Talk:List of Oz characters (created by Baum)

Metaphor

I just found out that this entire book is a metaphor refencing the populist party in the early 1900's, WOW!

No it isn't. Read the wikipedia article on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the accompanying talk page, you'll see. --Woggly 11:25, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dorothy's Aunt and Uncle

There should be entries on Dorothy's aunt and uncle!

Why not write them yourself? --Woggly 11:25, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I posted the aunt and uncle's names, their is now links for you to write the articals under. --Wack'd About Wiki 22:22, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Names of Witches

I noticed that each which has two articals - one named by their actual name (example: Glinda), and one with their title (example: Good Witch of the North). THESE ARTICALS SHOULD BE MERGED. Do you agree? --Wack'd About Wiki 22:51, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's not true. There are four witches, and one article for each: Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked Witch of the East, Good Witch of the North, and Glinda. In the Oz canon, Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, not North. AJD 23:46, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Oz

I have created a new WikiProject about Oz: WikiProject Oz. I hope to create a community to help guide the continued development of the articles about the series and its authors, characters, etc. toward even more quality articles. If you are interested, please add your name under the "Participants section" and please leave any comments or questions on the project's talk page or my user talk page. [[User:JonMoore|— —JonMoore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 00:04, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Heretical?

The article states that Gregory Maguire's Wicked and its sequel are "heretical" -- is it just me or does that seem a little strong? Not to mention certainly POV? I'm not changing it because I don't want to step on any toes, and frankly I'm not a huge fan of Wicked either, but characterizing Wicked as heresy a very strong opinion and...well, it seems kind of pissy. Maybe "non-canonical" instead? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.118.75.118 (talk) 01:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"Heretical" is a common term in publications such as The Baum Bugle for books that explicitly contradict or otherwise go against the grain of the canon, as opposed to "non-canonical" works that are simply not in the canon but don't have contradictory material. Wicked contradicts Baum as a matter of course, and "heretical" is the appropriate term.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment on articles for individual television episodes and characters

A request for comments has been started that could affect the inclusion or exclusion of episode and character, as well as other fiction articles. Please visit the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Final_adoption_as_a_guideline. Ikip (talk) 11:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Remove the list?

Right now, we have a long list of characters. Most of them are redlinks; and if they were ever created they'd just eventually get merged back here anyway. I say we ditch the list in favor of descriptions; or at the very least unlink and columnize the list. Purplebackpack89 02:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Restore the list

Take away the links, but put the list back.--01:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottandrewhutchins (talk • contribs)

Why? Lists like that should be avoided...if you think a character is important, he should have a short blurb; if there isn't enough information for the blurb, he shouldn't be mentioned as he's not really encyclopedic. Also, why didn't you say something about this weeks ago before I started BOLDly doing this? Purplebackpack89 01:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you not familiar with the term "work in prgoress?" This is a lot of work, and so far no one has been doing this. And then we have to make sure that if people did that they didn't plagiarize Who's who in Oz. Your edits are not bold. They are disruptive. Please stop. Restore what you did or I'll give you a vandalism warning. I'm not going to do it myself, because you've made work for me, but I'm not going to let you delete any more. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 21:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason I didn't say anything before is because user:toddst1 blocked me for two weeks because he doesn't understand WP:Offensive.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 21:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I can cite numerous policies that a) the list, linked or unlinked, doesn't belong in the first place (WP:NOT), and b) that if you want it back, you'll have to do it yourself (WP:SOFIXIT). I'll take the warning; it will be in error as the policy concerning it is squarely on my side. Also, you're coming way to late to the discussion...you should have said something when I started doing what I was doing, not now when I'm almost done Purplebackpack89 21:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

How was I supposed to do it when an admin got overzealous and violated Wikipedia policy in blocking me? He has been reported to the Arbitration Committee.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 02:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

That's beside the point...if you think the list should be reconstituted (and I don't; I've explained why before), you should explain with with a backing in POLICY. Purplebackpack89 04:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

To interested parties: further discussion can be found at User talk:Purplebackpack89, where Scottandrewhutchins and I both expand on our ideas. Purplebackpack89 17:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC

Please comment about the restoration of the list. Purplebackpack89 isnists that the characters are not bnotable because they were redlinked without a blurb. I assert that the characters are notable, but before so many of the major characters' articles were movied to this page, they were done as individual pages, and hence he created extra work for me with his disruptive edits. I would like the list restored, with blurbs to be added. Purplebackpack89 refuses to restore his disruptive edits and insists that he removed non-notable information.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you mean to start one of these? Scott, the articles that were merged here aren't major characters, they are non-notable, and the discussion to merge them was agreed upon by a majority of participants. The ones that were redlinked are even less notable, often only appearing in a single chapter, have no kind of reception or development, and should be left out. My edits were not disruptive, and above I explain why it is not my responsibility to undo BRD changes Purplebackpack89 17:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, here's the position I'm advocating:

• Major characters with their own articles have a short blurb summarizing that article and a {{main}} template linking to the article
• Minor characters have a blurb, either short or long depending on the amount of information on that characters
• Characters that don't have blurbs are not listed in any way
• Characters will not be listed here until they get a blurb

I had done blurbs I think to the letter O, plus a few more. Note before I was editing, this article had no blurbs, just a list of some bluelinks and a lotta lotta redlinks. Purplebackpack89 17:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of major characters that got removed, including protagonists.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 23:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

So? The community agreed to that. What's at issue is a long list of unimportant characters with no reception, and that list should stay removed unless they are going to be describe, and then only added back when they are described Purplebackpack89 23:17, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Responding to the RfC notice--yes, please, do not include that insanely long list of minor characters. Per WP:NOT, "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner...". While that specific paragraph is about plot summaries, the principle applies equally to a massive list of characters. We do not want or need an exhaustive list of every single character that has ever appeared in one or more of the Oz books--only the most important and notable. Now, y'all can certainly argue about which of characters meet those standards, but I'm sure some sort of standard could be derived (probably based on number of pages, scenes, or chapters appeared in). There's another site called Oz Wiki where this information would be appropriate, but Wikipedia is not that place. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• I see no reason why we cant have a comprehensive list. The published Who's Who in Oz already does something similar, so the concept is not new. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Because of WP:NOT, as Qwyrxian and I have stated. If they're non-notable and a blurb isn't written about them, it should be tossed. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 15:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

To concur with that, Norton, an encyclopedia is fundamentally different than a "Who's Who" book. We provide summary-level information of the most important points about subjects, not an exhaustive list of everything related to that subject. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Third opinion

Response to third opinion request (disagreement on inclusion of non-notable characters at end of list):

I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on List of Oz characters and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

Per WP:FICTLIST, I recommend keeping the list of minor/non-notable characters (and de-linking any articles that do not exist). The list of minor characters is unobtrusive and comes at the end of the article. WP:NOT gives only general advice for this sort of information and does not expressly prohibit the inclusion of non-notable characters when a list is notable overall. However, WP:FICTLIST expressly permits the inclusion of the non-notables. Given that the list is already not a smooth read, even for the major/notable characters, I do not believe that it is unduly hurt by the non-notables at the end. Individual readers looking for information on Oz characters will benefit by finding that information, even when it's at the end of the list (and realizing that no further information exists).—Infoman99 (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Just for reference, there is no 3O request--there's an RfC open, which is above, seeking the invitation of multiple editors. Second, did you actually see the list of non-notable characters? Without the list, on my monitor, the article is 16 "pages" long; with the minor character list, it's 43 pages long--that's over 2.5 times longer. That is, simply put, ridiculous. I think you may have seen this list while it only contained P-Z, as the prior editor had mistakenly failed to remove all of the non-notable characters. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, regarding the 3O issue, I see that both a 3O and an RfC were opened, oddly enough...Qwyrxian (talk) 13:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no "list of non-notable characters." The characters that do not currently have blurbs are not "non-notable," and include some major characters. Some editors are equating the two concepts, and this is pure nonsense. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 17:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

If they contain major characters (which I doubt), create blurbs for them. But most of those characters on that list are very non-notable...they have no reception at all, and only appear in the story for a chapter or two. Also, any character that only appears in fan fiction is non-notable. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 18:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, there are problems on both sides here. It's true that we can have information on relevant minor characters, and that a list can remain even without a full description as long as those descriptions are currently being added. Personally, I prefer not to add things until I can describe them, but others disagree. However, Purplebackpack89 is correct that we need some sort of standard to determine who should be in the this article. We absolutely should not have a list of every single named entity who appears in one of the books--that's a clear violation of WP:NOT. Even more clearly, characters that do no appear in the books obviously cannot be here--fan fiction characters may not be on this list, without any discussion, because it is a flat out lie to say "X is an 'Oz character'", when they do not appear in an "Oz books". So, we need a consensus on how to decide who belongs on this list. Do either of you have a suggestion for what might be a reasonable standard? Qwyrxian (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I did not add any fan fiction characters. The parameters I set forth were characters from Baum, Thompson, Neill, Snow, Cosgrove-Payes, McGraw, Martin, Shanower, or Sherwood Smith. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 18:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

How Purplebackpack89 Would Limit it

Qwyrxian wanted a reasonable standard. I gave Scott a chance to shoot first, and now I'll go:

1. Do not list characters that don't have blurbs
2. Limit it to the Famous Forty (the books after that aren't very notable)
3. Limit it to characters who have a role in the plot, or have reception (Now take the Hoppers and the Horners, for example, who I believe appear in the Patchwork Girl. They're just freaks who the the main characters visit; they don't really. Or take Smith & Tinker when it was an article. That's just about people who names appear on Tik-Tok's machinery)
4. And with regard to actual articles, limit it to characters who have a titular role in a book, an important role in several books, and/or have lots of reception Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 21:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I would say that the Hoppers and Horners belong on a page like this, as do Smith & Tinker. Smith & tinker don't need an article (I don't think I created it), but they definitely belong here. Notable author James Howe after all, wrote an apocryphal sequel published by Random House called Mister Tinker in Oz, in which the title character comes down from the moon.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Whoa whoa whoa...just because an author is notable, that doesn't make his books notable; and even if the books are notable, that doesn't make. We don't need to describe, or even list, every little character. We need to REMOVE the pointless list of redlinks that's there now. Please read WP:GNG and WP:FANCRUFT Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 17:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I want to concur with the latter part of Purplebackpack's comment, and place it alongside something Scottandrewhutchins said, "The parameters I set forth were characters from Baum, Thompson, Neill, Snow, Cosgrove-Payes, McGraw, Martin, Shanower, or Sherwood Smith. " I have no opinion on which authors to limit it to, although you do need to limit it to some. But whatever authors you choose, you should not include every single character in those books. That's simply unencyclopedic. I'm repeating myself, by WP:NOT explicitly says, "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner...". It is completely improper for us to list every single named entity in every book by a subset of authors. I think point #3 above comes close to what makes sense: we should focus only on characters that are integral to the plot. My feeling is that it is probably easier to start with a more limited list first (only characters that obviously play a role in multiple plot points across multiple "chapters"/"scenes" who are described in detail and without whom the book would make no sense), then you can argue over the smaller characters. But the key is that Scottandrewhutchins needs to understand/accept the purpose of this list: not to be exhaustive, but to be encyclopedic. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing every character that lacks a blurb is not the best move either. Certainly Percy and Jam (both from The Hidden Valley of Oz are notable. Jam doesn't have a blurb, but Purplebackpack86 deleted my blurb about Percy last time I submitted it. Percy appears in every Cosgrove Oz story, in spite of some of the negative criticism the character has received, and that's in print, not just discussion boards.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 16:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The "doesn't have a blurb" isn't, I think, the criteria we're discussing. We're trying to decide how significantly a character must be represented in the books (and which books), to deserve inclusion. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It was "meat glue" in the text not only in the picture

I have a First Edition of The Tin Woodman of Oz (you can identify first editions of this particular book easily, because the first edition was published just before Reilly and Britton changed to Reilly and Lee, and only the first edition bears the name Reilly and Britton on the spine and title-page) and the glue which Ku-Klip the tinsmith used to glue body-parts together was most definitely MEAT glue in the text, not "magic glue". In fact, before I got my first edition I had several other later editions, including the large-sized paperbacks put out when I was collecting them in the late 1960s or early 1970s (I don't remember exactly how old I was when I got the paperback, but I kept it in my family's beach-house in Maine so I could read it while we were vacationing there) and it was "meat glue" in that edition as well - the text, not only the drawing by Jno R Neill. In fact I don't recall ever seeing "magic glue" until after the internet emerged in the 1990s.

I don't know when the powers that be decided to revise the text and the history, but it most definitely is a revision. I am entering the change, with a reference to the first edition itself. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 02:46, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

UPDATE The authoritative world expert on all things Oz, Michael Patrick Hearn (author of The Annotated Wizard of Oz) tells me that when Morrow and Books of Wonder produced their line of reprints of the Oz books, closely resembling early editions, they made several changes to the texts, likely including that one ("meat glue" changed to "magic glue"). Since my only source for this information is a personal communication from Michael, this would be original research, so I'm not entering it into the article. I am, however, keeping the change from "error in the picture" to "different wording in the original editions". I hope the text in the early editions can serve as the source source, although it's a primary source. In any case, the assertion in the article (before I modified it) that the picture was the only place where the term "meat glue" appeared, and that it was Jno R. Neill's error, was also un-sourced, so the worst you can say of my modification is that it substitutes one (correct) bit of primary-sourced information for another (erroneous) one. If that bothers anyone, I would suggest removing the information about "meat glue" altogether, although that is not an optimal decision either, as other readers may be as curious about the change as I was, and it's a shame to deprive them of it and risk them losing sleep over it. As Sherlock Holmes said, one never knows when a trivial detail may not be important. The erroneous claim which I have replaced, (that the term "meat glue" only appeared in the picture, and was a drawing-error) should certainly not remain in the article, as it is not true.

Happy Holidays, HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:56, 25 December 2021 (UTC)