, or perhaps at most have a simple list. Races like the Asgard are down to discretion. The Athosians (Stargate) are basically just human supporting characters, and can be dealt with in a few lines in an Atlantis plot synopsis. However, the Asgard (Stargate) are more interesting due to the abundance of info on how the props were made and controlled, so they might deserve their own article (which would of course list all their arcs and episodes).

Comments

Please leave comments here. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 12:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Long but necessary preface: When I started editing Stargate articles in October 2007, there were roughly 500 SG pages (plus minus 100). Nearly 300 of these were episode articles (all of them have been transwikied and the majority been merged), and I count over 300 merged non-episode SG articles at User:Sgeureka/Merged#Stargate (a few dozen of them were merged back in 2006, but the majority were merged by User:Tone in 2007, and trimmed&merged by User:Yzx and me in 2008). Not counting the left-over episode articles, we're down to less than 100 articles (which includes ~20 pages for the franchise itself, ~20 pages for Lists of episodes and season articles, ~20 pages for main characters, and ~20 pages for major races). What I mean is that if someone feels that we have now is a terrible fancrufty mess (a statement with which I agree to an extend), then the progress since last year should be taken into account.
My idea for the future of this project is based on Featured Topics with a clear hierarchical structure (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Articles). Most (maybe all) main characters have GA&FA potential, and so have quite a few (maybe very many) episode articles, but getting them there is not so much a problem of incompetence or will, but time (and good-faith newbies who keep adding in-universe content again and again). Getting articles deleted these days is problematic because of the inclusionists versus deletionists fiction battle, which often results in inopportune keeping of dreck and inopportune deletions of poor but improvable articles with dedicated editors.
In direct reply to some of Aquillyne's comments:
  • I have emptied and deleted one or two dozen in-universe categories a while ago, but more merging has taken place since then. It is time to review the cats again.
  • Goa'uld characters in Stargate is a spin-out of both List of Stargate SG-1 characters and Goa'uld, both of which are (at the moment) too long to merge the Goa'uld char list in. This may change in the future, and I am fine with wikipedia as a work in progress. The suggestion of List of Stargate SG-1 villains sounds like a good idea at first - but what's with Yu? What's with Ladon Radim? Loki? Kavanagh? Maybourne?
  • Re: Technology in Stargate and Planets in Stargate as fancrufty lists - I agree, but I have no solution. Merging is impossible as these lists are already top level. AfDs would most certainly end in keeps, as their deletion would have direct impact on the fancrufty Star Trek and Star Wars lists, which fanboys would never allow. Plus some pieces of technology actually have production information which just needs to be added (I have extensive fan material for the latter SG-1 seasons and the first two SGA seasons, see e.g. my additions to Earth starships in Stargate). Or: I have seen some fiction franchises only list the recurring pieces of technology. But that would be a step which requires some pre-discussion here.
  • I am mainly an SG-1 fan, and my knowledge of Atlantis in-universe importance (like with the article on Athosians) is somewhat limited. I must therefore rely on others to determine if I am too precautious with the removal of excessive information, and what actually needs an article.
Anyway, I have about two to five SG articles left for merger (not counting episode articles), I have a few Stargate B-class articles to get to GA, and then I plan to do some work on Stargate SG-1. I am also trying to make sure that the same mess doesn't get started with SGU again. My SG ToDo list is therefore (still) pretty full. – sgeureka t•c 00:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I have mixed opinions, but I question whether anything as drastic as your proposal can realistically be implemented. My specific points:
  • We've merged down the lists almost as much as possible given size restrictions, but as User:Sgeureka mentioned, any attempt to remove the technology (or ships or planets) lists altogether will almost certainly fail, especially since (I think) lists do not have to demonstrate notability. I do think that things can be done to at least minimize the amount of cruft on those pages (removing insignificant items would be a start, but uniform criteria need to be established if that's the case) There is also real-world info out there that can be added.
  • I see your point about grouping characters by fictional race, but from an organizational perspective I feel that when talking about fictional characters using fictional categories makes intuitive sense. I wouldn't be thrilled if it all got turned into an alphabetical list, but I could live with it.
  • Moving things to plot summaries is all well and good in theory, but until it's actually done trying to remove the original material would be the same as deleting it, and I've already stated my thoughts on how practical that would be. Most of the episodes probably have enough production info to be turned into articles (again), but that's a long, long ways off.
Sorry if I'm sounding negative, but considering what the state of Stargate articles on Wikipedia was before all the recent(ish) work was done, I'm reasonably satisfied with the current framework. Until a there is a change in consensus in Wikipedia, I think having some cruft in a fictional franchise coverage is inevitable. -- Yzx (talk) 04:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I appreciate what you're saying about how a whole load of work has been done already. I know - in part, the quality of the work was what inspired this essay. I appreciate the huge amount of work some project participants are putting in, and I particularly appreciate the work of Sgeureka who I have noticed has been taking a solid, hardline approach to making our articles a lot better and has been putting in a lot of effort. So that's great! However, what this essay is about is where we need to be, where we need to be aiming. For now we can ignore that it'd be difficult to pull this off. Once we agree that this is a good restructuring, we can all put the work in. But for now, it's just a discussion point. I think if we're honest with ourselves, the above is really where we need to be. It doesn't matter if other major projects aren't here yet - why shouldn't the Stargate project be the one setting the standard and being the best on Wikipedia? Why shouldn't it be that other projects look to us? But this aside, as I say, all the above is about the theoretical best place to be, and while I appreciate much work has been done, there is much to go - and wouldn't it be better to put our effort in now to steer the project in this direction, rather than working in the wrong direction only to have it later rewritten? --Aquillyne-- (talk) 13:12, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

(After reading your essay and my previous reply again to make sure I am not repeating myself again) There are are three approaches to get the perfect Stargate coverage on wikipedia that we'd all like to see (e..g. everything is at least a GA):
  1. Never merge an article and expand them all to GA (approach of ~2004 till 2007, but this approach produced nearly no significant quality articles per today's standards, probably because all energy was focused on adding even more new in-universe data after the newest episode was broadcast, and the experienced wikipedians were busy with limiting good-faith newbie damage)
  2. Merge all insignificant in-universe article and leave major ones be, slowly improving those to GA (current approach since 2007, took a lot of time for trimming&merging, but also produced 1 FA, 5 GAs and 1 GAN in the last year, quality is steadily rising)
  3. Merge all articles that don't satisfy WP:WAF or simply redirect them, regardless of WP:POTENTIAL, and then build the Stargate coverage top-bottom per WP:SPINOUT (worked for me for the Featured Topic of the semi-obscure TV series Carnivàle but was never tried for a major show like Stargate; even more time would be spend in trimming&merging, as simple redirecting would lead to huge fan outcries and accusations of vandalism; would also lead to strange circumstances that Radek Zelenka, a GA, would have an article and Jack O'Neill wouldn't at this time; some editors would question the point of merging articles if they will spun out again anyway some time in the future)
If I was editing in a bubble, then yes, I'd prefer option 3 just like you seem to prefer, as we would never have to deal with bad SG articles. But there is also WP:POTENTIAL and no WP:DEADLINE, and we have to repect the views of the general en.wiki fiction readership even if they don't give a damn about policies and guidelines (de.wiki, on the other hand, tends to delete non-quality articles on-sight, independant of article potential, and while they have nearly no problems with fancruft, they also make it impossible to write GAs/FAs on fictional elements). So, while option 2 is not perfect, it gets acceptable results and keeps everyone's stress level comparibly low. On the other hand (and this is the first time I say this), I strongly support the SPINOUT approach for Stargate Universe from the start, e.g. meaning we shouldn't give each main character his own article from the get-go. Fans (and this includes me) who then absolutely want to have an article on e.g. Everett Young, will be forced to dig up sources and write a decent article. I hope that by that time, our current character articles will have been improved enough to also justify as a spinout. And we'll have survived this hard transitional period in a peaceful fashion. – sgeureka t•c 14:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Sgeureka, you've got my position slightly wrong. My position is to decide upon a list of articles that we SHOULD have, regardless of their current state. This list should list every single article the Stargate coverage on Wikipedia needs. Anything not on the list gets redirected to the list (with its info mentioned in the redirected article, if notable). Then we do the merging and trimming - to bring things closer to that list. And we improve the quality of articles on the list, till every single one is FA (goal of the project). What is this list? I've made it above - please edit and discuss it accordingly.
Why this idea? To give the project structure. The structured list of all Stargate articles, as described above (and open to editing) can be displayed on the main WikiProject page. It gives everything focus. It puts everything in perspective.
Why re-structure as above? To avoid the current structuring folly, a huge mistake that will prevent most SG articles from ever being even GA. The entire structure of the WikiProject is based on in-universe notions. We're structuring the pages like we're the GateWorld Omnipedia. If you're in-universe, of course you structure by race, technology, planets, etc. But this all just reads like a fanbook. This is Wikipedia, and the whole way the project has been structured really needs to change.
What does this restructuring mean? Not much, in terms of which pages we'll have. It sets the pages in new perspectives, and gives them new goals. It makes it clearer what pages we need and don't. Ultimately our core articles won't change, but the way we think about how they are organised will, and it becomes clearer which not-so-core articles are notable, and how to name them, and what content they require.
So I'm not advocating a radical stripping down to a quality standard, I'm advocating a project structure, a way to organise our pages which has GAPS that need filling - but then at least we know where those gaps are, and we know which pages to merge away. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Is it possible that your impression of this wikiproject's goals/perspecive is based on the wording of Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate? If so, please bear in mind that the old-old wikiproject page was terribly in-universe-fancruft-focused until I rewrote it this spring after many performed mergers. The still ongoing mergers have kept subtly shifting the WP's true scope from then so that the updated wording is also outdated now. I myself am keeping track of my GA/FA/FL/FT-focused perspective via bolding in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate/Articles, and only share my doings in the "Current nominations and proposals" section in WPSG, ignoring the wording of the rest (I didn't know anyone actually read it). So if you want to give the WPSG page a facelift, by all means, please do.
  • "My position is to decide upon a list of articles that we SHOULD have" - that's what the importance scale is for, you can see my take at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Stargate articles by quality. Merging and trimming has been going on for over a year, but I am seeing the end of the tunnel for merging. Yes, more trims (without necessarily merging) are desperately needed, but I am not always in the mood for trimming, and User:Yzx was the only editor who helped with trimming in recent times - getting another editor like you on board would certainly help. Adding real-world information to articles is the hardest and most neglected job; I often feel like the only one who actually does that and could need some support.
  • Maybe our visions aren't that different in the end: Many of your proposed lists already exist or are already part of other lists under a different name (e.g. there is currently only one Races in Stargate instead of division by show, and the Cast lists are already covered by the Character lists). However, I'd argue that some of the redlinks should be created as sections in main articles and wait for the time to spinout (e.g. Stargate fandom and List of Stargate SG-1 sets etc.), and I regard your proposed List of Stargate SG-1 crew etc. as pure list cruft. I have already listed other concerns previously. Maybe we should start new discussion threads for each point, and work from there one by one. – sgeureka t•c 09:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Sgeureka, I helped set up this WikiProject, I've been here from the beginning.
I should have made it clear: the redlinks in the above section are just there to fill gaps - I wouldn't suggest we make Stargate Universe articles, for instance, until there's sufficient info! Likewise with the crew lists, which I agree aren't useful really. Please edit the list as you see fit. If it's agreed that we don't need a crew list, then delete it.
Sgeureka, I think we are on the same wavelength. I'm not aggressively suggesting something here, I'm opening it for discussion. I think if me and you worked on the above list of "should have" articles, then we can actually solidify it as the project structure, which would be great. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
(Ooops, missed this on my watchlist.) So here's my list of absolutely-must-have articles:
All the others should be kept or merged on a case-by-case basis, and it's up to interested editors to make merge suggestions and then perform the trim&mergers. – sgeureka t•c 12:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Stargate - I've added some crucial info about the differences between Stargate canons. This is one of the biggest problems at the moment. Currently every Stargate article is framed from a Bridge Studios perspective (i.e. SG-1/Atlantis fan) - but this is only 1 of several Stargate productions. The Bridge Studios canon is not supreme - it just has the largest fanbase. Thus if our articles match that bias (or assumption), they are in a sense, "in universe", and in a sense, "fancruft". That's just the most foundational thing that's currently wrong.
I agree with your list of must-have articles. I think you're missing:
I'm ambivalent about Ascension (Stargate) - does it deserve an article for being such a massive central concept across nearly 10 years of episodes? I don't think so really - it can be handled in a plot synopsis.
Now here's the million dollar question: why can't we cut everything down to the above articles? If there's a good answer, then we need to amend the above list. If there's no answer, then.... ? --Aquillyne-- (talk) 22:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
One could argue that Stargate (device) (which may have GA potential) could be merged into Technology in Stargate (which I feel should be trimmed to major recurring techs anyway). GateWorld could theoretically be merged into Stargate#Fandom (it can't become a GA). I have zero knowledge about SG literature, comics, audiobooks and also video games and hence can't comment on that. Continuum and AoT, yes, should stay around. Ascension (Stargate) has been on my (merge&)redirect ToDo list forever. Why can't we cut everything down to the above articles? - we can certainly try, but I did/could not do this because (1) I was getting tired after transwikiing&merging hundreds of SG articles, (2) because some of the best articles are the result of time&editing and not chainsaw-cutting, and (3) because the last thing I need(ed) is getting accused of being evil User:TTN II so that my non-SG mergers suffer from systematic kneejerk fan reactions. Also, the legitimate List of Stargate SG-1 characters is already bursting at the seams although it doesn't even describe the major players in the needed depth yet (my FA Characters list-article for an obscure 24-episode show is 96kB, and a list for a popular 200+ episode show will be longer accordingly), so some split-up may be wise. Whatever we decide to do now, I don't expect any fast progress anymore. If someone has specific ideas or intentions for major changes such as getting rid of all poor main character articles, character sublists, technology sublists, the season articles, race articles, and SG games (that are all the possibilities I think), let's start a new thread to weigh the pros and cons. – sgeureka t•c 23:51, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

De-indent. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:06, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

You've got it the wrong way round on that one. Technology in Stargate is not an article to keep. It's an article to delete (pure fancruft - even if you strip it down, it's an in-universe categorisation). So you wouldn't merge Stargate (device) into it. If Stargate (device) was to be merged, it would be into Stargate. But I think there's sufficient info regarding the making of the prop, concept and design, as well as sufficient notability, for it to warrant its own article. GateWorld is also very notable, having so many viewers as it does, conducting so many interviews, etc. Ascension (Stargate) however, as you said, needs to be just merged into Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis plot summaries.
I'd like to mention here that my ruthlessness regards all this is not as an outsider. Most of the articles I am advocating the complete deletion of were written, in bulk, by me. Vanity aside, the values of Wikipedia and WP:NOT stand true. This is an encyclopedia. I don't want our Stargate coverage to be just fancruft anymore, like many other WikiProjects (why can't we set the standard?).
You say that lots of great articles were written by slow increments on what would originally have been deleted. This doesn't make much sense - if it was deletion-worthy (in terms of fancruft, notability, in-universe), it doesn't matter how much you add to it, it still needs to go. DNA Resequencer (Stargate) was a top-quality article written almost solely and obsessively by User:Tobyk777 (if I remember rightly). It had thousands of references, tons of out-of-universe information. But it wasn't notable. So about 100k of article and hours of work was merged into a tiny section in another article, and rightly so.
If we upset the fanboys, so what. This is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I understand if this sounds like a big job that's tedious and tiring. I'm not really suggesting that we undertake a huge project straightaway. All I'm debating for right now is simple agreement. I want to work up agreement on what needs to be done - on what the articles should be. If you agree, then we can think about the way forward to get there. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:06, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't want our Stargate coverage to be just fancruft anymore, like many other WikiProjects (why can't we set the standard?). - 100% agreed. For my part, I am ready to discuss specific proposals. – sgeureka t•c 21:49, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, brilliant. My proposal is:
  1. We (me and you, and anyone else) form our list of core articles, and spend a while thinking about any further ones that would be needed.
  2. We work on those core articles and make them really damn good, including any information we imagine is (a) present in other articles outside of the list, and (b) relevant and notable.
  3. This makes the articles outside the list effectively redundant. One by one, we merge them away and AfD.
The first things I'd like to disappear are the extraneous articles like Jack O'Neill, Tok'ra, etc. (I don't know if those are already gone). These types of articles can be deleted and merged almost instantly, as they're sort of "last branch" articles, if you think about a tree structure. Things follow to them, but not from them, if you see what I mean. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 21:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Another proposal that may work for all of us despite a different work ethos: Each one of us just states the non-must-have subarticles that we personally intend to (keep) work(ing) on up to at least B-class status, and we'll consider the other articles for merger one by one (it's absolutely fair: no volunteers -> no article -> reduced number of fancrufty SG articles overall). I have 7 articles ( Cameron Mitchell (Stargate), Jonas Quinn, Ori (Stargate), Redemption (Stargate SG-1), Lost City (Stargate SG-1), Stargate SG-1 (season 8) and Stargate Program) besides the 17 must-have articles from above that I'd like to keep around, and I admit to have a COI about keeping the other SG-1 main characters since I have the long-term goal to write a Featured Good Topic on them although I know that I just don't have the time to commit to doing that at the moment. As I hate coming up with plot summaries, I prefer to keep page histories around for culling and not do AfDs. If the other editors are fine with this proposed process, you/we can start Stargate Merger Part II (as stated before, I have already merged nearly everything that I absolutely wanted to see merged in my personal Part I). – sgeureka t•c 17:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Strike a few. As long as these articles just get merged and not AfDed, I can resume GA-work when I have the time and urge. – sgeureka t•c 13:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I like this suggestion that any articles without volunteers get AfD'd. But equally, articles which we ought not to have ought to be AfD'd regardless of volunteers. However, that's an ultimate aim. For now, I'm happy with the idea that non-core articles are worked on to increase quality for later merger. Regardless, I still want a list of must-have articles. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Quick Link: Edit This Section

Vote the articles you'd keep

Other than the core articles mentioned above (please add a reason if possible).

Comment I'd keep Goa'uld and scrap the list. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Struck. Can be covered in List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1, with the important arcs covered in Goa'uld if necessary. – sgeureka t•c 10:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment I am still getting better ideas for the representation of this content all the time (and these ideas may turn out to be crap later nevertheless). I won't commit to any more "we definitately have to keep this or that article"s so that I don't have to eat my words later, although I'll stay open for any specific merge/move/rearrange proposals by others. – sgeureka t•c 13:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment. All the above lists List of Stargate SG-1 characters could be severely shortened. Absolutely TONS of cruft in there. They are lists. They should be nothing more than bullet points. Each character gets one line. That's a lot of characters. If they deserve more info than that then they can be mentioned elsewhere if it's important. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Each character gets one line. And that results in valuable article content how? Why not simply follow WP:V, rather that suggesting a draconian measure that prevents value being present were warranted. List articles shouldn't just mean "tiny bullet point entries", but rather "a collection of entries too short to warrant their own articles". The end result should be valuable content, not minimal linecount. LinaMishima (talk) 23:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
In other words, Aquillyne, you prefer List of Harry Potter characters and List of characters in The Simpsons (that's perfectly fine). But the problem of "mentioning elsewhere" remains if you/we want to keep cutting on the number of in-universe articles. (Some rambling ahead) WP:FICT supports aggregate character lists as a trade-off between cruftiness and usefulness; good examples are Characters of Carnivàle and List of Naruto characters (no subarticles, but ~1 paragraph per major character). I based the current SG style on List of House characters because I found that format to be extremely helpful on my random House-episode-catch-up sprees. Other solutions are Characters of Lost (many crufty subarticles, but just one/two lines for any character) and Characters of Smallville (only legitimiate WP:SPINOUT subarticles, tons of paragraphs for major characters and 1/2 line for each minor character). Of course, SG-1 ran twice or three times as long as almost any other popular show, so I think it would make sense to have more character lists accordingly. – sgeureka t•c 23:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Or in case I am missing your point, Aquillyne, are you suggesting to turn List of Stargate SG-1 characters into something like List of characters in The Simpsons, and then e.g. have the aggregate lists List of main characters in Stargate SG-1, List of recurring Earth characters in Stargate SG-1 and List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1? – sgeureka t•c 23:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Sgeureka, those are some wonderful example lists! I'm considering writing an essay on the subject of meaningful lists (for the purposes of looking to see how to integrate such suggestions into actual practice), and those links show the full spectrum of list styles LinaMishima (talk) 00:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I am suggesting that 95% of characters in Stargate deserve the List of Harry Potter characters treatment, and 5% deserve the Characters of Carnivàle treatment, i.e. about 7 of them. This can all be done in one article, Characters of Stargate (or similar), without any need for other articles like Jonas Quinn, etc. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 23:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Before we give Stargate characters the HP treatment, I'd rather remove the one- and two-timers for cruftiness, insignificance and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. Jonas Quinn is GAN now, but I'd get your point if you were talking about Hammond and Landry. What to you think of the current List of Stargate SG-1 characters (possible merge-target for all non-GA main characters), List of recurring Earth characters in Stargate SG-1 and List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1? All three have FL potential (I am working on it). ETA: Atlantis may be able to go with just one character list, and no more than two (main, recurring) if all main characters get merged for the time being. – sgeureka t•c 10:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
The current List of Stargate SG-1 characters could just do with some cruft-removal and then it's fine. No character deserves their own article - all character info should be in this list, or in plot summaries at Stargate SG-1, etc. The ideal would be to have 1 paragraph for each regular character, a few sentences for each recurring character, and one line for every other character. Jonas Quinn may be GAN, but let's face it, there's nothing notable about this fictional character that deserves more than his inclusion inside another article. Daniel Jackson might qualify for more notability - maybe enough for his own article. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 14:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
The ideal would be to have 1 paragraph for each regular character, a few sentences for each recurring character, and one line for every other character. - Agreed on the middle part, but can you explain how you came to this conclusion for the regulars and the one-timers (honest question)? I was able to cut down Vala Mal Doran's plot summary to 3 paragraphs (and added 16 real-world paragraphs; she "just" appeared in 1/7 of SG-1), and per my work on Characters of Carnivàle I increasingly see listing one-timers as fancruft. Maybe we can save time on dicussion if you demonstrated how much you'd merge of all the SG-1 main characters into List of Stargate SG-1 characters (I have already done this for Hammond and Landry), and discuss a redirect of the main char articles then. – sgeureka t•c 17:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure what your question is, but I'll answer anyway. I figure that a series regular deserves 1 paragraph just to say who they were, who played them, which seasons they were in, list off the major plot arcs, etc. You don't actually need to write the plot in there - that stuff is covered in the main plot summary at Stargate SG-1 or whatever. It's soo crufty to start going into how Vala used to be host to Qut'esh on her character listing. One-timer actors also don't deserve even a sentence. It's either regulars, recurrings (Bra'tac, carter's dad), or people who starred at least 2 times, say. So Hammond, having been a regular, gets 1 paragraph in the character list. Which we probably ought to rename Characters in Stargate or similar, because the "list" title is simply less useful! --Aquillyne-- (talk) 17:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
So basically, you think the depth of Stargate SG-1#Cast for the main characters is pretty much sufficient - and I disagree. But I think I found the perfect middle ground: I have nearly no wiki attachment to SGA-related articles, and I don't intend on improving them to GA/FA/FL either. I am not sure whether there are any wikipedians who do. So instead of discussing this endlessly and getting nowhere because of our opposing view points on details, would you be fine with cleaning up the cruft in regards to SGA as you see fit, and leave the SG-1 stuff to me? I may need a few weeks/months longer than you, but I am sure the results will be respectable. It would be a win-win. Oh, and the naming convention of character lists is to call them "List of XXX characters" (highest possible quality: FL) unless you want to write an article on them (including long sections on casting, development, reception - highest possible quality: FA). – sgeureka t•c 21:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

De-indent --Aquillyne-- (talk) 10:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's go with List of Stargate SG-1 characters then (and Atlantis). Could you tell me why Stargate SG-1#Cast is inappropriate for the main characters? Sure, you could add a few sentences there. But I feel that anything else you add to that really belongs in another place. There are three options really:
  1. Short paragraphs in a character list
  2. If there's more information of note, put it somewhere else, e.g. Stargate SG-1
  3. If there's more information of note, expand the list into a Characters of Stargate SG-1 article.
I favour 1, then 3, then 2. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 10:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I've had this long reply written out, but then, with all due respect, I realized that I've had enough of discussing hypothetical article structures. I simply don't know what will work best for the articles; I never fully know in advance, but I know how to get there. You have been talking about your eagerness to get rid of fancruft for two months now yet haven't done any work, while less-eager people actually have. I'd see it as an act of trust if you left the 10 SG-1 character articles to me (whatever solution I come up with for them), and I encourage you (for the third time?) to please start merge proposals and AfDs (which are likely to result in keeps or mergers) for the other articles, as you see fit, so that the job finally gets done. – sgeureka t•c 11:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Sure, sure. To be perfectly honest, I'm a discusser rather than a doer. But I'll get something done :) --Aquillyne-- (talk) 15:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Future of the article SG team

I ask for input for what should be done with the article SG team, which has been tagged for notability issues since August. I'll list my concerns (from both sides of the fence) below.

  • The topic has nearly no significance/importance in the real-world (e.g. to build a reception section) => violates WP:N (guideline)
  • It is unlikely that significant production and development information can be added even from primary sources => also violates WP:FICT (essay)
  • It is a list => WP:FICT (essay) makes notability exceptions for lists from highly notable shows, but the article should then be moved to List of SG teams
  • It is a list of information that has very little in-universe insignificance, but is nevertheless of interest to some people => WP:FANCRUFT (essay)
  • List information that has some in-universe significance (such as that Reynolds is the leader of SG-3) is already present in the List of characters in Stargate XYZ list => redundancy
  • "SG team" in itself is worth no more than a dictionary definition, which can be / is already given in Stargate Program => WP:NOT#DICT
  • "SG team" is a likely search term => can be redirected instead of deleted

I don't have a strong opinion if this article should be AfDed, merged/redirected (probably to Stargate Program), or be moved to a new name, but I admit that if this question came up in an AfD for another show where I had no conflict of interest (WP:COI), I'd recommend "(Delete and/or) redirect". What do others think? – sgeureka t•c 18:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Delete as per above. --88wolfmaster (talk) 20:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Merge/Redirect to Stargate Program. A little of the information can be kept, like the production info on the Atlantis teams' unofficial designations. -- Yzx (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Stargate quality assessment

For transparancy: I have changed the quality assessment of the article Stargate from A-class to GA-class (it was already made a GA in 2006). Per [2], the A-class assessment seems to have been done by external reviewers without an "official" review, and the SG wikiproject just took over that assessment. I think while the article is an alright GA, it is not polished enough for A-class per Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment (plot summary of the Stargate film is too long, and not enough sources, although the scope/content is fine). Since I think we can do a lot better than that, I'd be reluctant to hand out A's so easily. If other editors believe the A-class would nevertheless apply, I would favor a proper project review, as recommended by Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. – sgeureka t•c 13:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

List of planets in Stargate

This is an idea that just came to me, and I apologize in advance if this is a rubbish idea. My wiki attention is also already devoted elsewhere, so I am also not in a hurry to do anything about this just yet. But here it goes: For at least half a year, I've been trying to think what to do with List of planets in Stargate because I've seen several planet lists of other fiction franchise being deleted for fancruftiness, in-universe focus and lack of notability. This rationale would theoretically also apply to the SG planet list, and although I usually value WP guidelines and avoid playing favorites, I'd be sorry to see the SG planet list go because I do in fact see some encyclopedic and navigational value, even if others consider it fancruft.

After User:Yzx put effort into cleaning up the planet list, I was even more reluctant to "destroy" someone's work. On the other hand, it became obvious to me that most planets are only mentioned/visited once and never again. So I thought, what about merging the planet list into the episode lists? When I edited Carnivàle, I was obsessed about locations and added an extra locations column to List of Carnivàle episodes to avoid deletion, and it worked out perfectly. List of House episodes has one column for "Final Diagnosis". List of Lost episodes has an extra column for "Featured character(s)". A "Visited planet" column wouldn't be too unusual.

The few planets that are visited repeatedly (Abydos, Langara, Chulak, Dakara) are usually very closesly associated with a race, so they can/should be covered in more detail in the respective Race article/section. I have made a sample merger in my userspace for season 3 of SG-1, see here. And now I hope for some comments. (As said above, my main wiki attention is also already devoted elsewhere, and I just want to see if this idea is worth something for future considerations.) – sgeureka t•c 13:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, but it's only useful if the column somehow includes information about what other episodes that planet is visited in. I'm not sure of the best way to do that, though. --Tango (talk) 15:45, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
There aren't that many planets that were visited repeatedly, but here are my proposals: Many of them can simply be linked to the race (e.g. Abydos (Stargate) -> Abydonians (Stargate), Tollana -> Tollan (Stargate)), where all episodes of visit can be mentioned as well. Chulak should be linked to Jaffa (Stargate) as well. The Asgard home galaxy + planets would get a new section in their article. Castiana/Sahal/Vagonbrei would get a mention in Ori (Stargate). Lantea/Atlantis is no problem anyway. M7G-677 (the kid planet from SGA 1x06), which is mentioned several times, would just link to the SGA 1x06 ep entry. Dakara is the only planet where things are not as clear-cut (Ancients, Jaffa, Goa'uld, or Ori), but since it was mostly a plot device for the Jaffa, it should IMO get its main mention there. All other planets would appear unlinked in the List of episodes. – sgeureka t•c 19:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I have begun to merge (not redirect) List of planets in Stargate into the first two season articles of SG-1. Merging into the prose turns out to work better than creating a new column. No problems so far, although the gate addresses look a little crufty (they can be removed later if they are deemed too silly). – sgeureka t•c 00:47, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have merged the remaining planet names, designations and addresses to the various season articles (notable exception: the Gate Bridge planets, because they seemed like cruft and don't further the story). Unless there is opposition within the next week or so, I'd merge the few recurring planets (see above) to Mythology of Stargate, and then redirect List of galaxies and planets in Stargate there. – sgeureka t•c 13:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

62.195.5.40 (talk) 12:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC) Yes, please merge the pages so nothing gets lost.

Finished. Now redirects to Stargate (device)#Addresses (which hatnote-links to the LoEs for the one-episode planets). Chulak and Dakara were merged into Jaffa (Stargate), the memorable planet names were directed into the Race articles/sections for redundancy reasons, and the one-time planet names+addresses were merged into the Lists of episodes. All redirects fixed. – sgeureka t•c 23:10, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello, the featured list List of Stargate SG-1 episodes currently has a tag for unsourced statements. It would be great if a member of this project could take care of the issue, otherwise it may be nominated for removal. Once the issue is resolved, please indicate so here. Thank you, Scorpion0422 15:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That's because the transcluded template {{Stargate DVD Dates/SG1}} has citation tags. I'll try to fix it within the next seven days. – sgeureka t•c 18:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

specialized character template

{{User:pd_THOR/Radek Zelenka}} What specialty purpose or parameters does {{Infobox Stargate character}} perform that cannot be duplicated by {{Infobox character}}? It appears (see right) that there's no appreciable difference save for colouring or slight layout differences (to which I'm ambivalent, however the latter does allow for specifying its colouring). I'm inclined to nominate the former for deletion in light of the latter, but would like the project's input first. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 19:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about doing exactly this a couple of weeks ago, but I was busy and stuff and wanted to give the project time to recover from my project overhauls all the time. :-) – sgeureka t•c 21:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Did you set the infobox colours according to {{SGColor}} when changing them on the articles? Peachey88 (Talk Page | Contribs) 23:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I changed the infoboxes of the SG-1 characters yesterday (didn't get to the SGA characters) and used the standard wiki-lightblue instead of the default gray and the old standard {{SGColor}}. I have no strong opinion about the colors, as long as they are the same for all characters (this Wikiproject had about six different colors up until a few months ago). – sgeureka t•c 07:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The colors should not be used; from a real-world encyclopedic perspective they're all just fictional characters on a TV show. -- Yzx (talk) 01:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

We have no need for specialised stargate templates in any area. It doesn't even make sense to have them. We don't need a stargate charcter template, and we certainly dont need a stargte COLOUR template!!! These should be eschewed at least, deleted at best. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 11:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Aye, convert to {{Infobox character}} as fast as you please, then TfD the Stargate template. :) — Huntster (t • @ • c) 12:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the remaining SG character pages to use {{Infobox character}}, and {{Infobox Stargate character}}/{{Infobox Stargate character}} are orphaned in article space now, although they are still used in user- and project space. {{SGColor}} is now orphaned as well except for several episode articles, so it can be re-introduced for the characters or be completely orphaned (I am neutral on that). – sgeureka t•c 13:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Nice job Sgeureka. I feel that the fewer project-specific templates there are, the better. That Infobox Stargate character is used on user-pages really shouldn't be our concern...unless someone wants to use AWB and convert the existing instances to Infobox character. Might also be a good idea to see about cleaning SGcolor from the User space as well...replacing all instances with the default #7F8EB7. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Just kill the project specific templates, especially the insidiously useless {{SGColor}}. Colour doesn't matter - use #7f8eb7, use #whatever, it doesn't make a difference - this is no biggie. Kill that bloody template. --Aquillyne-- (talk) 22:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It would be very easy to go through and replace SGcolor with a colour code using AWB, and I'd be happy to do so if there is consensus. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 00:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Wow guys great job. I need to check in more often. anyways, support replacing SGcolor.--88wolfmaster (talk) 03:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Next step: what color?

So there seems to be consensus to get rid of {{SGColor}} (the template). If we remove it (through AWB or whatever), with what color code do we replace it? Most standard TV templates (e.g. {{Infobox Television}} or {{Infobox Television episode}} have depricated the color parameter so that it doesn't even show up in the documentation anymore; one the other hand, all major TV franchises have their own color. As said above, I have no strong opinion about this as long as we use the same color across all SG articles (per the benefits of pastell colors (WP:COLOR) and the KISS principle, I am leaning slightly towards standard colors though.) – sgeureka t•c 08:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, best case is to use the existing "default" colour of #7F8EB7. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 12:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Don't use any colour whatsoever. Use the default, and when I mean default, I mean don't even enter a parameter. The default for the television infobox (which is a shadow grey) will show up if you don't enter a colour parameter, and this is ABSOLUTELY ADEQUATE - COLOUR IS NOT IMPORTANT, THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE. We have a million more important things to focus on, such as having decent content before we ever need to worry about what colour to use. When the WikiProject is complete, we'll have a discussion about colours and AWB them in. Until then let's not waste any more breath on it! --Aquillyne-- (talk) 19:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Without the enthusiasm, I agree with User:Aquillyne. A problem with stipulating a specific colour is that other users (not familiar with the project's stipulation) will either not add a colour at all to the box, or will remove it from ones we already have to make them "standardier" with the site. Besides, if we decide to acquiesce to the default, we won't have to discuss or argue (now or later) about why we use one colour over another. I've also seen discussions here and there about depreciating the colouring function altogether from the infoboxes we're discussing; should that happen, we'll be defaulting to ... well, the default anyways. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 20:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Aquillyne, erm, please remain calm? This is no big deal...Sgeureka just wanted to establish consensus since removing SGcolor will affect a significant number of pages. It isn't something to get worked up over. That said, and unless someone wants to beat me to it, I'll start removing SGcolor transclusions tomorrow. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Hehe, I'm passionate but of course I'm calm :) --Aquillyne-- (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, SGColor has been removed from every place I can remove it from (except two AfD pages, which I will not touch). If any pages still show it being transcluded into them, it is likely just the server cache. Unless there is an objection, I'll place it into the TfD cycle. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that {{Infobox Television episode}} (which is used in SG episode articles) uses the full-protected {{Television colour}}, which in turn defines 

| Stargate Atlantis        = #7F8EB7
| Stargate SG-1            = #7F8EB7

(that's why SG ep articles still show up in SGColor although the articles themselves don't define a color). I'll wait two days for possible objection here before I place an {{editprotected}} request at that template's talkpage for removal. – sgeureka t•c 18:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

{{Stargate-stub}} for deletion

I nominated {{Stargate-stub}} for deletion. Please visit the discussion at Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion#.7B.7BStargate-stub.7D.7D_.2F_Category:Stargate_stubs. – sgeureka t•c 19:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Upmerger of categories

I boldly upmerged Category:Stargate series to Category:Stargate because the category should either have been named Category:Stargate TV series, or the games and audiobooks be technically merged there as well (because they are series too). If this is fine with everyone else, we should consider upmerging Category:Stargate games too (it's just four articles, and they don't really form a coherent group either). – sgeureka t•c 19:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new article: Mythology of Stargate

I have merged (not redirected) the SG-1 content of one-off races of Races in Stargate and Human civilizations in Stargate SG-1 into the individual episode summaries of the SG-1 season articles. The recurring human civs that don't have their own articles (Tollan, Langarans etc) are also summarized in the respective sections of List of Stargate SG-1 characters. The same can be done with the rest of Races in Stargate and Human civilizations in Stargate Atlantis for Atlantis.

I therefore propose to get rid of the human-civ articles, and move the trimmed Races in Stargate article to Mythology of Stargate (the name is open to debate). This article could also be the new home of Ascension (Stargate) (spans too much of the show to be merged to a single race); minor recurring race articles like Kull Warrior that we'll have problems improving to GA although their current article isn't bad; recurring locations of List of planets in Stargate, and (parts of) Atlantis (Stargate) and Stargate Program (I'm just brainstorming). Compare Mythology of Carnivàle, Mythology of Lost, Mythology of Heroes, Harry Potter universe, or Universe of The Legend of Zelda. This article will hopefully increase the real-world focus of in-universe information (as far as that's possible) and discourage the addition of extremely minor plot details for the sake of being complete (e.g. the article name of Races in Stargate encourages the inclusion of the Gadmeer, but Mythology of Stargate wouldn't). This proposal is the first step of a bottom-up equivalent of Aquillyne's top-bottom proposal #To get rid of fancruft once and for all from above. – sgeureka t•c 11:00, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a good proposal, and would be an excellent place to discuss such matters as how the Goa'uld characters were influenced by real-world Egyptian, Celtic, etc mythos. Given that Stargate is basically founded on Earth mythology, the title seems entirely appropriate and would serve a dual purpose (the mythos of the show, and how Earth mythos influenced it). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:34, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I quite like the idea, but I am a little concrened that since Stargate went on a little (well, in some cases a lot) longer than your examples, I'm just worried that the article may be too long, not that I don't have a problem with long articles, just as long as we find some images to put now and then. -- Matthew R Dunn (talk) 15:27, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree, that's a lot to merge into one article. We could try it and see how it goes, we can probably find a way to split it in two if it gets too long. Incidentally, I would merge Kull Warrior into Goa'uld if anywhere - they are just a drone form of Goa'uld, after all. --Tango (talk) 16:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd officially propose each full merger before I perform them. The intention of this thread was just to ask if everyone is fine with the basic restructuring of Races into Mythology, and to get rid of the one-time races or civilisations (as they are/will be summarized in the respective episode summaries). I'll be considerate of article length for anything I do. – sgeureka t•c 18:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Personally I like this suggestion and I don't think it'd be that long an article. The way it seems to me, it would only warrant the major races being mentioned (you can forget Kull Warriors - they're an arc in Season 7, and not much else. Plot synopses cover them). This would be a great place to mention the System Lords and Egypt, the Asgard and Norse, the Ancients and Romans, the Furlings and Mayans, the Wraith and Vampires, etc., etc. That's about it though? --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Moved and merged Ascension (Stargate) there (to be trimmed). A lot of copyediting is necessary to refocus the article. I am busy with other (SG) articles ATM but will get around to this article eventually. Feel free to propose any mergers into that article. – sgeureka t•c 12:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:Stargate spacecraft

I think this category should be considered for deletion, as there's only three articles on them now since those merges with all various spaceships into a couple of pages. I could do it, but I was just wondering if anybody has any thoughts or objections to it first. Thanks -- Matthew R Dunn (talk) 11:41, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree, so I boldly upmerged this category to Category:Stargate technology. The empty category can be deleted in four days via {{db-catempty}} without much bureaucracy. – sgeureka t•c 12:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Observations for character articles

After the months-long efforts to merge nonnotable articles (quantity problem), I have been working on improving the coverage of SG-1 characters for a few months now to solve the quality problem (I always have GA/FA/FL/FT in mind as the ultimative article goal). I have come to the following conclusions:

  • Characters who appeared only once are nearly always insignificant for understanding the show and don't need to be covered in Lists of Characters at all. If need be, they can be mentioned in the List of Episodes. The only exception I can think of is Reese, but she was also mentioned repeatedly after her one-time appearance, and has a deserved place in Replicator#Background.
  • Characters who appeared twice still don't need to be covered in LoCs and should be cross-linked in the LoEs instead. This also applies to memorable 2ep characters like Linea and Felger - unless someone can add a few lines of real-world info.
  • Characters who appeared at least three times generally have an impact on the show (although some named background characters like General Vidrine or Julia Donovan screw with this observation)
  • Character arcs can usually be summarized in one paragraph for 3ep+ characters, in 2-3 paragraphs for really major recurring characters, and no more than 4-5 paragraphs for main characters. Original research is a common source for bloated character descriptions, and only in the fewest cases is it important to note that someone is allergic to citrus fruit or is an avid birder.
  • Unlike the SG-1 team members, Hammond and Landry have neither a real character arc nor tons of real-world info about them, so they may not need an article
  • With the above in mind, all SG-1 characters can be covered in the following three lists unless someone improves them into a WP:SPINOUT:

If everyone is fine with it, I'd go ahead and rework the three SG-1 character lists to what I said above (someone have better names?). These observations may also give some insight/direction what to do with the SGA characters, and where to go with the race articles (the new Mythology of Stargate article opens a whole set of new options). – sgeureka t•c 21:56, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

What a wacked out project that soon won't have a character article for Hammond yet two of the one season characters have articles (and to forestall any questions I like those characters and actors ) .Garda40 (talk) 14:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
And how wacked out a project must be if it tries to improve all its articles to GA and beyond, meeting all wikipedia policies and guidelines in the process. Those quality-obsessed wikipedians, *tsk*... – sgeureka t•c 15:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
How Interesting .You didn't actually answer the question .Garda40 (talk) 15:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
What was the question? Who are the one-season characters you're referring to? – sgeureka t•c 15:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
You can merge in etc and yet you apparently don't know Who are the one-season characters you're referring to .Odd ? Garda40 (talk) 15:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
No, really, who are the one-season characters in SG-1? O'Neill=10, Carter=10, Daniel=10, Teal'c=10, Hammond=10, Jonas=3, Mitchell=2, Landry=2, Vala=3. All other SG-1 characters are already covered in lists. – sgeureka t•c 15:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Did not find any characters that were only in one season that were linked to their own article, so I have no idea what characters are being referred to.--88wolfmaster (talk) 04:10, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Wow .People are being literal with their season count .Jonas is really a one season character ,his own article makes that clear (for reasons related to Michael Shanks ) .Technically he did appear at the end of season 5 and start of season 7 plus one other episode but to count him as a 3 season character is like counting Ra as part of the TV series. Technically true but giving a misleading impression . Garda40 (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'd be reluctant to consider Chevron Guy as a zero-season character after his appearing in 100+ episodes. In the end, an article fictional topic must be supported by real-world info and sourced analysis, and it seems Hammond is going to be weak on that no matter what we do (or someone has a couple of interviews or books that I am not privy to, but we'll see). – sgeureka t•c 17:10, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Stargate

What are we going to do with Portal:Stargate? It is only transcluded ("mentioned") in three articles (although it is linked from every {{stargateproject}} banner}}, it's terribly outdated (it reports the beginning of SGA Season 4 as news), it is built from a mess of transluded subpages, and it covers nearly the same ground as Stargate. I only ever come across it when I am doing category/template/incoming_link cleanup. It's got some references that can be used in other articles, but I don't feel we should leave it around for further rotting (WP:MFD?). – sgeureka t•c 14:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, we have a Portal? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 15:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Templates for deletion

I have done some more cleanup in the Stargate maintainance space and have nominated several unused templates for deletion, see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 November 25. I'll TfD a few more unused SG templates later this day. – sgeureka t•c 15:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

List of Stargate Atlantis episodes

Opinions would be welcome here. Matthew (talk) 19:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of Stargate works

An article that you have been involved in editing, List of Stargate works, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Stargate works. Thank you. – sgeureka t•c 19:32, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Stargate

Portal:Stargate, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Stargate and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Stargate during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. – sgeureka t•c 15:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Spoilers

While I haven't made regular contributions to the project as a whole, I have made the odd contribution at an article level. I would like to raise the subject of 'spoilers'. Granted a spoiler is generally the provenance of fan pages rather than Wikipedia, it constantly distresses me that the outcome of story arcs, and this case, aspects of the final episode of SGA Earth_starships_in_Stargate#Named_ships.

I would be most pleased if there could be some discussion as to how this can be managed. I would like to suggest some kind of markup for plot-description that has recently aired, such as bold-facing or italicising. A cap, tilda could be used in the heading of the relevant section.

I may be a lone voice on that matter, and if that is the case I'll accept the rule of the majority and try and manage my viewing habits. (EgI do not presently look at any articles pertaining to SGA as it is not aired in Australia presently)

Anyways, best for the festive season to all. Paul Roberton (talk) 23:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

This has been a sticky point for Wikipedia as a whole. Like you, I'm just being really careful about what I browse and look at for fear of unwanted spoilers. Take a look at WP:SPOILERS for the generally accepted site-wide consensus on spoilers. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 00:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Paul Roberton (talk) 10:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I've forgotten how to execute reverts on articles, can someone please revert Earth_starships_in_Stargate#Named_ships please? I'd like to reiterate my suggestion to lock the article. Thanks.

Paul Roberton (talk) 15:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Semiprotected by User:Huntster on January 2.[3] Episode airs on January 9, 2009, so protection should be lifted then. – sgeureka t•c 12:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Revise Importance classes

Edit: If no-one knows what I am talking about - see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Stargate articles by quality. – sgeureka t•c 13:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

After the mergers resulted in less and less Low-importance articles, I think it's time to reconsider the importance scale that won't have to be revised any time soon and won't use its usefulness. My suggestions below are split it into two because history has shown where the reader interests lie (i.e. plot), but I don't want to be unfair to the other camp either because we're a real-world encyclopedia. I feel Top and High marks should be reserved for very special articles that will stick around even if everything else gets removed as fancruft.

Plot-related articles:

Real people:

  • Medium: all main actors, producers, main directors and main writers
  • Low: all multi-season non-main actors whose characters may be able to support their own article in the Good Article sense, e.g. David Nykl (Zelenka), Cliff Simon (Ba'al), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), ...
  • Debatable: all non-main actors whose character can definately never support their own article - either remove them from the scope of this project, or rank them as None; all SG-relevant info is/should be included in the character lists
  • Debatable: all other people involved with production or reception with only passing significance, e.g. Pierre Bernard (comedian), Stuart Tyson Smith - either remove them from the scope of this project, or rank them as None; all SG-relevant info is/should be included in the articles for the film/episode/game they worked for

Please leave comments if there is something to agree or disagree with, or if you have an idea for the Debatable stuff, in particular the debatable people articles. I'll implement the Importance changes no earlier than in seven days. – sgeureka t•c 12:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done – sgeureka t•c 08:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It has never been decided what external links this wikiproject actually supports for its articles, and I think it's time to make it a little more consistant across the articles we have now. I have seen around:

  • IMDb - has got cast lists, otherwise regarded unreliable
  • SciFi - official but generally low on additional information
  • MGM - official but generally low on additional information
  • Stargate wikia - non-reliable GFDL fanwiki but great for plotty in-universe descriptions, much WP information has been transwikied there
  • SG Solutions wiki - non-reliable fan wiki but great for plotty in-universe descriptions, no association with wikipedia or the GFDL
  • GateWorld - good and somewhat wiki-reliable fansite, usually has no content that a finished article hasn't got either
  • GateWorld omnipedia - non-reliable fan encyclopedia that can usually be replaced by citing primary sources (e.g. episode titles)
  • Screenplays distributed by MGM

Personally, I am very much opposed to the linking to SG Solutions and GateWorld omnipedia at any time. I see the linking to GateWorld pointless in finished subarticles but as a benefit in unfinished articles. I am neutral on the official sites and the official screenplays in subarticles - at least they don't hurt. I see a collaboration with Stargate wikia beneficial if and only if a wikipedia article just cannot delve into the same plot detail as they do (which is usually true for character articles or character/episode lists, but not episode articles). IMDb should be and usually is already the standard for episode articles. Comments? – sgeureka t•c 12:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I have seen some of the articles on the SG Wikia... I think its pretty good stuff. I'd like to suggest that SG Wikia be considered under something like "Further reading" if it complements work here, as it is well organised and generally very exhaustive- the SG in-universe timeline on that site is extremely good. Re IMDb, I think actors own official websites, management websites or actors guild websites(when they can be found) are more credible. Paul Roberton (talk) 13:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

All episode articles and character articles  Done. All other articles like season articles, episode lists, character lists etc. will have to wait for later until someone takes one to WP:FLC ang figures out what works best). – sgeureka t•c 08:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up about Athosian

I'll just let you know that I boldly merged Athosian into Teyla Emmagan and its character list section into List of Stargate Atlantis characters#Recurring Athosian characters. Yes, the Athosians appeared or were mentioned in many episodes, and the article was comparibly long[4] - except that the article had no real-world content to justify such a length. It also seems to me that the Athosians didn't really have an impact on the story of Atlantis except for Teyla, who in turn had no real story arc except everything related to the Athosians. A merger therefore reduces/reduced a lot of redundancy, and Teyla can probably establish notability much more easily and from a better real-world perspective overall. I have previously merged the Langarans into the article of Jonas Quinn for the same reason. If someone believes this merger requires more discussion, feel free to restore the article. – sgeureka t•c 00:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

List of filming locations in and around Vancouver?

Should this get your project template? I'll list myself as a "sympathizer", partly because I'm fairly useful in identifying sets/locations; see the list's talkpage article also for a discussion of further BC-related locations article issues.Skookum1 (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

  • {{stargateproject}} talkpage template: I'd say yes, as the article has a lot of information that's directly relevant for Stargate fans and non-fans, so it should fall under the scope of this project. But as Stargate is only part of the list, I'd mark it as {{Stargateproject|class=List|importance=low}}.
  • {{stargate}} article naviation template: No, because if every show did that, the lower part of the article would get extremely messy.
– sgeureka t•c 18:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Goa'uld

The Goa'uld page needs some work. Info on how the Goa'uld effects (i.e. flanging are done), and how Ra wasn't going to be an alien until very late in filming ought to be added. Also, we should add more info about the culture and inflence on their worshippers. This should be about their culture, biology, and "behind-the-scences" info, not how many episodes Yu appeared in. --[[User:Tutthoth-Ankhre|Tutthoth-Ankhre~ The Pharaoh of the Universe]] (talk) 22:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not the how, but the that. Goa'uld certainly has GA potential, maybe even FA potential, but (at least for me) it's not the lack of knowledge how to properly rewrite and expand the article, but simply time. As is with many of the current Stargate articles, unfortunately. – sgeureka t•c 11:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll be working on improving it.--[[User:Tutthoth-Ankhre|Tutthoth-Ankhre~ The Pharaoh of the Universe]] (talk) 17:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Stargate Media Dates

Template:Stargate Media Dates has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. – sgeureka t•c 12:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Gate address templates

What is people's opinion about {{SGGlyph}}, {{Pegasus Gate Address}}, and {{Milky Way Gate Address}}? While I can see a reasonable usefulness for naming planets and planet designations (e.g. P4X-639) in plot summaries, it seems to me that the Gate addresses themselves are unnecessarily fancrufty (i.e. aren't of interest to the general reader), are hard to check, and serve no purpose for either plot summaries or real-world information. I'd WP:TFD them if there is consensus to do so. – sgeureka t•c 22:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Used in article {{SGGlyph}} {{Milky Way Gate Address}} {{Pegasus Gate Address}}
Stargate (device) Green tickY Green tickY
Atlantis (Stargate) Green tickY Green tickY Green tickY
List of Stargate SG-1 episodes Green tickY Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 1) Green tickY Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 2) Green tickY Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 3) Green tickY Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 4) Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 5) Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 7) Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 8) Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 9) Green tickY
Stargate SG-1 (season 10) Green tickY
Earth in fiction Green tickY
Jaffa (Stargate) Green tickY
Goa'uld Green tickY
Stargate Program Green tickY
Kheb Green tickY
They serve little or not purpose. Do they do any harm, though? I notice the images are tagged as being ineligible for copyright - is that true? Just because they are very simple doesn't mean they aren't creative. If they are actually being used under fair use, then they should be removed, per our non-free content policy, since they are little more than decoration. --Tango (talk) 23:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I'd say the icons don't pass the Threshold of originality, which would put them in the public domain similar to what happens with logos (see also Wikipedia:Public_domain#Fonts). I don't think the icons subcumb to trademark laws, unlike logos. – sgeureka t•c 14:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Whoops, missed this one. I'd rather keep them in concurrence with User:Tango. Additionally, the information is valid and cited (afaikt) and should be retained in accord with WP:PRESERVE. My 3¢. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 15:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_March_10#Template:Milky_Way_Gate_Address. – sgeureka t•c 15:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger for Jaffa articles

I believe my next major Stargate article for improvement is going to be Teal'c, which I think can be improved to WP:Good article status without problems. I have already collected a fair amount of secondary sources. However, I now wonder how the related articles Jaffa (Stargate) and Jaffa characters in Stargate would have to look to become GA-quality articles, and if they need to be stand-alone articles in the first place. An alternative would be to try to merge them somewhere appropriate without loss of relevant information, quality and navigability, if that's possible.

During the past months, I merged all relevant Athosian information into Teyla Emmagan, Satedan information into Ronon Dex, and Kelowna/Langara-related information into Jonas Quinn, because those minor races were almost exclusively defined by the respective main characters. Now I wonder in how far it's the same with the Jaffa and Teal'c.

I have not made any definite plans. Maybe I'll feel later that it's better to keep Teal'c and the Jaffa in separate articles. But I'd like to get some input in regard to merger attempts before I get death threats for "deleting" the article(s) of someone's favorite race. – sgeureka t•c 14:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Why can't all this information stay in the Jaffa article? --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 21:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I hadn't seen your question before. I proposed the merger because I want to reduce what non-Stargate fans would call "in-universe WP:FANCRUFT" (a very wide-spread problem on wikipedia), because I want to reduce redundance (nothing that other articles can't cover as well), and because all of this helps with the creation of Good and Featured Topics down the road (if SG's wiki coverage ever gets there). Anyway, I have merged all relevant information to Mythology of Stargate#Jaffa, Teal'c and List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1#Jaffa and am going to redirect the Jaffa articles now. If there is opposition, feel free to revert and I'll drop the merger proposal for the time being (too busy with other wiki stuff). – sgeureka t•c 18:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Why can't you create an article under the List of alien races in Stargate for example and move the information their with other unotable and "in-universe" articles here in wikipedia which are related to Stargate? --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 23:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I had merged all minor races into an article called Races in Stargate once, but it appeared that that article was mostly congruent with a potential new Mythology article, so the article was moved to Mythology of Stargate and has evolved from there. Wikipedia's fiction coverage should be written from a real-world perspective with lots of information that is not just plot retelling, and judging from my experience with writing the Good Article Mythology of Carnivàle, Mythology articles can achieve that much easier than lists of fictional races. Add to that that a sizeable group of wikipedia advocates the deletion of all fiction lists that aren't character lists or episode lists, and it becomes easy to understand where I am coming from. – sgeureka t•c 00:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:43, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Free Stargate images

I reviewed Free images on Flickr today and have added a bunch of Free images of the cast and crew, as well as fanmade and real Stargate props, to Wikimedia Commons. (If the following Flickr images check out Free as their license claims, I'll upload them to Commons as well: Jaffa Jaffa + Gate, Jaffa, Jaffa + Gate, Gate). The images can be found at Commons:Category:Stargate including its subcategories. I'll add good images to wikipedia articles in the next few days, but if someone else wants to have a shot now, feel free to do so. – sgeureka t•c 21:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If you've not already uploaded to Commons, there is a tool called Flickr-to-Commons that automates the process. I don't mind uploading if you would like. I see nothing to indicate the licenses aren't valid. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Several of these need to be cropped and enhanced before uploading to Commons. I'll do so sometime in the next few days, unless somebody else does so beforehand. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 04:56, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that's no problem. It's a good idea to upload the original first to preserve continuity, then crop and upload over the original. I just wanted to check with Sgeureka to make sure there weren't any outstanding issues. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 07:13, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The automated tool didn't have the results I expected the last time around, so I stick to Flinfo. I also realized the crop potential after the upload, and have started some cropping on a need-to-need basis. I felt that the licenses may be a problem since the design of e.g. the Stargate is likely copyrighted (problems of derivation). I have asked an experienced Star Wars and Star Trek editor why e.g. the articles of his franchises don't have free images of fan designs or from conventions - maybe the fan editors are purists, or there really is a licensing issue... *shrugs* – sgeureka t•c 18:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I know SG-1 was not particularly popular with critics and audiences in North America (at least not to the extent as it was in Europe), which is too bad because most good entertainment comes from North America so that they only rarely referenced SG-1 in their independent fictional works. In fact, the only notable instances I know were in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore" in The Simpons, and the whole SG plot in "Imaginationland" from Southpark (although that was more a spoof on the feature film than SG-1). Then 99942 Apophis was named after the arch villain. Can someone name a few other more or less notable instances so that I can flesh out Stargate SG-1#Legacy a little more? – sgeureka t•c 12:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I know one instance in an episode of "Bones (TV series)" (don't know which yet, but it was definitaly in its first season), where I hear Hodgins mention Stargate (along with Wars, Trek and Battlestar) to Zach Addy, who had little knowledge of sci-fis, though this could be of the franchise rather than just SG-1. -- Matthew R Dunn (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Found it via googling ("Bones: The Superhero in the Alley (#1.12)"), although I don't get the joke. I also found a new thread at gateworld titled Stargate References on other Shows, which I'll read now and keep watchlisted for a few weeks. Thanks, it's at least a starting point. – sgeureka t•c 15:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't remember what episode, but Goa'uld was mentioned in one Seinfeld episode. --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 09:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Re-organization of the main char. list

I've started a re-organization of the List of Stargate SG-1 characters, if someone feels my edits needs to be discussed, please do so. --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The old layout. Discussion has taken place at User talk:Trust Is All You Need#List of Stargate SG-1 characters‎ and User_talk:Sgeureka#SG list. The gist of it was that I disagree with using tables instead of sections for the main characters because the three paragraphs of Landy (who cannot support his own article) just look ugly/disorganized and I'd rather go for something like Characters of Smallville or Characters of Carnivàle for that. Where I feel even more strongly is that in my opinion, the sublists List of recurring Earth characters in Stargate SG-1 and List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1 should hold the longer character descriptions to keep the page size of List of Stargate SG-1 characters comparibly low and the organization clear. Also, I think that TIAYN's tables violate the KISS principle (rainbow colors, unnecessary spaces). I admit ownership issues here, but then again I have been working on an SG-1 character Good Topic for a while and do not believe that TIAYN's edits are helpful with achieving that goal, especially since it was undiscussed. – sgeureka t•c 21:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I have no problem, and quite encourage, these changes to be reverted. The new layout is painful to look at, quite frankly. To be brief, if data in any article can possibly be put into prose (paragraph) format rather than tabular format, it should be done. The new style will only hurt efforts toward bringing this to Good Topic quality. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
It was my intention to await consensus here before reverting, but it seems TIAYN's version removed whole character sections (most notably the Goa'uld, mabe more) so that I can't even easily find the most basic information. When new changes make an article or list that much less navigatable or harder to read, then it can't be argued that the changes were benefiting (even if they were made in good faith, or they spawn some new good ideas for future revisions). Also because of Huntster's input above, I have therefore reverted to the March 31 version. – sgeureka t•c 12:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
They are not their for a good reason, they have their own lists such as Goa'uld characters in Stargate, whats the point with five lists with the same information?c --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 14:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
A good reason would be that List of Stargate SG-1 characters is the mainlist that should be able to stand alone without its sublists, and removing the Goa'uld, who are probably the most important group of characters besides the main characters, defeats that purpose. It may not be your intention and you may also lack the wiki experience to realize this, but you are showing a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality that doesn't help you furthering your position. I have politely expressed my disagreement with your edits, Huntster has expressed his concerns above, and User:Matthew R Dunn has also reverted you contributions once and requested for you to seek consensus for the changes.[5] This content dispute seems to advance to an editwar rather quickly, which might have consequences for you (e.g. getting blocked) since you seem to be the only party supporting your changes. I'd rather not let it come to that and hope that you disengage and seek or await consensus before restoring your version. – sgeureka t•c 14:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Stargate 1994 film

I've been working on the Stargate film from 1994 and was wondering if i could get some help from you guys. I'm having problems finding information about the making of the film. I would also appreciate if one or more of you could help me with the grammar. Are any of you intrested in helping me? --Trust Is All You Need (talk) 23:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll give the article a thorough look. The DVD audio commentary has some good production info, but it will take some time until I feel like listening to it and expanding the article with it. – sgeureka t•c 11:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
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