At 08:01 PM 1/31/02 +0200, Michel Clasquin wrote:
On Thursday 31 January 2002 11:51, Gareth Owen wrote:
The question is not where do you put [[Batman]], but where do you put [[Robin]]. Or [[Alfred]] (do you really want the [[Alfred]] page to be an article about an English king with poor culinary skills and and an article about Bruce Wayne's butler?
I don't got no problem with that. See [[Thor]]
Besides, Batman's Alfred does actually have a surname, Merriweather, I think it was. So, between [[Alfred the Great]] and [[Alfred Merriweather]] the problem is solved.
The longer we discuss this, the more I wonder whether we actually want to encourage Wikipedia to be a guide to fictional characters.
Good, solid entries on [[Middle Earth]] and [[Batman]], yes. Separate entries on every character in either are starting to feel like overkill. And not just because there's already an online Encyclopedia of Arda.
I realize that these entries aren't really a "waste of resources," because someone who wants to write about Batman isn't necessarily going to say "Oh, well, no room for that, and we need an article about Tennesee/English line dancing/Nero/peas...." But I do wonder what impression people get when they come to Wikipedia, look at the lists of recent changes or new pages, and find so much on secondary worlds.
I also have a feeling that, well, if someone doesn't know who Tolkien is, we can be a useful resource. If they're looking for details of the life of Elrond, they're better off looking at the works of Tolkien.
As such, is it worth going to extra trouble--setting up separate forms or even namespaces--to make it easier to provide this information? Raise (poker) and Java (island) and such make sense, but I think that's as far as we should go.