User talk:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections
Organizing principles
I've organized all the various series and such on these principles:
1) Real-world chronology. Within each section, all subsections are arranged in real-world chronological order, even if that doesn't follow the fiction. This helps achieve the best approximation of prominence, roughly following the creative flow that produced a series. A negative example is BW Megatron's article, which begins with an incredibly obscure tidbit from a Japanese toy catalog that was made well after the character's first series. This elevates that tidbit to an undue state of importance, as though it had any kind of influence over the series that are listed after it. Likewise "Dawn of Futures Past," "Theft of the Golden Disk," etc. Derivative works should, I think, come after the works that inspired them.
2) Subsections by continuity. As fractured as the TF multiverse is, we can still preserve some amount of continuity flow. For example, the "Beast cartoon continuity" section begins with the BW 'toon, which exists within the G1/Beast family but is independent of all specific G1 continuities that preceded it. BWII, BWNeo, BM, etc., all follow in chronological order within their continuity because they're directly connected to BW in their fictions, even if they aren't connected to each other. We work our way up to the present day (as IDW-BW is yet another direct continuation of BW), then we jump back out to IDW-G1, which came after BW but is not connected to it and is similarly independent of all G1 fiction that preceded it.
2) Section-titles as links. Not only is this just a self-evidently good practice to keep readers fully informed, but it also helps address an issue I've pondered: TF continuity is fairly nonlinear, and we can only do so much with our page format to show what really follows from what. The Classics comic is a perfect example, where every time it comes up, there's a continuity note about how it disregards G2 and UKG1. To be consistent, we'd have to have a LOT of notes about how BW follows from no single G1 continuity, BM has no particular connection to J-BW, 3H-BW and IDW-BW are mutually exclusive, etc., etc. But if all the section-titles are links, we can forget about trying to keep the readers super-informed, as they then have tools to easily do their own research.
3) "Publisher + continuity + media" over specific titles. When I'm uniformed about a topic, I find it more confusing to see a title like "Linkage" than "Micron Legend DVD pack-in comics." Despite the brevity and specificity of the former, it's acutally more obfuscating to a reader who isn't already in the know.
That's all I can think of. I'll add more if they occur to me. Discuss!
- Jackpot 00:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Japanese continuity
Small issue. Beast Wars II and Neo are definitely in continuity with the original cartoon. Also, links shouldn't be in section titles; storylinks should be used instead. —Interrobang 00:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, thanks for pointing out the BWII/Neo thing. I've made a change that will hopefully clarify how I see continuity-subdivision working. Also, see above for my thoughts on title-linking. - Jackpot 00:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
