Honorverse:Community Portal

The Community Portal is for discussions on the Wiki in general. Comments on individual articles belong on the talk page of these articles. The easiest way to contact users is to write on their respective talk pages. If you want to discuss the Honorverse in general, you can do so in the Forum.

Please sign your comments and questions with four tildes. ( ~~~~ )

Adding some pictures

For the characters that we do not have pictures of, how about we put either the native country's flag or the service's flag that they belong to, so we can add a little eye candy to various articles, or even add that to ships and places that correspond to them. --Farragut79 18:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

In adding pictures, is it legal or just plain possible to put the pictures from the books, Jaynes, and the calendars on it. --Farragut79 19:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi I'm willing to contribute some art on for the wiki. I would just like to have some detailed descriptions of the characters (and actor studies recommendations). I want it also for reference material since I get confused who is who in my imagination. My online portfolio is at http://nik1979.deviantart.com/ email me at my user name (small caps) at gmail.com Justinaquino 14:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Welcome, feel free. --Farragut79 20:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, When can I hope to get a list of priorities. I think I can fit in my sched to Ink and Sketch one every 2 weeks or so. I still have to set up GIMP and my tablet. I can Probably send a sketch in a week after getting the description and my own research of actor studies and follow up with the inked. Do you think anyone would like to color them? Who should I email the sketches too for approval (I can only make minor revisions to save on time and effort unless I made a gross mistake on the character). Justinaquino 00:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

My email is farragut76@yahoo.com. If you want to contact Saganami and Dotz as well. We are kind of a triumvirate of admins. --Farragut79 05:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Book Covers?

I do believe this is a threat: "This is in response to a question you posted about using the cover artwork... For reasons I won't bother you with right now, I have previously had an E-mail correspondence with David Mattingly, the artist for the most popular (US released) cover art. He gave permission for me to use them on a page of mine. I expect that he would be just as receptive (if not more so) to the images being used on this site.

BTW, is there a way for this wiki to forward E-mails from one user to another?LP-mn 04:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)" This is a message from this contributor's only contribution. --Farragut79 01:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean, "a threat"? -- SaganamiFan (Talk) 04:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

As in email Mr Mattingly or else I tell type of thing. I am wondering on how book covers fall under copyrights and what not? As far as I can tell, we are not using any of the artwork for commercial use. Does anyone else know? --Farragut79 05:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

In countries observing the most common international convention re copyright, the term of a copyright runs from date of creation to some decades after the author's death (70 years, IIRC). The Mouse House has extended its tiny (but greedily grasping) paw in Congress, to protect Mickey, a few years ago, and this has rather extended the term in the US, if I understand correctly. Copyright exists from the moment of creation and does not require filing or registration with anyone. Litigation for damages is helped by filing, however, so it's strongly advised. Mattingly gave permission for some of his art to be used on WP (eg, at Treecat) and I suppose he might here as well. The optimum bad way to proceed is of course to simply go ahead and use art (which will necessarily be copyrighted) without bothering with permission or trying to determine the license involved. Perhaps the license is one which allows free use of one kind or another without permission. Or perhaps not. Not a good thing to discover, that last. 23:53, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

In regards to Fan Drawings

If we can get the permission of the artist who drew it, how about adding some of them to the articles as well, granted with an agreement from all of us. --Farragut79 18:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Honorverse Promotion

How do we go about promoting the site such as those ones with the banners on the bottom of the pages? We have over a thousand articles, I think it is time for us to get into the Wiki Community more. If those who oppose that we need more time, please feel free to express it. --Farragut79 18:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Above 1000 articles we have silver wiki status, the next and last promotion is golden status with above 5000 articles. In my opinion there is no need to be hectic with numbers - current content gives enough place for improvement. Good thing for promotion is planting links to our pages on outside websites - eg. it is very easy at wikipedia (wikia accounts links from outside when it asses some wiki popularity). Any guide for sticking a Honorverse banner?--dotz 22:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposition: Nominate ourselves for the Wikia Spotlight?--Farragut79 23:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I got a response back from the Wikia Team about the Spotlight Promotion::

"Hi. Honorverse Wiki looks like it is in good shape. Could you please drop the protection level on the main page from sysop down to at least registered users? I can't see that there is much (any?) vandalism in the history of that page that would require it to be protected, and wikia really encourages wikis to leave it unprotected. That way the "freely editable" site doesn't have an uneditable front page for visitors! If you can unprotect the page I'll be happy to add you to the spotlight list.

Also, and this is just an opinion, it might be nice to have an entry for the books/materials in your lefthand menu. I had to go to the author's page to find a list of the books (or any links to the books) and it seems like that might be something people might want to have access to... For whatever reason, the "Honorverse Materials" link on your mainpage did not actually equate in my head as "the books" when I looked at it :) - in fact I had no idea what it was. :) -- Wendy (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)" --Farragut79 02:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting feetback - even though I have to say I find the notion that the "Honorverse Material" link doesn't relate to the books a little strange, since it leads to a Category of all material with the complete list of all the books and anthologies in the form of the Honorversebox right on top of it...

Also, when we say everyone is free to edit in the wiki, that certainly doesn't mean we want everyone to be able to mess around in the main page... but I guess we can just as well unprotect it and try to keep an eye on it... -- SaganamiFan 01:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Merrystar left me a message saying that the Honorverse Wiki was put on the list for Wikia Spotlight. We are twelfth on the list. Good Job everyone. --Farragut79 20:41, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

We are now sixth on the list. --Farragut79 19:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

We are now being Spotlighted. Congrats, fellows and gals. --Farragut79 04:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Promotions of Administrators

So far, we have three active administrators, Myself, Saganami, and Dotz. I was thinking of promoting Jabrwock to Administrator with your opinions. I support him or her on this promotion because of his/her massive amount of technical editing that he/she has done. I do consider, Dotz, as the content editor, with Saganami as the more PR guy and promoter, by the way thanks for putting up the site's logo. --Farragut79 18:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

First of all ask Jabrwock. As technical guy he may like it.--dotz 22:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to get your and Saganami's opinions. --Farragut79 00:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. Jabrwock did a hell of a job so far, and he is much more of a help where this technical stuff is concerned ( I guess that's because he's a lot more interested in that than, for example, me ;-) -- SaganamiFan 16:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Templates

Does anyone know how to do the battle templates as seen from the Wookiepedia and the Babylon 5 Wiki?--Farragut79 05:44, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

As I had nothing better to do (except learning for my cultural history exams ;-) I worked a little something out on the basis of the Wookiepedia version... you can view the results here and here. Tell me what you think, folks.

Happy New Year, by the way! -- SaganamiFan 23:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is good. Happy New Year. --Farragut79 06:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite handy thing.--dotz 19:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Main Page Revamp

To help with the new people coming and visiting, I am throwing out the idea of making the first page a portal for the books, so if you are looking for On Basilisk Station, you just go to the book, which has the back summary and the list of articles associated with the book. From there, the visitor would be able to chose if they want to spoil themselves or just look at specific areas.

For others, the categories will be farther down the page for others who want to just research a topic. On the very bottom will be main area for information about contributing. What about your ideas? --Farragut79 17:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, if you look for some other conceptions check The Vault wiki (concerning Fallout). It have eg. guite good solution for category tree - the most important categories are visible as list on its homepage.--dotz 18:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is the Main Page Redevelopment Test Page, which we can use to sort out the ideas. --Farragut79 18:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Cooperation with Wikipedia

Hi, I am an editor from Wikipedia. We have lots of Honorverse articles ([1]), but some of them are too detailed for our project and are getting deleted. In other cases I fear Wikipedia editors and Honorverse wiki editors are duplicating efforts, writing articles that already exist. It would be great if we could somehow work together. --Piotrus 02:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I ended my Honorverse editions in Wikipedia and as far as I checked there were very few Honorverse editors than/there. Good quality Honorverse stuff form Wikipedia is planted or refered here.--dotz 07:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure that everything is properl transwikified? I couldn't find equivalents of our lists: [2], [3], for example. I have proposed an idea here, but I am a bit too busy with some other project to do it myself. --Piotrus 16:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Terrible work. Mentioned RMN commissioned officers number only is reaching one thousand of names (I have no time to insert my .xml chart here). I like cats names list in Wikipedia, I am sceptical about quality of ships list. BTW each Honorverse article for a book containes list of mentioned characters (as links).--dotz 20:20, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I have copied two articles: Elysian Space Navy and House of Winton. As you can see, a ton of content was on Wikipedia, and it seems to belong here instead. I'd hope that some other editors would help with moving stuff.--Piotrus 22:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I've not done this before, but isn't it possible to upload an XML dump of all Wikipedia articles in [[Category:Honorverse]]? I have an export of these articles (both with and without Templates -- dunno which is better). If someone can grant me rights to import on this wiki, I could upload all these. Alternately, if someone else wants to do this, I could email them the XML files, or they can be exported via http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Export / edg ☺ ☭ 14:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, there. As you can see here, there is a vivid discussion on the way we import WP content into this wiki. Considering that most of the WP stuff doesn't fit our editing conventions and is in the form of extensive list articles (which we try to avoid here), we prefer to check and edit the content before transferring it. Dont't get this wrong, we want to get all WP content that is better than what we have, but not preferably by direct data transfer. -- SaganamiFan 18:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Roger, will comply. Thanks for getting back to me on this. / edg ☺ ☭ 13:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is currently purging a lot of Honorverse articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_ships_in_the_Honorverse , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Honorverse_concepts_and_terminology , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Treecat , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Weapons_technology_in_the_Honorverse , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Technology_in_the_Honorverse , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_regions_of_space_in_the_Honorverse and others. While this process accelerates and decelerates, and has been going for years, I expect that within few months there will be almost no Honorverse articles left on Wikipedia - it seems that some anti-fiction editors have decided to target Honorverse, and they have the advantage for both rules and policies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(fiction) which boils to the fact that Honorverse has not been discussed outside primary sources). As a Wikipedia admin I have access to deleted articles, and I will continue to move them here. I apologize if some moved content is deemed unneeded, and I will have no problems if editors of this HHverse wiki decide to delete them - however I believe that their content needs to be reviewed by editors whose attitude to fiction is more constructive then the attitude of some deletionists on Wikipedia :) Time permitting, I am trying my best to rewrite those articles into a format that is more acceptable for this wiki, but there is only so much I can do (mostly) alone. PS. Perhaps we could design a template and category for articles transwikied from Wikipedia and in likely need of review and partial rewrite by estabilished editors of this wiki? --Piotrus 01:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess I have to apologize to some people; I had no idea that Wikipedia was in the process of purging all Honorverse content this brutally. Totally wrong aproach, in my opinion, but who knows what goes on in the minds of these WP crusaders...?

Anyway, I just created a project page called Honorverse:Wikipedia content‎. Here, we can create sub-pages to store WP content until it can be included into our Wiki. I allready did it for the List of regions of space in the Honorverse and the List of locations in the Honorverse.

I will also create templates for stubs and "pages that need editing by experienced editiors", or whatever... -- SaganamiFan 13:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Style / tense

Looking at some articles, I am surprised to see they are written in past tense. Cerberus System had one planet which had three moons... it still has, right? Royal Manticoran Marine Corps was one of the branches of Manticorian military... it still is, right? I think all instances of past tense should be converted to present, to represent Honorverse universe as of the last book. People's Republic of Haven was, but Republic of Haven is... --Piotrus 22:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, be careful with present tense in the fiction concerning far future. As far as I remember it is Wikipedia style for descriptions of fiction also (as weel - sb said we are acting as Honorverse historians, with logical/physical point of view any description is later than described state). Anyway it is one of Editing Conventions here.--dotz 07:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There are several points I'd like to make about the past tense:

• by writing from "the future", we are assuming that there is indeed a future; MWW has not given as any indication that this will be the case. Sure, we know that the story will progress but we don't know how far (will he ever write a Honorverse story set after Honor's eventual death? Will she ever die? Perhaps the Honorverse universe will develop immortality serum? :)
• how far is our future? "Honor Harrington was..." - ok, it is likely people will die. But "House of Winston was..." - now we are saying that the Winston dynasty will some day end (perhaps MWW intends it to rule forever?). Sure, human things pass... but wait, this keeps getting better. "Cerberus system was"? Are we now assuming we are writing in the future where the system has been destroyed or it has ceased to exist due to age?? And even "technology was..." - now we are writing from some really bizarre future where they have no concept of technology??

Clearly, using past tense for everything is ridiculous. I think that we need to clearly draw a line on when the past tense should be used, but this is much easier said than done. This entire mess could be avoided by adopting logical Wikipedia guidelines (keep in mind that most people are familiar with Wikipedia style and, like me, and other newcomers who have taken their time to note this problem here, will find this wiki shift to past tense confusing). My suggestion is to adopt the present tense, and write from the perspective of the encyclopedia writer writing on the last day described in the Honorverse book (well, a bit omnipotent writer, knowing about Masadan secret plans and such, but I hope you get my drift, you can think of the writer as "in the very near future" or such). Thus, if, according to the newest book, something is, then it is, only items that were destroyed were. So Honor is, Pavel Young was. This way we will not be usurping MWW privilege to write about the future of Honorverse universe, and we will make it easier for readers to understand the current state of the universe. --Piotrus 18:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It may come as no surprise that I have a somewhat different view on this ;-)

• David Weber already stated that he had intentions to move the main plot to a time 20+ years in the future (original "Honor's kids vs. Mesa" draft), and he may well do so in the future. He may, in time, even allow others to continue the series in a future setting. What if a short story that is set 1000 years later appears in the next anthology? Then what are we gonna do? Rewrite all the articles that are present now into past?
• What about Jesus Ramirez? He "was" from HH1 to HH7, then he "is" again, and when he dies of whatever cause some day, he "was" again? What if others return from the dead, are we supposed to always rewrite entire articles and every reference to them accordingly?
• What if someone just read the first book? For him the Honorverse "present" is 1901 PD, no matter what those who have read all books already say. As said in the editing conventions, there is no omnivalent "present" for the readers of a ficticious series of stories.

Most wikis on fiction have a strict "past tense in-universe, present tense out-universe" policy, and for a good reason. Otherwise, you get a mess like on parts of Memory Alpha, where they have a bunch of discussions on when exactly their "present" is, how to write about nearer and farer past times, and that stars are present but planets are past (!). This seems a lot more ridiculous to me than simply writing all articles in past tense for clarity's sake.

One other thing is really important to me: this project is not supposed to be an add-on of Wikipedia's Honorverse articles. We stand for ourselves, and our primary concern should be to have an optimized policy for our wiki, not the one that corresponds best with Wikipedia, where they're busy deleting everything their self-rightous editors don't like. As I see it, this wiki stands in the tradition of Memory Alpha, the Stargate Wiki and the 24 Wiki, and these wikis (for their own good) don't give square how Wikipedia does things, mainly because Wikipedia is always supposed to be out-universe. We are writing in-universe, where the past tense is much more practical, and people using such wikis are used to it as well. WP rules may ( and that is a BIG may! ) work on WP, but that does not mean they're what works best here. -- SaganamiFan 01:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Saganami put it clearly. We understand your concerns, but planets can be destroyed, people die, plants wilt, and the universe changes, adapts; especially with a writer who is still pushing out novels, who has allowed others to play in his playground (which opened the door for future single non-Weber Honorverse books). Also, the books are written in the past tense, as though David Weber is writing the annals of the Star Kingdom of Manticore a la Gibbon's History of the Roman Empire. --Farragut79 02:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

No main article?

While this wiki seems to have excellent coverage of detailed subject, I am having trouble finding articles that give a big picture. I cannot find an article that will give me an overview of the universe geography, politics, or history. Yes, there's the timeline, but it's not the same as a history of the universe. And I am surprised that this very useful map of the universe was not imported from Wikipedia? Overall, while Wikipedia's article on the Honorverse mixes fiction with real world, in a style that is obviously not acceptable here, I think that we should have a similar article from which the readers would be able to navigate deeper into the wiki. The current main page lists only categories, and those are much less user friendly. If you take a look at the Star Trek wiki, note that their solution was to replace the categories on the main page via links to portals ([4]). If you type in history, you get a useful article: [5]. Same goes for politcs ([6]), or universe and galaxy; the only term I thought of that failed there was no links for map, maps of galaxy map. I would strongly recommend we try to rethink the basic structure of the wiki, to accommodate such articles. --Piotrus 23:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the others, but I always saw the categories as a temporary solution. In time, we should certainly replace them by Portals – frankly, I just avoided beginning that little piece of work so far ;-) However, I personally don't see that much advantages in the Portals of Memory Alpha, since they are nothing more than six connected lists of categories and articles. We can create them, but they're really not much more than our Main Categories.

As for the map, it could be used as a pattern, but it is already out of date. Personally, I would prefer a less detailed overview map and partial maps for the details.

Let's further discuss this! -- SaganamiFan 00:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a listing of the books on the front page, which would make it easier to navigate for first time browsers. MA's portals are the same as our categories, but organized better. I, also, agree that we need more of an introduction to the Universe. I like that map, but like Saganami said, it is outdated. --Farragut79 05:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, first time reader here..already burned through first 2 books this weekend (on basilisk station, the honor of the queen) and I came across this wikia, looking for a bigger/general picture of the whole universe...but saddened to find there really isn't an article talking about politics in general, and such. I also checked out the forum, kind of sad there isnt much activity going on there either :( well, these books are certainly old, not too popular these days eh? Heyo 08:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, the latest one was released 6 months ago... ;-) I guess we'll have to work out a lot more stuff, especially since more and more work is speedily deleted from Wikipedia. In time, I expect us to become the predominant internet source and the number of people to increase... ( we already moved to the front row of most Honor-related google searches )

As for the forum, I'd be happy to discuss whatever comes up, I've just never been a good topic-giver...

-- SaganamiFan (Talk) 10:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge from Glossary of Places

A collegue of mine just told me he maintaines a small Honorverse wiki. He considered merging it here but found this site too complex and gave up. I think it would be worthwile for us to convince him that migrating here would be to everyone's benefit. He is also a proficient mapmaker, and has made serveral Honorverse maps in the past. --Piotrus 17:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I suggest to create separate geographical portal or metacategory (planet's surface info is lacking also). I can imagine the problem is the same names of the articles for original Honorverse planets/systems and glossary articles. Some kind of solution is to make links from original articles to glossary. Another - title manner like that:

1. Name of article in Honorverse (original article, no title change, geographical section of that article contains link to glossary article)
2. Name of article (glossary) (glossary article).

--dotz 17:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Links page or widget

...would be helpful, eg. to collect links to things like Glossary of Places, Baen pages or Ad Astra.--dotz 05:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Short story articles

Hey guys & gals, today I tried to add references to a number of short stories in the anthology articles, and in the process realized that these are going to be overly crowded; in order to keep that from happening, I have begun to turn the redirects to the anthologies into individual articles, with plot descriptions and references, and a box template for each anthology that can be added to stories for easier navigation between them.

There's certainly a lot of work to do on these articles, but I figured it'd be better to start before to much stuff gets crammed into the anthology pages...

-- SaganamiFan (Talk) 16:39, September 8, 2009 (UTC)

Chronology of Stories

OK, I can see the Timeline. But the one thing that I don't see is a Chronology of the different stories (and sources), something like what Sandra Miesel did for Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization books. Is there any such page? If not, where should such a page be placed? -- 65.83.116.10 23:03, January 12, 2010 (UTC)

The Honorverse novels page features a list of all works in the chronological order, or rather in the one they should best be read in, as some of the more recent storylines overlap. -- SaganamiFan 23:49, January 12, 2010 (UTC)

Check wikipedia:Honorverse--dotz 07:29, January 13, 2010 (UTC)

Character Templates

Should we start making a side template for the characters that give a quick description of them like we have with the battles, and hopefully we can do the same to ships, and ship classes. --Farragut79 23:12, January 17, 2010 (UTC)

If we do it, we should limit it to articles that are actually long enough to make an overview box neccessary and practical. Many ship/character/class articles are very short with very limited information, and just to have an almost empty box repeat what little is in the text next to it seems useless to me. But in cases of "main" ships and characters, this could be quite helpful...

-- SaganamiFan 23:27, January 17, 2010 (UTC)

Short story contradictions

I think we need a policy discussion where information from the Honorverse short stories that contradicts or confuses information from the novel canon is concerned. In some cases there is a certain way a subject matter is handled in all the novels, and then in the short stories, one of the other authors uses another wording or has obviously no interest in making it coherent with the rest of the fictional universe, and -- to be brutally honest -- fucks the whole thing up.

For example, trying to implement our description methods on David Drake's "A Grand Tour" is almost impossible, he speaks of "Reserve Midshipmen" and the entire Colonel Arabi matter is more like Star Wars than Honorverse, with people gambling over starships and stuff.

Another example is StateSec, which seems to be a different organization in almost every appearance. -- SaganamiFan 06:15, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

I suggest separate forum and conclusive page. BTW there are two categories of stuff: (1) contradictions - IMHO really pure contradictions are relatively seldom, (2) semi canon ideas - not directly conradictory, but not present in novels/DW's novels

Fortunatelly some Drake's ideas can be translated into "canonic language". Gambling issue was rather explained well (I trust Melungeon would do it). May be we should create list of things to ask David Drake and Eric Flint (eg. what class of warship had 6/6+ commissioned officers only).--dotz 21:36, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

Problems with StateSec - Fanatic?--dotz 21:38, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

Tempus talk

(started at Treecat) taken from SaganamiFan's talk page)

I have just noticed your sugestion that the WP treecat article was unreferenced and likely original research to some extent.

As to unreferenced, well, we are looking at fiction, and the usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes and such doesn't really apply, there being no factual claims being made and requiring connection to sources.

I was the primary author of that page before it was deleted. There is no original research of any kind, nor is any aspect of it speculative. It does seriously rely on off-hand comments in the assorted texts, and makes them into connections to the universe reality. Fair enough in this context, I think.

It was also constructed rather carefully to avoid disclosing too much, and to lead from the general to the specific -- at least mostly. The rearrangement in the version here is, in my view, unfortunate and makes the article less useful.

You might find some of the discussion about its deletion from WP of some interest. You may note that at least one favoring deletion used "Wikia's opinion" as yet another reason to delete it as worthless for WP purposes. Not an edifying nor uplifting nor very well thought out action or discussion. Wilkipedia Ww

I'll look into it. Thanks for the update, I always find it best to have the original author in on such a discussion, so you're very welcome! I have a feeling that we are in a little bit of disagreement as to what constitutes original research, but I agree that the overall structure of the treecat article will need to be worked on. However, I found the treecat article in its WP version also rather unfortunate. We're trying to be a little more down to the facts rather than writing essays of extensive length that need to be read from beginning to end to be grasped... but that, of course, is also a matter of interpretation.

So I hope you feel in no way personally offended, because that was clearly no intention of mine, and let's see how the rest of your stuff can be integrated.

Best regards, -- SaganamiFan (Talk) 11:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think we disagree on what constitutes original research. What I didn't do in the WP article was to cite each factoid I used. I thought that citation to fiction was silly for WP, and still do, though I understand that Wikia may have a different standard. NOTHING was original research in the WP article, and you will find this so as you adapt it to Wikia.

As said before, I'll be glad to stand corrected, but I will also not ignore my own doubts, especially since I ran into a number of errors while adapting WP material - from misspelled names to wrong dates to terminology never used in the novel.

And, as I also said before, a small look at Wookiepedia, Memory Alpha, or any other seriously managed fiction wiki will show you that precise citations for the given facts are a common standard. -- SaganamiFan (Talk)

Your perspective as to it being an essay is I think incorrect. I was attempting to write and encyclopedia article, with a minor goal of not spoiling the books for those who read the article. The tone was not that of a fanatic, though some in the discussion which lead to deletion we clear that was the motive and the result as well. The choice of general topics was a consequence of the encyclopedia article style. One may disagree with their arrangement, or even the choices I made, but had it been an essay, almost none of that structure would have been present. I would have chosen a narrative arc designed to hold interest, not to neutrally describe the topic.

I think you're taking me a little to literally here, which of course is mainly my fault for using the comparision with an essay in the first place. I apologize. -- SaganamiFan (Talk)

The verb tense pattern adopted here is quite odd to the English speaking ear. For the Wikia article to read well, some editorial repair effort will be needed.

Well, most of us aren't native speakers and I have to admit that on several occasions what I was taught in school/college was not consistent with what native speakers told me to be right - I'd be very glad if you explained in greater detail - after all, one never stops learning. -- SaganamiFan (Talk)

Best of luck. Wikipedia ww 06:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thx :-)) and I just want to make clear again how very much I appreciate the work and passion you obviously put into this article. My language was a little harsh on this matter, but that was mainly because I disliked the way it was inserted without anyone even taking a look at how things are done around here. -- SaganamiFan (Talk) 22:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

And as for your comment that the usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes and such doesn't really apply – it does here, as it does on most fiction wikis. -- SaganamiFan (Talk) 11:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I have made an editing pass over the entire Treecat article, correcting unfortunate verb tenses (and little else). You will find it on my user page at 'workbench'. Please look it over. If satisfactory, it can be substituted for the current Treecat article.

I did not add the canonical reference citations which Wikia has, in my view, inappositely adopted as policy (from en:Wikipedia?). I had already checked them against Canon when writing the original Wikipedia article (overr some months) and the prospect of repeating all that work was more than I could endure. I am forced to leave it to someone else, who may at lest be assured that a citation exists and can be found and thet they are not chasing a mere will 'o the imagination.

While I was editing, I noticed there was material missing which may be usefully restored from the deleted Wikipedia article, and that several other articles here show the same pattern of odd verb tenses. I expect changes will have to made to several other articles. 08:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll look into it, and I've no problem with adding the references over time, but, frankly, what you describe as "unfortunate verb tenses" is, as far as I can make it out, mainly the use of the past tense, and we use that tense on purpose, for reasons already stated on several occasions. And don't tell me it doesn't make sense, this matter was discussed at length on numerous fiction wikis and the past tense is common on almost all of them; you won't convince me that none of the several thousand users on Memory Alpha and the Wookiepedia who are fine with that policy are native speakers.

Per Sassure's definition of what a language is, the opinions of fluent speakers aren't readily or properly dismissible. Miss Fidditchian tidying urges to the contrary not withstanding.

I appreciate the difference in time references in fiction of the Honorverse type, and the subsequent awkwardness in discussing them, but still hold that the convention in English (and one which clangs considerably to the fluent ear when violated) is to use present tense -- 'as though' the fictionally described action is happening at present. Some grammarian or other has probably classified this as the 'fictional present tense' or some such. There is no good conventional solution for problems of applying the same tense to events in a story not happening the time frame currently in use. But then languages aren't overly logical in their structure or conventions, so that's not much of an objection. And English is more relaxed (or wildly chaotic, your choice) than most, I gather. It certainly is with regard to vocabulary. It's verb tenses (ordinary, perfect, pluperfect, and all the rest) are, I am informed, a particular complication (almost in the sense the word is used in timepiece design). Fluent speakers find them non-trivial, unless they think carefully about it, and casual speech is a poor guide to good writing with complex temporality.

The extensive discussion you reference (which I haven't found with a brief search -- but thanks for the pointer to the conventions policy article -- to the contrary notwithstanding. It can happen that several folks can jointly get themselves caught in an untenable situation. And inertia from that point often has a substantial large effect, regardless of merit. You may r4ecall the horse designed by a committee -- the one with the two humps, nostril flaps, and propensity to spit?

If you want to help us expand the wiki and improve the language, other than changing the accepted tempus, you're welcome to do so. If you're another guy who wants to start a crusade for the present tense, go start your own wiki and stop wasting our time.

No, I'm not another "such guy". On this or any other time wasting crusade, with the sole exception (see my contribution history at en:Wikipedia if you are willing to endure mass typos and lots of obiter dicta) with regard to a commitment to good writing and intelligiblity for the Average Reader. How you spend your time with respect to my attempted contributions, and how your regard its expense, is, of course, up to you. The personal animus (which may be) shining through here is not a WP sort of thing, though Wikia may have a different perspective.

Next point: the main objective of a wiki article is to be accessible and reliable, which is why I will continue to press for references and see to it that articles don't get overly long and detailed – the fact that the rabbit did adapt well to life on Manticore is not relevant for the already overlong treecat article, especially since rabbits have their own one.

Sorry if I sound harsh here again, but I'm getting sick and tired of having this discussion every time a self-declared expert from Wikipedia who obviously has no experience with wikia fiction wikis comes over here and tells us how we have to do things.

-- SaganamiFan (Talk) 17:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Accessibility depends, among other things, on good writing. The verb pattern use in this article when I found it is NOT good writing; it is awkward at minimum, however ostensibly coherent is the policy which required it. It is that policy which is problematic and not the urge for accessiblity or for good writing. As for overly long, well, opinions differ. Treecats, as presented in the Canon, are complex in themselves and their interactions and implications for much in the Honorverse are as well. An article about them should reflect this 'reality'. Hard to say just what is too long. Or inadequately short. As for the rabbit, it wasn't (as I recall) in the Wikipedia article for which I was primarily responsible. And their treatment here was somewhat lumpy however they arrived -- I smoothed it out a bit rather than removing it. I more or less agree with your position, though.

You do sound 'harsh', and 'sick and tired'. The hostility is ill conceived, by Wikipedia standards, and would suggest a Wikibreak there. I will not engage in hostilities here; disagreement and debate yes, but not that. A concern for my own time, perhaps... We are in these enterprises hostage to the good will of all, and I decline to participate when that goes badly. You may see an example of this at Talk:Password Strength on en:Wikipedia. If you choose to behave otherwise, I will leave Treecat and the Honorverse Wiki. Your choice, in essence.

I've certainly not claimed any experience on Wikia and have made no non-collegial edits on the only article I can recall spending any time on here. I have told neither you, nor anyone else, "how you have to do things". That you can say so suggests a willingness to start up absent staircases, and that you are certainly correct about "sick and tired" and "harshness". Your choice with respect to cooperation with an Honorvese aficionado who sees things not exactly as you wish them to be seen. Wikipedia ww 03:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I thought about changing my statement a little where the tone is concerned, but I stopped doing that back when I was on Wikipedia. Seems kind of dishonest to me... anyways, from your comments it is clear that you are fine with discussing things at length before beginning to change articles all over the place, and that is more than I can say of most people who came over from WP. Please rest assured that I'm not trying to drive you away, and I'm not gonna play the big Admin, as I detest that behaviour on WP.

As stated before, I'll have to look around where the awkwardness of the narrative present tense is concerned, as this has never been mentioned by any native speaker on any wiki where I read discussions on that matter. I find that the policy solves a number of problems that make in-universe articles awkward (this and this are some examples of discussions on the matter) and am a proponent of the "content over form" policy.

I hope you understand that I am hestitant to change a policy that a great many people agree on because one person claims it's unreadable for native speakers. And I hope you'll forgive me my little outbursts now and then, I know I have a tendency for them, and I'll try to do better :-)

-- SaganamiFan (Talk) 13:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the MA discussion on use of tense in their articles. The arguments boil down to two types as I see it. The first is a logical one, something akin to our perspective in this encyclopedia is this time period and we should use the tense with respect to that perspective. Or when describing action which took place in a defined period of time we should act as though we were a fly on the wall and use present tense. Or something similarly reason based. The other type of argument is basically, it's linguistically wrong because it sounds awkward. As we are writing for a Gentle Reader, we should not put them off by awkwardness. Some awkwardness is inevitable when describing events over several thousand years (old Earth history, to the settlement of the Star Kingdom, to the latest known events in and around the MA's Oyster Bay. But I suggest that consistency is overrated in this case. An article about, say, Treecats, should not be awkward to the ear, lest the Gentlr Reader be off put. And, in any cae, I don't see MA's situation as entirely applicable. Their series are less character bound than Weber's, if only because based on independent TV serials produced, acted, written by different folks. Weber imposes a kind of unity on this one, modulo authorial continuity slips and slops. Still clangs to the fluent speaking ear, and seriously so. And all the discussion did not, as nearly as I can tell, actually reach a policyu decision. Various folks at various times announced such a decision, and none that I found received much support. Still up in the air there, on the basis of this record. Perhaps not relevant ot here however, whatever decision is (or hasn't) adopted there.

Glad to see that you're policing my edits. For typos alone, I seem to need a keeper. Why are they invisible? To the writer, I mean. Wikipedia ww 04:15, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

(It's obvious) I'm a not a native speaker/wrighter and from perspective of my native langage (Polish) any descriptions in present tenses concerning Honorverse (or any "future" fiction, are really ankward, and similar to teenagers' way with words). I can be wrong, but our "past tenses policy" some way can be related with passive voice (many years passed since the end of my formal education).--dotz 19:16, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

Were there a Polish Honorverse wiki, I'd be hopeless. I know only one phrase and it's not suitable. But in this instance, we are writing not for ourselves, but for a Gentle Reader. And since we are here, in some sense, publishing we cannot rely entirely on casual phrases and meaning sketched more than actually stated. There should be a certain formality to our writing, and that suggests we observe certain standards. Just which, well... In the case of the tenses I've spoken of here, the fluent English ear just hears clang and clunk with the policy as carried out. Not good writing and doesn't meet this suggested standard for a certain formality.

There is no good solution, given the fact that the events described are taking place in an imaginary future time (not yet completed -- HH may yet die), and yet English has a present tense usage which fits some of this. It is horribly clanging to hear chess discussed as if it had ceased to exist at some point. The usual English convention is what I mentioned above as the 'fiction present tense'. It's found in novels in describing circumstances, background, etc and is not entirely out of place in an enterprise such as this. It leads to oddities, but the question is not really what doesn't, but which policy reads better most of the time. English has a large number of tenses (some of which look the same as others for some reason) and fluent use of them is one of the oddest corners of an odd language. Most people were baffled when they studied the more exotic flavors in school, and nearly all have abandoned any pretense at worrying about the problem in practical life. This is inadequate for us as we're not dealing with practical life, but with the somewhat formal publishing sort of thing I mentioned above.

You may be able to suggest a parallel instance in Polish. I certainly cannot. Piotrus is likewise originally Polish as I understand it, and he may have an idea or two for constructing tense conundrums in Polish.

And I think some of this discussion would be well moved off of SF's talk page. As you noted (below) it's become something of a discussion forum. Ideas how to do so? Wikipedia ww 08:13, September 8, 2009 (UTC)

Well, forgot about Polish. A historian writes like this [7] (SF will be probably so kind to move that discusson elsewhere).--dotz 16:48, September 8, 2009 (UTC)

Completing a change of your talk page into forum let me add some side issues:

• Our tempus principle could be stated somewhere on the main page, something like "we are (crazy)(quasi-)historians paying a tribut to Kalpriades and Hester McReynolds". I hope such mission statement would let to avoid some misunderstandings and disputes.
• Long articles are less attractive to read (even mine). The best compromise is to extract suitable sections as separate articles and leave a link there (eg. section title, short note and link to a main article). Good example is treecats physiology (we will know about it more and more).
• Last but not least - you guys got me interested in treecats.
• BTW - where can I find list of treecats deleted from WP? (not present at deletionpedia)

dotz 15:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Preview button

People, could you please make a little more use of the preview button before you safe your edits? Its really no problem if there's a typo now and then, but things like Star Knigdom of Manticore or Sile4ian Confederacy (happens to all of us all the time) are rather easy to spot and avoid that way. I'm really spending too much time correcting that kind of stuff.

Best regards and Death to Mesa! -- SaganamiFan 08:24, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Taking into account present course of the plot Alliance, Haven, Leage and other decent nation will be in alliance with Mesa and Alignment, because some real real threat will apper (eg. Klingons). --dotz 09:09, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

My money is on Species 8472... or maybe Cylons! --- SaganamiFan 09:12, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

BTW I can see "das Boot" problem (ships referred as "it") :))--dotz 09:13, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

I know, just sounds strange to me... in Germany we sometimes refer to ships as female, but never in writing... -- SaganamiFan 12:08, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Thats Why I try to put the vessel rather than it or at least I try to mix it up a bit. Besides what wrong with the Star Knigdam of Manticore, I used to have property there and the Sile4ian Confederacy were a rowdy group of guys, but they were nice. --Farragut79 21:20, September 5, 2010 (UTC)

5,000 Article Milestone

What is the 5,000th article? Congrats guys, we have reached a good milestone that places us in the top wikis with the number of articles. --Farragut79 14:23, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

The honor goes to the article Justin Loyola, author DarkScribe. At what seems like a very long time ago, I said I expect us to become the predominant internet source on the Honorverse. I would say we have reached this goal, even though there is always a lot more to do. Congrats to everyone, love working with u guys!!! -- SaganamiFan 15:00, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

One objective reached. Now onto the next. I don't know about everyone else, but I think it would be cool if this site were like Star Trek's Memory Alpha. 32.000 articles. Let's be about it! -- DarkScribe 17:52, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

To reach that goal DW must write a lot more books! :-) Also, didn't they say they wanted to make HH into a movie or a television miniseries some time ago? -- SaganamiFan 21:23, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

Congrats. I am optimist - here we got still 629 wanted pages? --dotz 22:54, September 22, 2010 (UTC)