Help:People pages

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This help page provides instructions and suggestions for how to create, organize and develop articles about people.

Fanlore includes articles about real people who are of interest to fandom. People pages frequently focus on an author, an actor, an academic, or a fan.

People pages are different from user pages. Anyone who creates an account on the Fanlore wiki can also create a user page for themselves, but some wiki contributors may also have a people page written about them.

For instructions on creating your user page, see the tutorial.

Whom can I add?

The People category includes several subcategories, of which Academia, Commentators, Fans, and Industry represent the main types of individuals you might create a people page for: television producers, actors, musicians and bandmembers, professional authors, academics who study fandom, journalists and other commentators who write about fandom, and the fans themselves. These individuals could have a positive, ambivalent, or antagonistic relationship with fandom, but they should each have a significant connection to fandom, such as in their interactions with fans or as subjects of fandom themselves - refer to How should people who are also RPF characters be handled? below.

You can even add yourself (but remember that other wiki contributors will edit you).

A useful guideline to follow when deciding whether to add a page for a person to the wiki is to see if any existing articles mention the person or if there are any red links to the person. However, this guideline may not be as useful for fandoms that don't yet have much of a presence on Fanlore. See also this discussion.

Before starting a fan page, be sure to check out Fanlore's Identity Protection policy.

How do I name the page?

In general, the name of the page should be the full name of the person. However, for fans, the name of the page should be the person's fan name, which may or may not be a pseudonym.

Please be mindful of Fanlore's identity protection policy when including any other names you may know the fan by. Unless they have publicly linked them and/or gone on record to state that they are happy to have them linked, you should assume that a link is unwanted. If in doubt, always inquire (or simply don't include the information).

See also

Disambiguating fans

Because every page on the wiki needs a unique title, fans with common names may need to be disambiguated in one of the following ways:

Which templates and categories should I use?

For a person who is not a fan, use the person template. The template will automatically add the People category to your page.

For a fan, use the fan template. The template will automatically add the Fan category to your page.

For a person who is a fan, but also has other roles of interest to fandom (e.g. author or academic), choose the template that reflects the majority of the content on the page. For example, if the page focuses on an acafan's academic writing, use the Person template.

Depending on the person's affiliation, you may need to add an additional category:

Occasionally, you may have to add the Deceased category to a fan page.

Fannish collectives have their own template.

See also Help:Template Guidelines and Help:Categorising Guidelines.

Which categories should I NOT use?

Fanlore generally discourages adding specific-fandom categories to Fan pages, see Help:Fandom Categories#Which pages should NOT be added to a fandom category? for more info.

People pages generally do not get added to date categories.

How do I sort by last name?

Articles about people whose first and last names are given should appear in the category list in alphabetical order by last name. Copy {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Name, First Name}} and paste it into the edit box, replacing Last Name, First Name with the actual last and first name given in the page title. If the person's name (and consequently the page title) is already in the format Family Name Given Name, there is no need to add DEFAULTSORT.

Articles in the fan category should not be sorted by last name because so many fan names are pseudonyms, and it can be difficult to figure out what is and is not intended to be a surname or family name.

What content should I add?

Depends on the person. As a rule of thumb, the focus should be on their connection to fandom and not on a general biography (except for biographical details that are relevant to fandom). If the person is notable, they will have a biography on Wikipedia you can link to instead.

to actor pages?

Fanlore's central goal is to document fanworks fandoms, so pages about actors are likely to focus on fanworks created about them (as distinct from fanworks created about characters they played). You can certainly create pages about actors who do not appear in fanworks, but there would need to be some sort of fan activity associated with them or relationship to fandom. For example, Orlando Jones's page is mainly about him being knowledgeable about fandom and talking to fans on social media. Some actors play several characters that have a fandom and sometimes the actor's role in the first fandom is the reason the second fandom took off in the first place (see Cabin Pressure, 6 Degrees of Canada). With some actors it's interesting to see what impact they have/had on fandom and what impact fandom had on them. For example, con appearances (see DeForest Kelley) and how they deal with questions, what experiences they have made with fans, their opinion on fanfic, etc.

A simple list of roles an actor played is not sufficient for an actor page, though it can be included.

to musician, athlete, other celebrity pages?

  • their presence in RPF fandoms
  • fanon characterization in RPF fanworks
  • who they are shipped with in fanworks
  • their opinions on fanworks/fandom, if any

to author, showrunner, other creator pages?

  • their opinions on fandom/fanworks, if any
  • interactions with fans at cons, etc.
  • if there is a fandom for the person's body of work as a whole (see Jane Austen), this would be a fandom page

to academics and other commentator pages?

  • bibliography of works that comment on fandom, with links if they're available online, or just the ones most well known
  • their view of fandom
  • fandom's view(s) of their view

to fan pages?

  • which fandoms they were active in and when
  • what fanworks they are known for
  • recurring styles, themes, or techniques in their fanworks
  • if they had a frequent co-writer/vidder/collaborator
  • what communities/forums they were active in or moderated
  • if they ran conventions, challenges, archives, etc.
  • if they've won prizes
  • if they were the subject of or participated in major wank (use your best judgment)
  • anything else relevant to their fannish history

Our People page template contains a sample outline of a People page with suggested sections to help you get started; for fan pages, we also have a Fan page template.

How should people who are also RPF characters be handled?

Any person about whom real-person fiction (RPF) exists may have their own People page. This page may include information about how the person is treated in RPF in addition to real-life information about them and their interactions with fans, if applicable. Refer to Help:Character pages and Help:RPF pages for more on how to handle RPF characters.

Examples

Fan examples

For any other questions, you can use the Talk page or contact the Fanlore Committee.

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