Category talk:Fandoms by Source Text

(sub)pages uncategorized

Are character (sub)pages supposed to be left un-categorized?--Arduinna 21:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it makes any sense for character pages to not have a category - I propose a subcategory just for characters. --Sherrold 22:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Subcategories?

I see mostly fandom names listed in the "by Source Text" category tree, but it is okay to classify fan communities also? I mean, e.g. if there is a comic fanfic exchange and a page for that, it's right to put it into the category "comics" even though it is not a comic book title, yes?--RatCreature 13:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I have the same question, I think - the "by Source Text" category lists only fandom/canon names, but if you go to the subcategories of, say, "anime," there's a few fan communities/sites listed as well (communities or archives for anime in general, rather than a specific series). Is this incorrect, should only fandoms themselves get categorized as "anime"? Or is there some way to label a specific subcategory on a wiki page, so it won't show up under the "by source text" listing? --Xparrot 09:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the official word from the wiki committee is, but I have been trying to prune out any pages that aren't actually fandom names from the by source text category. I figure it's already hugely crowded, so having other subpages and fanworks and all that be in there as well is just going to make it too cluttered to be useful. Better to just stick to pages about individual fandoms. --Kyuuketsukirui 14:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if there is a way to sort subcategories, or something (I don't know much about how wikis work, so...) Because I agree, it's definitely more useful if one can look at the "anime" category page and only see the source texts; but it might also be useful to be able to look at all general anime-related communities at once. Is there any way to do some kind of combined sub-category, say, anime+fan community, or anime+fandom by source text? That would be ideal... --Xparrot 18:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Linked television, movies, etc.

Is there any way to add a field to the template for shows in shared universe? Homicide and Law and Order, for example; X-Files, Millennium, and The Lone Gunmen; BtVS and Angel; an added field to indicate the show is part of a particular family of shows would be useful. I know we did it differently with the Stargate shows, but in the less-obvious (ie, no shared name), the template could benefit from having the line drawn directly. This would be immensely useful to fans of a show who didn't know about antecedents or were only casually aware to have the reminder. I'd also like a field for shows that are remakes or reimaginings as well--Life on Mars, Queer as Folk, Battlestar Galactica, movie remakes, or any show/movie with more than one version out there. It could also be useful to link to media type change--book to movie, movie to book, comic to book to movie if applicable, since at least some shows have a fandom that's totally based aroudn the media type, not necessarily the concept. --Seperis 19:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Category name

I'm wondering about the name of the category, and thinking that Fandoms by Source would be that bit shorter without (to me) losing meaning. -- Kdcat 03:51, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see that, too; "Source Text" sounds like it's for books, to me, and I have to sort of remind myself that no, here it's also supposed to include things that are visual or audible, or who are people. --Arduinna 15:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Could there be a television subcategory be created? I mean, unless I overlooked it there are subcategories for other media (books, comics, film, anime, cartoons...) but not for tv, which is kind of odd.--Ratcreature 12:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Television is listed under fandoms by source in Communities. --rache 14:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't get it. Why is it there when all the other media are here? actually I now looked at http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanlore:Sitemap and there television is listed beneath the Fandoms by Source Text also, just not on this page. And looking at http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Fandoms_by_Source_Community I don't see television there either. I think I just fail at understanding the sitemap.--Ratcreature 14:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah! I think I get it. If you're looking at the category listing itself, you need to click the 'next 200' to get to the page that lists television on it. It's not a in the first 200 entries. --rache 14:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Right. It splits the 10 subcategories in the same place as the rest. I didn't think I had to "click next 200" for ten things, and moreover it says there are only nine subcategories, which are shown on the first page and then it says one on the next page. You can really only get to television by accident or if you expect it to be shown. That navigation isn't very userfriendly, but I guess once you know how its quirks work one can work around this.--Ratcreature 17:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

missing subcategories

There is no category for plays, musicals and other stage productions. I'm making a page for Phantom of the Opera, and okay that was a French novel, and some famous silent film and so on too, but I strongly suspect that the fandom may have in particular been inspired by the 1986 Webber musical, seeing as the fanzines I've seen are late 1980s. Also I'm sure some musicals may have fandoms in any case.--Ratcreature 20:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to bring up the missing categories again. Plays and stage productions are still missing, and just now I noticed that Radio is not an option either, when I entered a fandom that was on tv and on radio.--Ratcreature 14:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

all subcats listed on the first page

Oh, that's awesome! Thanks, Christy! \o/ --arduinna 16:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

"Duplicate categories" for subfandoms?

This category has been removed from a number of pages recently "per duplicate category guidelines". I think this means pages that are in a fandom category with Fandoms by Source Text as a parent category. But I would consider many of these categories "subfandoms" and/or mostly their own fandoms (to varying degrees). For example, spin-offs (Major Crimes (TV), Frasier) have fandoms outside the original work, Hawkeye (MCU TV series) is a subfandom of the overall MCU, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is a subfandom of Harry Potter, etc. I would think these types of pages should get the Fandoms by Source Text category, or if they're not distinct (sub)fandoms, these pages should use Template:ProfessionalWorks instead of the Fandom infobox. And I definitely don't think overarching fandom categories like Category:6 Degrees of Canada and Category:Age of Sail should preclude individual fandoms from getting Fandoms by Source Text. But I'd like to get other thoughts on this before reverting a bunch of these edits. --sparc 00:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I think I succeeded in muddying the waters when I added The category can be removed from pages once more specific fandom categories are added. to the category page. I was attempting to spell out why this category is sometimes removed from pages (when they get their own subfandom) because there was some confusion about that, but the prior sentence "Fandoms that do not have a fandom category appear in this category." sums up the conditions under which pages appear in this category: when the fandom itself doesn't have a subcategory. So I'm going to take that out and I think we would be fine to restore Fandoms by Source Text on those pages - Hawkeye probably needs a subcategory anyway, since all of the other MCU franchises seem to have them. --enchantedsleeper (talk) 01:08, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistent application of grammatical articles and acronyms

On my time on Fanlore, I've noticed that fandom categories have grammatical articles (a, an, the, etc.) and acronyms applied inconsistently. Some categories have grammatical articles present in the title of the source material, and some do not. For example, the categories Category:The Fast and the Furious and Category:The Good Place have the 'the' article applied, while Category:X-Files and Category:Walking Dead do not have the article. This may be splitting hairs, but I think that if a grammatical article is present in the source material's title, it should be reflected in the name of categories. A consistent application of grammatical articles will make sorting and adjusting sorting easier, as well as easier to search for categories in wiki tools such as HotCat and AutoWikiBrowser.

A similar practice is present with many Star Trek and Star Wars categories, among other categories, with the names of specific movies and series often using acronyms in category names and page disambiguations. I believe that this practice is an issue as it assumes that Fanlore readers and editors are familiar enough with those canons to recognize the acronyms. While the vast majority of Fanlore's readers and editors are fans, they may not be fans of that specific source material, and thus, the acronyms may be opaque or confusing. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 15:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely agreed on standardizing inclusion/exclusion of leading articles, I *always* seem to get that wrong on the first try and it's pretty annoying. I would default to including them (The X-files) but I could be persuaded otherwise. And I'm happy to help go through the parent category standardizing names, I already do that for the Character category regularly.

For acronyms: I definitely agree that we shouldn't assume readers are familiar with acronyms, but I the other hand long category names can get unwieldy with search and manual entry. How about a compromise: acronym in the category name, but make sure you spell it out first thing on the page so it shows up in the pop-up preview when you mouse over the link. -- Quaelegit (talk) 15:08, 30 July 2023 (UTC)