pastfarpoint

Hi all,

I've used some novel headings for story arcs.
See here & here.

Basically, it's what I thought would be useful for someone who either (a) is reading the arc, but wants to know what led up to it, or (b) someone who is reading a later story that refers to the arc which they haven't read. Hence I use:

• Plot summary - as is necessary
• Preceding Events
• Main Story - this is basically "Full Plot" and I might rename them as such to be uniform
• Aftermath - in which I also include a subheading "Effect on Mythology"

 The Invincible comic issues don't have names, and as a consequence appear as blank when when referred to elsewhere.

In particular in a user's submission pages. See for example the difference between the first comic which appears blank, and the third comic (which is issue#4).

All Invincible comics do not have names except for #4 which I just did as a test. (Nb. there's a difference between the name of the series and the name of an issue).

I did this by putting the name of the issue as "Invincible" even though this is not quite correct.

Any thoughts on this? Including alternatives and/or why it would be a problem to do this?

Does anyone know where Mark Grayson lives?

The only locations mentioned that I noticed were Lakeside Mall (where one of the human bombs is) and Upstate University.

I'm just wondering if we know what school he goes to, and whether his school and that burger joint are all in the same town.

The reason I'm interested is cause if we know then I'd think to make a wiki page for that location.

Here's a summary I wrote -  http://www.comicvine.com/invincible-/37-105533/ - and while doing so I removed a solicitation that was also present on that page.

In my opinion, ISSUE PLOT SUMMARIES:

• Should succintly summarise the major plot the issue
  
• They may introduce interpretation where this eases reading - eg. see last line of plot summary I linked to - but they should not introduced opinion in the form of evaluation (eg. whether it's a good or believable story)
• Should be user created. However: if there is either (A) no user summary or (B) a bad user summary (eg. too long/short), then you should add text from the original solicitation. As stated above this should be in italics (and some people suggest also delineated by H3 headings). Nonetheless it is preferable IMO to not have a solicitation text, and they should be seen as temporary solutions until that particular page has a proper and well-written user-written summary added.
• Reference can be made to previous issues; eg. Superman continues to search for the circumference (see Superman#3.14), but I wouldn't think ever more than one should be needed. If you feel that more references are appropriate then either include them in an extended summary (see below) or consider whether a STORY ARC needs to be written up.
  

@Yumulu said:

"I prefer read the solicitation than the panel by panel description that some people upload as plot summary. A plot summary should not be longer than the comics itself. "

I understand what you mean, but we would rather people include the extra detail in the 'plot summary' of an issue instead of bogging down the character pages (ala Deadpool ;)

In conclusion - what I think an ideal Issue page could look like (in order):

1. If the page is poorly written then text should be copied from an official soliciation source - this needs to be in italics and should be removed once the page is sufficiently written up by users
2. A single line in bold summarising the set-up for the issue
3. A minimum number of paragraph summarising the plot - should be written succintly, in an egaging manner, and should not evaluate the comic; this should be in normal text
   
4. Optional: A H3 heading "Extended Summary" under which, in normal text, is the extended summary

I'm not sure where else to post this:

Some guy made an account on CV all for the purpose of pimping his site. He wrote a blog about his website and tagged it with Superman, and that's it; left the site.

The blog is at 
http://www.comicvine.com/myvine/lackernine/boilx-most-of-us-have-all-experienced-pain-boils/87-66062/
It links to every single Superman wiki page.
Eg. 
http://www.comicvine.com/superman-the-last-superman-story/37-91404/

I think it would be appropriate to (A) send a PM to the user to remove the tag from the blog, and if they don't respond, (B) untag the blog.

 @pikahyper:  Thanks for that tip, I didn't know you could search like that! However I should note that you still can't search the text. If I want to find something in comicvine my best bet is still to use google and include  "site:comicvine.com" in the query.
 
As for the importance of meta-pages - can I ask, have you has much experience on Wikipedia? As I wrote above, IMO, the fact that they have no parallel here is the biggest limitation of CV. There is currently no platform for collaborative development of policy, format, or direction, nor is their any place to annotate pages.
 
 I can respect that you think the forum is sufficient - and I can even agree that they're very good - but its an intrinsically limited approach. 
(1) Forums are poor at structuring any of the things I mentioned, and (2) are (practically, even if not theoretically) temporally limited, by which I mean, they exist strongest in the present and as time goes on lose impact. (Eg. a post now, by default, has more impact and attention now than it will be in three years).
 
@jamesewelch:  Re. history. Thanks for that. I'll add that as a minor point.