Template talk:Fanfiction

Suggestions: Genre

I think "genre" is the wrong label for indicating gen/het/slash/etc.; I'd refer to that one as "type" or "pairing" or "relationship" (the last in light of evolution across the way at AO3). I also think at least one additional field of this kind is probably needed, for indicating a category/subtype such as "casefic", "crack", "PWP", "wingfic", etc. Maybe the two could be labeled "type" and "subtype"? --djonn 23:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit iffy on "genre," too (although I do think it's accepted practice in some fandoms to use genre to refer to slash/femslash/het/gen/etc). I'd be more interested in knowing that a fic was specifically Bob/Anne rather than the more general het label. But "relationship" would seem to value romantic relationships over gen fic. Other thoughts: a field for rating? I'd move the fandom field up, probably placing it beneath title and author. I'd look for fandom and characters/relationships before things like publication date or word count. --Anenko 23:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

[moved for threading purposes] Unless the creator of a work has specifically chosen "crack" or "casefic" etc to describe her or his work, it would be one person's opinion; I'd be hesitant to apply such labels in a template which needs to be super-brief, "just the facts" info. Further description can always be added in the body of the article. --Mrs. Potato Head 23:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

With respect to "crack", at least (and perhaps "PWP", although in my experience many authors do apply that tag to their own work), point taken. OTOH, at least as I understand the term, calling something "casefic" is no more judgmental than calling an Agatha Christie book a mystery. And as I use the word, "genre" is exactly the term one would use to classify something as mystery, or SF, or fantasy, or as a Western. (Actually, that helps clarify why I find "genre" the wrong word for the tag/label descriptor assigned to distinguish het/slash/etc. -- because stories in which the pairing is the focus are a genre, and it's "romance".) The nature of a template is to help classify things, and we kind of have to apply labels in order to do that. --djonn 06:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I like genre because it can include all the information different parts of fandom consider to be genre information. For one fan that might be slash (slash and gen are considered a genres in huge parts of fandom), for another that might be casefile, for me that would be slash casefile. Genre works well for the vid template. I strongly dislike relationship because as Anenko said, it seems to favor romantic relationships over gen fic.--Doro 10:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Doro on genre. We're using genre on some of the zine templates as well, and it's working fine so far. Whatever terms fans in a given fandom use to classify their fic can go in that field.

Rating might work, though we might have to specify who rated it--I have a vague recollection of archivists assigning their own ratings to fic. (?)--æthel 16:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions: Continuity

A field for "continuity" might be useful, whereby a story could be labeled with something like "4th season" or "crossover" or "AU" or with the name of a specific AU setting if applicable (Kraith, etc.). --djonn 23:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That seems to be information that's typical for the main text of the article and I don't think we should move everything that can be said about a story to the info box. There would be no point in having a main article then. --Doro 10:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Venue

I'm not sure about venue ("where was it first published (name of zine, mailing list, author's website, etc."). That might be tricky information because how do you know that the place where you've seen it first is also the place where it was published first? :/ In some cases this information might be available, it a lot of cases it probably isn't. --Doro 19:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

maybe the field could be for any and all places the story has appeared?--æthel 19:19, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I already add all the links to where the story can be found under external links... That would mean either adding the links twice to the same infobox or leaving the field empty. IDK --Doro 19:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I've removed venue. None of the other fanwork infoboxes have it either, with good reason.--æthel 19:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Changes

The recent changes to this template mean it no longer fits original slash pages such as Captive Prince. We need a new template. --Doro 21:04, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Would an Original Fiction template suffice? Or is that something else? Is there going to be a problem with original slash vs. original yaoi?--æþel 21:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I think original fiction would work both for original slash and original yaoi. --Doro 07:06, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I created two templates--Template:OriginalFiction and Template:OriginalSlash--since we had categories for them. Do we want an Original Yaoi category? Is there original yaoi in the original slash category?--æþel 23:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Question on Fanfiction Category

I have a question about Category:Fanfiction. I seen the K/S has a separate category for their pairing fanfiction (Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Fanfiction‎). Exactly how many fic works counts to it becoming a separate category for that pairing? (I know 10 pages is the normal amount for the other categories, but I'm not if it's the same in this case.)--Harpie (talk) 04:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Normally we wouldn't have a category for a specific pairing. The only reason that there is a K/S fanfic category is that it has 2,146 pages, and it would be impossible to find non K/S Star Trek fanfic pages if we didn't separate out K/S.--æþel (talk) 15:17, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I was just wondering incase it happens again, since I know there are a lot of Steve/Tony fics.--Harpie (talk) 17:07, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

If there were 2,000 Steve/Tony pages, that would be awesome, but sadly, it ain't so. Although it could be something to aim for. ;) --Doro (talk) 18:43, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

add rule for when to replace Fanfiction category?

I updated a few pages based on this instruction: The template will automatically include the page in the Fanfiction category unless you put a different category in the category= field. I think specific recommendations for when to do this should be added to the template page--fill in the category field in the infobox template when a fandom subcategory (e.g. Category:Star Trek Fanfiction) exists, but not if the fanfic is a crossover between two or more fandoms (I assume the category field can only take one category?).--aethel (talk) 18:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I just noticed the use of the category field for X Fandom Fanfiction categories was already discussed on Category_talk:Fanfiction (except for what to do with crossovers).--aethel (talk) 16:56, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

So, you can definitely only put one category in the category= field and I think the Template documentation should state that explicitly. For crossovers, I think the best move would be to put one fandom's category (it doesn't matter which) in the template and any other applicable fandom categories with other categories at the bottom of the page. And again, document this in the template docs for consistency. --Endofthyme (talk) 00:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for identify this issue, aethel and Endofthyme. I can add a notice like that to the field description. Here's what we have currently:

*category = this will default to [[:Category:Fanfiction]] and should be left blank unless the fanfiction belongs in a fandom-specific subcategory, for example [[:Category:Harry Potter Fanfiction]]. '''Only fandom-specific subcategories should be listed in this field.''' Subcategories that aren't fandom-specific, like [[:Category:Crossover Fanfiction]] belong at the bottom of the page.

How does this new version look (new sentence added to the end)?

* category = This will default to [[:Category:Fanfiction]] and should be left blank unless the fanfiction belongs in a fandom-specific subcategory, for example [[:Category:Harry Potter Fanfiction]]. '''Only fandom-specific subcategories should be listed in this field.''' Subcategories that aren't fandom-specific, like [[:Category:Crossover Fanfiction]] belong at the bottom of the page. At most one category can be placed in this field; for crossovers and other multifandom fics, add more categories to the bottom of the page.

-- FBV (talk) 21:23, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Looks fine! If you wanted to be briefer, you could compress it like this maybe? "Only a single fandom-specific subcategory should be listed in this field. Put subcategories that aren't fandom-specific, like Category:Crossover Fanfiction, or additional fandom-specific categories (for multifandom fics), at the bottom of the page." --Endofthyme (talk) 21:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Draft:

* category = This will default to [[:Category:Fanfiction]] and should be left blank unless the fanfiction belongs in a fandom-specific subcategory, for example [[:Category:Harry Potter Fanfiction]]. '''Only a single fandom-specific subcategory should be listed in this field.''' Put subcategories that aren't fandom-specific, like [[:Category:Crossover Fanfiction]], or additional fandom-specific categories (for multifandom fics), at the bottom of the page.

-- FBV (talk) 21:56, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Relationship subject line

What is/where does the relationship line go in the template? Has it been decided? Sobqjmv sphinx (talk) 01:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)