RingoRoadagain

Nothing to be sorry about.

I guess we should have two different categories for real person from characters. The current category seems to be 50/50 at the moment. I leave to you to decide if you want it to be real life person or character.

(of course, the real person who got incorporated into the Mythos narrative can be in both categories.)

If you mean the folks from The Battle That Ended the Century, sure. Otherwise I don’t know who that is.

I think I’ll delete the original tag and just create Deceased (Realworld) and Deceased (In Mythos).

Thanks for the speedy response,

Fil

I was more along the ines of, for instance Lovecraft himself who was a character in Robert Bloch's stories, or in the Swamp thing comics. Many Necronomicon books also give him a fictionnal biography.

Alan Moore's Providence comics intentionnally blurred the lines between reallity and fiction and many of his character exist in the real world. (lovecraft's family, bloch, ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, Robert Howard, among others)

Fair enough. I think that someone with greater knowledge on this (such as yourself) might be better placed to add the tags that I’ve missed at some point. However, I’d argue that blurring the lines between real-life individuals and story characters would mean that they need to have at least a paragraph or two explaining their fictional representation in the Mythos.

Fil

I changed the Manual of Style some weeks ago to decomission it so I delete it when I see it. I sent a notification to this wiki userbase about the update this was a part of.

Now, all articles are be considered in universe by default unless they have the realworld tag. Most wikis i went through operate as such and i did not see much of a reason to continue using that practice of the previous admin team.

I'm always up for debate but I really don't see much advantage about using it to be honest with you, especially considereing we put a mythos era tag already.

I don't think we have. Do you think it is necessary or can you just use the "infobox story" one?

I can use the "infobox story" one. Wanted to make sure I created those articles correctly. 

Hi, I'll think about and come back with an answer next week-end.

I am hesistant only because I would not want an army of wannabe moderators asking me after that.

To be perfectly honest, I would only really need the rights for a few days, just long enough to rename the files I mentioned previously. I’d be happy to have them revoked as soon as that little project is complete, if that makes any difference.

Fil

If it's jsut that you can just give me a list with the old and new names and I would do it no problem.

Sure, I can’t really think of any other reason I might need them. I’ll put together a list and pass it on in the next couple of days.

Fil

Not really, you are the first to ask to my knowledge.

Have you been an admin on a wiki before?

Besides the candidate for deletion section, is there anything you need admin rights to do?

I'm currently an admin for the Gone with the Blastwave Wiki but given that it's just under 99% smaller than this one I don't know how much of a qualification that is. Thankfully we've got a pretty healthy community so I realise that there isn't too much blocking to do there but even so there's a lot of housekeeping for one person to do. As far as admin rights go it would be handy to be able too weed out stubs and duplicate pages without just dumping all of it onto you.

I also have to admit that I'd be proud simply to be labelled an admin on a wiki I'm so fond of but I'd try not to let it go to my head.

Ultimately it's your call but I thought it would be worth throwing my hat into the ring either way.

Okay, since I never thooght about the matter before, I checked FANDOM's recommendations.

https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Help%3AUser_rights

It seems that what you ask for is cloder to "CONTENT MODERATOR" rights.

I remember that you particpated much and gave interesting opinions before you went away for some time.

Therefore, as FANDOM prefers that long standing active memebers can get user rights, I would prefer that you remind me in about a month or so after your return to make you a Content Moderator. In the meantime, to help me better assess, you can already as a normal user point to me actions you believe are required related to:

Sorry if I appear reluctant or something but I'd rather not rush such process.

To be fair I'd never heard of a content moderator before but it seems to be exacty what I was looking for. It's perfectly reasonable to want leave a gap while I get my bearings back and I look forward to working with you again. 

Ps: I've been talking to someone on another about marking pages for deletion. I've always left my explanation in the edit notes but would you prefer that it goes on the actual page?

I updated the "delete" template. You should be able to give a reason when adding it to a page.

My belief is that Mythos influenced content has its place on the wiki which is stance that already existed before my first contributions to it. Furthermore it appears that scholars such as Robert M Price consider them to be worth mentionning.

That said, I share some of the other users concerns about what could be considered lovecraftian or not. (for instance, if it's just because of Geiger-like aesthetics that does seem a little weak at first glance)

At the very least I would consider stories whose authors admitted the influence to be within the scope of the category.

To keep it sensible, I would say that any page can be created but a debate over its inclusion can be held case-by-case in its talk page. (but don't expect the conclusion to always be reached quickly). Which is basically how any wiki i know of work.

PS: I'm surprised that you could not post an URL. I'll try first try to put it in using a VPN (if i can find the address) to check if it does the same with me.

What about fiction that is cosmic horror as defined in literature and among Lovecraft-fans but which there is no known acknowledgment of his influence? Anime like Gunbuster (Space Monsters) and Gurren Lagann come to mind, and movies like Annihilation and Event Horizon. Don't recall if the writer of Alien ever acknowledged Lovecraft, but that movie meets the criteria of cosmic horror.

I don't know. In the other wikis I participate on, the page is created and if someone thinks it's in scope then we debate in the talk page.

I honestly don't know how to define the limit, as I don't really like the rule example I wrote in my previous post.

Basically create pages as you believe them to be in scope and see what sticks. It's a slow process but we will refine the rules through these sort of debates.

The reason I’m making a deal out of it is because I think that the Lovecraftian-inspired category is being used as an excuse to add articles on topics which the author wants to write about, but which don’t have any meaningful bearing on this wiki. I have absolutely no problem with the category. I don’t think that stuff should be on here just because it’s cosmic horror, Lovecraft may have been a pioneer of the genre, but he certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on it. As for J. Michael Straczynski, yes he was heavily influenced by Lovecraft, but that does not translate to everything he did being Lovecraft-influenced. I’ve searched as you suggested, and in my results, could not find a single thing linking either the Vorlons or the Shadows to Lovecraft in any relevant way. Before you ask, yes I own all of Babylon 5, Crusade and the spin-off films, and have a friend who had a hand in the miniature tabletop combat game. He has not come across any references either. The most commonly associated Babylon 5 element I have encountered appears to have been the movie Thirdspace, which was not about either the Vorlons or the Shadows.

Really? So I'm posting whatever I feel like. Funny, this wiki has been around for years. What I am posting like Babylon 5 is noted on this wiki itself as belonging before your first post.

See: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_in_popular_culture

With contributions since 2017, including by our admin. Like Babylon 5, Alien, Event Horizon, etc. Now you come along and act like you know best, the gatekeeper. Seriously?

@TheSmoog78 

Actually on this wiki, if you look at the history of "Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture", Babylon 5 has been included since 2012 during the period when the founder of this wiki "Xarden" was still active. He edited the page and didn't remove the entry. So he must have approved of Babylon 5 being included.

Fast forward to 2017, when Xarden was no longer active (last in 2016 from the looks of it). We see our current admin "RingoRoadagain " editing that page and leaving Babylon 5 in the page. He has also contributed things that you probably would say should not be in here, including in the year 2017 (all Lovecraftian in nature - cosmic horror). 

Mass Effect – Reapers

Dead Space – Brethren Moons

The Thing

Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter)

Cigarette Burns

Prometheus (Alien movie)

Alien

Event Horizon

Stranger Things

When I started posting on this wiki, I actually took a look at things. Looking for what was precedent and what has been the norm. Did you think I just out of nowhere decided to start posting pages about Babylon 5, anime like Gunbuster, and so on out of nowhere? I unlike you, apparently actually did my research as to what was on this wiki. I told everybody what I was planning to do and the only person on this whole wiki who was complained about what I am doing is you. Making it sound as if I am out of control and ruining the Lovecraft wiki.

I can see you’re only picking up on the parts of my message that you want to address. I’ll try and answer your points as they have been entered.

Babylon 5 may have a handful of elements inspired by the Mythos but this does not mean that everything in its extensive universe is Lovecraft-influenced. For example, anybody could write a story and include the term First Ones but this does not automatically translate to that piece being Lovecraft-influenced.

I began editing here a short while ago, and through my time spent here encountered content which I do not believe belongs on this wiki. Rather than just ignore them or start removing content arbitrarily, I chose to bring my concerns to the admin, which I saw as the most responsible course of action.

As for information being on the wiki for years, have you ever considered that certain pieces may have been left as editors who lacked any specific knowledge on a subject chose to leave a topic on which they are uncertain alone?

Mass Effect, Dead Space, Prince of Darkness, Cigarette Burns, I have no idea about, and as such wouldn’t consider it appropriate to comment. The Thing, Event Horizon and Stranger Things I surely do agree with. The Alien franchise, probably not.

I don’t think that you just pulled stuff from out of nowhere. I believe that these are things that you want to write about, and that at least some of them have been tenuously and misguidedly linked to the topic of Lovecraft, hence the reason I have brought them to Ringo's attention. As he has stated, collaboration on a wiki is key, and to expect to be allowed to post anything you feel like without having discussion on the subject is somewhat naive. A wave of the hand and a statement or two about how YOU feel that you know better, or that “somebody else wrote about the same show first, so anything I post about it must be alright” just doesn’t cut it for me.

I’m sorry if you feel attacked on this, but have you ever considered that others might feel the same way as me and have simply chosen not to challenge it, or do not believe that they have sufficient knowledge on the topic to argue a case?

If I remember correctly I just put things which were from other pages' trivia sections to the one you linked above, just to have them all in one place. I could have done a mistake so I think it's fair to ask, in the articles' talk pages, whether something is Lovecraftian or not but I will not make a general rule right now.

No other pages used the Mythos Influenced templates before your arrivals so we are breaking new grounds for this wiki. We probably need to adopt a rule about what could or should be covered. But since we don't, I am not sure how/if to distinguish comicism and weird fiction in general from lovecraftian and I don't want to delete a page and set a precedent without some sort of agreement. (The only thing we explicitely exclude is fanfiction --ie not professionally/comercially published works or done without aquiring proper licensing)

I am assuming good faith from other, and I would like everyone to do the same. ie not second-guessing motives behind posts but discussing the contents of these posts.

Yes I agree that it's getting difficult to consider what is lovecraftian-influenced or not. For instance, Geiger has become somewhat synonimous with Lovecraftian aesthetics such as on some special covers of Alan Moore's Providence comics but to consider all Geiger-esque art to be lovecraftian seems a stretch if it's the only link.

At the very least, i think if one of the authors mentioned the influence then it would count. Honestly i am more of "death of the author" mentality but do you think we should make it a policy?

Couldn’t hurt to make it a policy, but I’ve no idea how you would go about implementing it.

acrually this began before i arrived on the wiki. Personally, i think it would be better to follow wikipedia:WP:SUPERCAT (ie using the lowest subcategories possible and none of their parents).

'm sure (EDIT: I'm not sure) i understood your wishes correctly but is that what you are asking for?

Sure, sounds good.