Talk:McKay/Sheppard

Canonical?

I think putting "canonical" in the info box is a terrible idea (varying POVs on the canonicity of a pairing are better addressed in the body of an article, I'd think), but if it's being done, it should be done consistently across pairings, rather than editors' hesitating to do so in cases where the pairing is very popular in fandom but lacks the official imprimatur of the show's creators. That turns "canonical" into a popularity contest, with no room in the info box for debate --Sarah T.

Good point. I don't know if can be changed while it's in use because I have no idea would happen to the text in info boxes where people filled out the field. :/ I usually put 'almost' or 'with so much fanon it's hard to say. What was the question?' in there. --Doro 22:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't actually think it has anything to do with popularity, but with the history of the template. The pairing template was created in October 2008, and I think it was the first version that was first put on this page and filled out. As you can see prior to your edit the last edit to this page was in October 2008. But if a template is changed (like the pairing one was in December 2008), new fields show up as empty, even if they weren't written in at the time the page was created.--RatCreature 22:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair point, but that was over a year ago, and no one's seemed to feel the need to fill it in in all that time? I'm not suggesting any kind of conspiracy here, but I do think there's a reason that people were willing to edit that in in other pairings and not in this one. saraht 22:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

There are not very many people editing this wiki. Most of the SGA people who edited a bit at first vanished. So nobody bothered to change anything, or cared about the McShep page. Also, afaik unfortunately if a template gets added fields after it was put on a page you see the fields displayed on the page, but not in the editable source code, because there is still the old text, so you can't see where to fill it in, but have to put in the new fields from the template and know that.--RatCreature 22:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

eta: actually it seems it seems only the Talk page was completely inactive so long (I looked at the wrong history, oops), and there was some activity on the other page after the template changed, including the new fields, so with that I have then no idea why it wasn't updated. Personally I just haven't looked at the page, or watched it, since I never edited it myself.--RatCreature 22:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Fannish Drift

Shouldn't the part about fannish drift be in the main SGA article? It isn't McShep-focused, after all. --Dora 16:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

All I know about is the fannish drift for the McKay/Sheppard slash fandom; I don't really know enough about the other sections of fandom to do those, which is why I stuck it here. It could go on it's own page, it could be on the main page--if other people are up for editing in other sections, I am fine. --rache 16:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the whole thing is just too meta for the wiki. Should I take it out entirely? --rache 17:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it seems like it could be an interesting article on its own, perhaps Historical Fannish Migration Patterns or something? --Betty 18:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No, no don't take it out! Hmmm, maybe the application of the wave theory - that would probably sit better in a piece of meta that could then be linked from the page. But I really like the documentation of the different fannish trajectories, and now that you've made the McShep focus more clear, it should definitely stay on the page. --Dora 18:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been out of SGA for a while, but isn't the pairing more often referred to as Sheppard/McKay? Or John/Rodney? Whatever the preferred term, we'll need some redirects....--Aethel 21:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

IME when it's first names it's almost always John/Rodney, but last names is almost always McKay/Sheppard (or McShep). I have put in several links to John/Rodney elsewhere, assuming that's what we'd be using, so yeah, definitely will need a redirect. (Probably one for McShep as well.) --Kyuuketsukirui 22:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting how these things shake out. I've added a redirect from John/Rodney.--Aethel 02:56, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Section Headers

Is it just me or does this page sound like an essay on pimping people into the pairing rather than a page about the fandom. Favorite pimping episodes? Not to miss vids? Fics to get you started? idk. --Kyuuketsukirui 06:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and change the headers. No great ideas came to me when I was working on this, I just figured we'd need an episode section, a vid section, and a fanworks section. I figured someone would come along later with a better idea for what to call them. --rache 13:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

How about Popular/Influential Fanworks? Maybe with comments on how the fanwork in question shaped other fans' views of the pairing (unless that would end up just repeating content from the Trends subpage). A list of episodes might not be very useful to people who are not already wearing McShep goggles without more explanation of how the interpretations of McShep fans differ from non-shippy interpretations, so something like Shippy Readings of Canon might work? With details like how shippers read Rodney's skepticism of Chaya in Sanctuary as romantic jealousy, etc. --Theoret 14:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Yup, yup, yup. All of those things need to go here. The way I figure it, if we start writing, someone will eventually come along and make it look good. But if there's nothing to work with, it seems too intimidating, so people pass along. Go, add things, and make it look like you want. And if you only have time to add a sentence or two, or maybe change a header, that's fine too. It's all revise and improve, and it doesn't need to be perfect or complete yet. --rache 15:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

SGA as old school fandom

I'm trying to think how to reword the line at the beginning about SGA being old school. Lack of ironic distance may be one reason, but I don't think it's *the* reason. I contrast SGA with my experience in HP and LotRiPS. Coming from those two into SGA felt like a blast to the past for reasons I can't entirely put my finger on, but have to do with more the subject matter and types of stories being written than the tone of the stories (I think HP and LotRiPS have plenty of stories that are not ironically distanced (the majority, probably). Another reason is the fact that RPS was so ~*~shocking~*~ in early SGA, despite having been normalised (not without controversy, obvs) within fandom as a whole. Even now the SGA RPS comm is locked. I don't know. At any rate, I think the sentence should be reworded to state that lack of ironic distance may be one reason, blah blah blah. But I'm not figuring out a way to do that and have it read well, so I just thought I'd put that out there for the moment (and to myself to come back to it later if no one else has). --Kyuuketsukirui 01:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Fanfiction

added McShep stories with fanlore pages of their own as of 15 May 2011

Why? o_O --Doro 12:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I realized that if I were a fan interested in the pairing and either newer to SGA fandom or not very familiar with fanlore or wikis, there was no easy way to actually see which McShep-focused fanworks fanlore editors had considered interesting enough to make a page for. Which seems kind of sad. We have a bunch of pages -- many with interesting context and commentary on their influence in the fandom, or what genre or trope they represent -- on McShep fanworks notable enough that someone (yes, sometimes me ;) made a page about them, but that as a visitor to the McKay/Sheppard page you would not have an easy way of getting to, to see what might be interesting about them. Unless a visitor were willing to manually sift through all the pages in the Stargate Atlantis category and its subcategories, and/or to sift through all the fanlore pages that link to the McKay/Sheppard page to try to figure it out -- which just did not seem very inviting to less-deeply-wiki-involved fans?

This may also come out of the background on how I came to fanlore, so very good question, you're inspiring me to try to frame some of my thoughts on it more clearly. :) --Sk 20:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I realized that if I were a fan interested in the pairing and either newer to SGA fandom or not very familiar with fanlore or wikis, there was no easy way to actually see which McShep-focused fanworks fanlore editors had considered interesting enough to make a page for.

You could link to Category:Stargate Atlantis Fanfiction (you can do that by coding it like this [[:Category:Stargate Atlantis Fanfiction]], the trick is the ":" before Category), which right now basically is just John/Rodney slash but someone not familiar with the fandom might not know that/not recognize the titles (maybe adding a scope note to the category page?). Hmm. If there were a lot of pages for fanfic about different pairings, we could make pairing-specific subcategories. We could also make a separate list page, for example List of Mckay/Sheppard-focused Fanlore Pages. I just thought it odd to add all the pages to the pairing page because there are fandoms with hundreds and even thousands of pages (I'm looking at you, Star Trek!), so adding everything to one page would never work... --Doro 21:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Excellent points -- I don't think just linking to the category link works though, because there are several (and will, I hope be more) non-McShep fanwork pages in that category, but creating a separate page for McKay/Sheppard-focused Fanworks with their own Fanlore Pages sounds like an (at this point, as there aren't hundreds yet) still doable idea. Though hmm, a bunch of the ones (with fanlore pages) listed there now are, I think, also notable in their own right; so taking them out of the list of Notable Fanworks on the main McShep page and only having them on the separate page seems weird... Maybe the whole Notable Fanworks section ought to become its own page and be prominently linked to from that subhead, instead of having the lists under it? --Sk 21:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, if there were several non-McShep stories, we *could* make a McShep category. :P Maybe the whole Notable Fanworks section ought to become its own page and be prominently linked to from that subhead, instead of having the lists under it? That would work, good idea! --Doro 15:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Eep, making a McShep-specific fanworks category on fanlore might raise some questions in parts of the SGA fandom around privileging McShep over other pairings -- still a hot-button issue, it seems! -- and whether SGA shouldn't then also get other-pairing-specific fanwork categories (even if pages for such fanworks don't quite exist yet, except for a Rodney/Ronon vid page. I think most of the rest of the non-McShep fanwork pages are either for gen stories or zines or for various-pairing anthology zines), and...

However, if you think it seems reasonable to spin the Notable Fanworks section off to its own page, it'd be great if some other folks chime in too (to agree, I hope :) because I'd be happy to do that. --Sk 21:31, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Query About a Fic

Hello! I'm not in the fandom, just a volunteer going through the orphaned Fanlore pages trying to find them a home if needed. In this case the page is: Children's Classics. I'm not sure if this is close enough to canon or not, or if it might belong with the McShep AUs. WhitedSepu (talk) 04:26, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Citations Needed?

Hi all, there is a citation needed flag on this page and we're not sure which statement(s) require citation. Wondering if other editors could weigh in on what they think requires citation, so those items can be addressed? This article is currently nommed as a featured article, so if there's no concerns raised in the next week, I'll remove the flag and let the nominations proceed. Hope that's okay! --Auntags (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Some of this page, like a lot of SGA pages, were created at the beginning of Fanlore, and they reflect those early fans' somewhat breezy insider statements about one of their favorite subjects.

"At around the same time, many Enterprise fans were growing disenchanted with their show, and decided to try Stargate Atlantis." -- I added an intro this section using info from the footnote about Sandy's statement and also highlighted Lezlie Shell's Wave Theory, as I think it fills in some blanks.

"so all major slash community hubs were hit with fiction right away" -- ideally there'd be a quote or two to support this statement.

"which also rather nicely aligns with Lezlie's fourth wave." -- I'm going take out "nicely aligns"

It's a nitpick, but I'd like to either have "fantastical" explained more than it is and/or maybe even make a page for that kind of fanwork.

I removed the citation needed template, as I was the one who rather clumsily put it there. I should have been more specific. MPH (talk) MPH 18:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Don't apologise, and thanks for explaining. I'll see if I can find any quotes or references for those --Auntags (talk) 19:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)