13 replies to this topic

[Scafloc]

Some time ago when we were discussing how an article should be written we decided to take Jaime Lannister as an example. At that time Ser Greguh noticed that the parts
of the Jaime Lannister up to A Feast of Crows were written in the past tense and from that point in the present tense:

Quote

Any thoughts on verb tenses? Right now these are kind of all over the place. In the Jaime article we're using for reference, all the events prior to Feast are described in the past tense, but the Feast section is in the present tense. I really don't like that. I've used the breakpoint between past/present tense to be anything that happened prior to the start of the books, and the present tense for anything that occurs within the books themselves. Thus, I would say:

"Jaime Lannister was born in Casterly Rock", but
"When Bran Stark discovers his illicit affair with Cersei, Jaime throws him from a window."

Maybe the explanation of the inconsistent use was because for the writer of the article was  reading AFFC short time.

Anyway I agreed and because nobody objected since then we have done it like that. (No doubt there are exceptions).

But like Pale Griffin pointed out how do we handle major changes (in a character or house) that occur during the books? Do we keep using present tense although can seems strange.
For instance House Tully is attained in AFFC.

Should the article then still state that the house is the overlord of the Riverlands? That seems weird.
We could say that the house was overlord of the Riverlands.
An other possibility is saying that at the time of the books the house is overlord of the Riverlands. And then further in the article state that House Tully is attained and loses their overlordship and so on.

So let us hear your opinions please.

[Evrach]

Both seems ok ; the only thing is to do the same everywhere to avoid confusion ^^

On LGDN we had almost the same discussion a long time ago and decided to put all in AGOT_present. Informations on the top of the article (before the first title) are always without spoilers so present at the time AGOT starts (so "the house Tully IS overlord of the Riverlands") and after, in the AFFC section of the article, it is said that it loses the overlordship. So we choose ~ the third possibility you mentionned.

Edited by Evrach, 25 August 2010 - 05:56 PM.

[Ran]

I think the third option sounds like it makes the most sense to me.

[Ran]

It's a fair point to wonder about events that take place before this. Like the Dunk & Egg stories. I suppose 'At the time we're introduced to Ser Duncan the Tall" and stick to present-tense throughout there... but it may be best to use the start of the series as the absolute point -- anything prior to the start of the series is paste tense (including Dunk and Egg) and anything after is present tense. Or something.

I see that this is basically the situation that Scafloc notes as our present policy, but I'm not sure if we thought about it further back in the setting.

[The Pale Griffin]

The problem with writing that is that in every article you have to separate incidents. For example, Blackfyre. Part of the knowledge before Dunk & Egg is told from the ASoIaF point of view. Then you have the info from Dunk & Egg. Then you have more info that comes from after the events of Dunk & Egg. So at the very least the Dunk & Egg stuff is left in the past. However at what point does new stuff become past. The War of the Five Kings is ending, like it says in the books and the War of the Three Queens is beginning. If all that is in the same tense it gets awfully confusing.

This also plays to much more than just the first sentence of articles. Do we leave House Tully as Lords Paramount of the Riverlands in the info boxes at the bottom of the page? Do I remove the category:extinct houses from House Hollard? Do I leave House Hollard as a noble house? Do I remove all the tags that display people as dead, like in the family trees denoting death?

On character pages do I put Ser Preston Greenfield is a member of the Kingsguard....which makes perfect sense until you read the Kingsguard page, where he's listed as dead without a ACOK heading.

What about new made houses, like Slynt? Should they not appear in the info boxes at all, same for Foote of Nightsong, Baelish of Harrenhal, Tyrell of Brightwater Keep?

Furthermore, what about the info boxes within the articles themselves? Does Lord Tywin remain Current Lord or does Cersei take over? What about Edmure, does he remain heir? It may make sense to the person who has not read the books, but absolutely none to the person who has finished A Feast for Crows. Since that information is placed right next to the intro paragraph...I still do not see the point.

This affects much more than just how an intro to an article is written.

Edited by The Pale Griffin, 26 August 2010 - 06:21 PM.

[Scafloc]

Hmm the Dunk Egg is a bit complicated. But most of information is from the Dunk and Egg stories. So I think we can use the present tense.
And for small parts of information from ASOIAF it will not be a problem to fit it in.
And for larger parts; for instance Egg / Aegon's death we could say something like that the Dunk / Egg stories don't mention their death but that in ASOIF this or that person remembers Aegon's death and so on.

For House Tully I think there is not problem saying that at the beginning of the books they are Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. And in the ASOS part saying that they are attained and that Riverrun is taken away from them.

House Slynt is harder. Let me try:
Intro:
House Slynt is noble house that is founded during ASOIAF by Janos Slynt a former butcher.

A Game of thrones:
Eddard tries to bribe Janos through Petyr Baelish. Janos refuses and unknown to Eddard makes a deal with Baelish to take the site of the Lannisters. For this he is created Lord Paramount of the Riverlands and is given Harrenhal as seat. Harrenhal is taken away by Tyrion Lannister who gives it to Petyr. He promises that another smaller lordship will be found for Janos eldest son. And so on.


It is late; I'll think about the trees and templates tomorrow.

Edited by Scafloc, 26 August 2010 - 07:13 PM.

[Ran]

These are all very good points, and I think that's why discussing something and taking time to make sure it's right is a good call.

I admit, some of those points you raise seem difficult to answer given current policy. Any thoughts, anyone, about how to reconcile all of this? I admit that I like the idea of preserving some sense of spoiler-protection, by being able to deal with mutable details in a way that people only read about changes in a chronological context, rather than being presented with the current state of play right off the bat. But maybe that's simply too difficult, and should be abandoned.

[The Pale Griffin]

Thank you for the attempt Scafloc, and I understand you will get make an attempt on templates tomorrow/today]].

The problem of the info boxes right next door to the intro paragraph concerning the Slynt article. In the opening paragraph you would talk about Janos Slynt, but then in the info box it would list Morros Slynt as the head of the house...which would lead the reader who has not read the books to realize that something happened to Janos.

In the article Aegon V, in the intro paragraph we learn that Aegon only got the throne after Maester Aemon refused it. Would that be spoilerish for Maester Aemon? It is only revealed late in A Game of Thrones if I remember correctly. The fact that Aemon is a Targ is a big reveal in the books. Outing him like this in the first paragraph of an article that would be visited by people looking to read up on the Dunk & Egg stories would make it a spoiler for the main series.

If we leave it in the present tense then Jon Arryn remains Lord of the Eyrie, you cannot reveal Jaime and Cersei's incest anywhere except in their respective AGOT sections (so out goes all those family trees), the monarch templates come off Daenerys, Joffrey, Stannis, Renly and Tommen. There can be no mention of dragons, or being a queen at all in the first paragraph of Daenerys's intro. Same for Margaery Tyrell or titles like Queen Regent, King's Hand or Lord Commander of the Night's Watch for Jon Snow. No mention of husbands or marriages that happen within the books in the info plates like Khal Drogo or Tyrion.......everything remains static to the beginning of A Game of Thrones (the very beginning, because Jon Arryn is listed as dead in the appendices and that is a significant event in the books). The info plates start to fall apart.

On the other hand, you could do like Tower of the Hand and make a filter. I have no idea how to do that so that would be someone else project. That way you could make a page for each book (keeping the AGOT then progressively the ACOK and so on) for each character|house page and have the people use the filter to read what they want to read.

Edited by The Pale Griffin, 27 August 2010 - 04:53 AM.

[Evrach]

The Pale Griffin, on 27 August 2010 - 04:51 AM, said:

On the other hand, you could do like Tower of the Hand and make a filter. I have no idea how to do that so that would be someone else project. That way you could make a page for each book (keeping the AGOT then progressively the ACOK and so on) for each character|house page and have the people use the filter to read what they want to read.

Not really difficult but it need a "javascript" extension of mediawiki to work.

[Ran]

That can be arranged, if that's deemed the best course to take.

[Evrach]

I haven't test yet, we're planning to install it on lgdn's too now that we have changed the server and have a bigger dedicated server for the wiki than can bear it. In addition, it's a good way to put the ADWD spoiler information on the wiki without bother people that don't read ADWD spoilers infos.

[Ran]

Cool. Let us know how it works out.

[Scafloc]

The information about Jon's death is in the first Catelyn chapter of the books. As the first chapter is a day before that Jon probably died before the books (or right after the prologue which a few weeks before the first chapter). So to me there is no problem of speaking of Jon is past tense.

Then the templates and let's look at the most difficult ones: where do Cersei's children fit? There was also a a discussion about that. My opinion at that time was to include them in the Lannister tree as children of Jaime. And in the Baratheon tree as children of Robert.

PG rightly pointed out that this is inconsistent with showing the story in the present tense. So with this in mind I think it is better to show them only as children of Cersei and Robert. That is the information at the beginning of the books.
It is not perfect but at least it is consistent.

Then Khal Drogo and his marriage to Daenerys. The only reason Khal Drogo is in the books is because he marries Daenerys. So how can we not mention his marriage? Also the marriage is common knowledge and happens in the beginning of the books. So mention this in the character template?
I think we should not mention his death in the template. In the template we try to give some general information. In the case of Khal Drogo this does include his marriage, without it there is basically no general info. But making mention of his death is not necessary; there is enough general info without this.

I must say that a filter would be great. Is this something that you can simply install? And how do you trigger it?

[Evrach]

If the wiki supports java codes, you can implent "animated" templates. For exemple, on the George R. R. Martin page on wikipedia, down, you can hide/show the frame by clicking on "hide" or "show" (right). When you wrote the article, you can choose if the template is "hidden" or "shown" naturaly when a people arrive on the page for the first time.
That's just an exemple of what it is possible, but one of the most useful for spoilers.