Help talk:Relationship Pages/Template

This looks like a duplicate of Help:Pairing pages/Template. I like some of the suggested headers on the other template better, though it's more outdated and the "Fan Commentary" section here is a good addition.

I am also concerned because I think the "canon" section on this template is encouraging new editors to add too much canon information - really detailed enumerations of the characters' every interaction in canon and their parts of the overall canon plot. While there may be cases where this is necessary context to explain a particular fannish event, in most cases I've seen this level of detail added it was not necessary. Fanlore ship pages aren't ship manifestos or ship primers; they are supposed to document the fanworks and fanactivity of the shippers. I think if a canon section is needed at all, it should be written *last*, after fans get into the weeds of tropes and fandom history and realize which pieces of canon information exactly are needed to explain the context. Personally, instead of a whole canon section, I like adding a "Ship appeal" section since it would involve explaining how the canon dynamic led to fans shipping them, but the "ship appeal" framing doesn't encourage people to write plot summaries the way a "canon" section does.--aethel (talk) 21:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I see what you mean. [also if anyone wants to compare the two, i recommend using a diffchecker tool or similar to point out differences because the two page templates are mostly the same]. Overall I think this relationships template has more helpful detail, and is more generalized -- the Parings one feels rooted livejournal specific media fandom. I personally do like "canon" and "fandom" better than "history" as the first sections, it feels clearer to me, but i have seen those canon-minutiae heavy pages you talk about, and I think the approach you outline here is one that we want to teach new editors!! Maybe we can put something in the skeleton, like:

==Canon==
[place for providing canon context for fannish activity. Fanlore is not the best place for cataloguing canon details, this section should have enough info to help readers understand fandom discussion and no more. Maybe write the other sections first and come back to this one at the end.]

Wording could definitely use some work, but getting the idea out there? -- Quaelegit (talk) 04:02, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I think what this information lacks is the term "brief" or "short", something like a "brief overview of their relationship and dynamic in canon" or something like that -- Kingstoken (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2024 (UTC)