Talk:Planets in science fiction/Archive 2

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Archive 2
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Contents

This list is vastly incomplete

I am an avid Sci-fi watcher and almost every planet I can think of isn't on here.

Look at this: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Category:Planets just see how many Star Trek planets we are missing.

Look at this: http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/planets/index.shtml just see how many stargate planets are missing. There are way more than that.

I don't think this article should exsit. It is impossible to complete. Even if somehow admazingly we found a way to get the 20,000+ planets that are out there, by the time we finshed, there would be thousands more. Tobyk777 02:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the appropriate thing to do is to link to existing lists of planets where that is appropriate: there are already lists and/or categories of Star Trek planets, Star Wars planets, and if there isn't a Stargate planets list then there should be. That should cut it down considerably. RandomCritic 03:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • That would be a good idea—otherwise this list will grow to monstrous porportions! BTW: you might want to include a link to Cthulhu mythos celestial bodies—this article is validated by both primary and secondary sources.
Great list, thanks - RandomCritic 18:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


I also have two unrelated concerns. First, I'm not so sure that Category:Fictional planets should be listed under Planets in science fiction#Similar fictions. This seems redundant may be a misuse of the template.

Good point. RandomCritic 18:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Secondly, the following line under Planets in science fiction#Planet lists may violate Wiki standards (italics added for emphasis):

For planets from specific fictional milieux, use the following lists and categories, or use Wikipedia's search box on this page:

I don't think articles are supposed to refer to Wiki-related things—primarily because if the article is duplicated elsewhere, the search box reference will be meaningless (moreover, if the page is printed, you can't very well use a search box on a paper copy!)
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 05:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, but how do you deal with the fact that this article is mistitled (since it is more a reference to articles about planets than an article about planets) and that, like all of Wikipedia, it can be used as fast reference. Somebody looking rapidly for more information on, say, Caladan and Alderan will not read all the detail of all the text of the article and jump instead to the most apparent alphabetical listing. Seeing that Alderan and Caladan are not in the list the person will immediatly go away with a bad impression, or will conclude that a much needed correction is in order and do it, adding Caladan and Alderan. --AlainV 08:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Related list

I converted the information here into the list List of fictional planets by medium which I think is probably easier to search. I don't know how anyone is supposed to find anything in this article, which seems to have been abandoned in mid-transformation.

Query

Would it be appropriate to return this page to a plain alphabetized listing, and to calve off the specialized sections (unusual environment, etc.) into their own pages? RandomCritic 03:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Deletions

Deleted the following:

  • Cirron-Tracker
  • Dessaria-Tracker
  • Nodul-Tracker
  • Orsus-Tracker
  • Varda-Tracker

Mentioned as a good example of what this list should not look like: four names with no links, one with a link to something that is not a planet, completely uninformative descriptions. What is "Tracker"? Novel? Video game? Why are these planets interesting? What makes them different from any other planet? RandomCritic 22:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Plans

Considering some of the concerns about the length of this list, I propose the following:

I. Needing Work

  • To omit any planet that does not have its own page.

I don't think this is a good idea. A little bit of information on a planet is better than none, which is what will happen for many planets this way. --AlainV 03:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I second AlainV's concern. One of the major advantages of this article over Category:Fictional planets is the ability to list planets without articles. The information provided here can also be used as a stub for editors who decide later to create an article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate these concerns, but I have some additional ones of my own. One which has already been discussed is space; not just that the article can get so long as to make the Wikipedia engine grumble, but that it can get long enough to stop being very useful as a search tool.
The more important issue, however, is quality control. When an entry has a corresponding article, it's possible to doublecheck the information given in the entry fairly easily; when there isn't one, checking the information can range from difficult to impossible. This article has already hosted some spoof entries - made up on the spot, I guess to check whether anyone was paying attention. There may well be more that haven't been discovered. There are also just ordinary errors, as well as the problem of making routine links by dropping a name within double brackets, without ever checking to see whether the link goes to the right place (assuming there's a place to go to). This absence of accuracy (and attention) makes the article much less useful than it could be.
When there's a planet list within an article, or group of articles, that fans and experts on a particular author or film or game regularly visit, then errors get spotted and deleted quickly. This page, however, is nobody's page of first resort; it's a combination jumping-off point for further research and grab-bag of miscellaneous information. Especially in a very long list, it's difficult to find and correct errors, and the people who best know the correct information are least likely to come here.
It's therefore highly desirable, in my view, to maintain some sort of linkage between this list and information which is being independently checked. That does not necessarily have to be a link to a specific planet article; it could be a link to an article which includes a description of the planet and the context/medium in which it appears. The entries for Majipoor and Solaris, for instance, don't take you to specific planet entries but to articles about the books in which the planet is mentioned.
If a fictional planet is significant enough to be mentioned here, then it ought to be significant enough either to have, at least, a stub, or a section within another relevant page. Where they aren't found, they can - and I think should - be created. RandomCritic 13:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right that each of those planets deserves at least a short article. But who's going to write it? Eventually, if there is little vandalism or negative editing most of the notable planets might get an article, but that might be far away in the meantime a list of planets with just some basic facts for each is really a useful reference. By taking out those lines of information you're destroying that reference tool as well as destroying a jump-off point. --AlainV 00:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Assuming that all the 90-odd planets that were there before should go back in (and that they all really have real referents, which I'm not sure of) then it's just a matter of time to fix all the links, create articles and/or sections where absolutely necessary, and put them back in. Probably a couple of weeks to a month. RandomCritic 01:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that you are going to do it? I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the classics of science fiction like Damon Knight did but looking fast at the ones you took out I can see at least half of the line entries refer to planets which have been featured in science fiction novels and stories which have been many times reprinted over the last 50 years and are certainly notable. --AlainV 08:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, most of them look quite worthwhile. I have been gradually putting them back into the main list as I find (or create) links. If you count you'll see we're already down to (73>)14 from 90. RandomCritic 15:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


No links

The following entries have no link to a planet page. They can be fixed by creating a planet page or finding a relevant link to or within another relevant article.

Planets of questionable significance

Apparently only tangentially referred to?
Westerfeld is a pretty obscure author. He does have a Wikipedia article, but only since the last couple of weeks.
Seems more like a casual reference than a prominent location in these books.
Unclear if this plays an important part in Williams' trilogy.
  • Eylor – In Rifts, a living world said to be the source of the magical Eyes of Eylor, living disembodied eyes of great power.
Seems like it's only a casual reference.
  • Poseidon (planet) — Blue Planet Roleplaying game (ocean world)
I don't feel competent to create a stub about this RPG.
Is anybody even playing these games any more?

Should go in a "List of Chronicles of Riddick planets"

Cannot find references outside Wikipedia

  • Acid planet — Total Annihilation (Corrosive oceans with forests of explosive gasbag plants) [unverified]
  • Bimnorii in C. C. Ekeke's Star Brigade: First Renaissance (desert world) [unverified]
  • Timbl — Home planet of the Frants in Greg Bear's Eon series [unverified]
  • Zeid – In C. C. Ekeke's Star Brigade: First Renaissance (gas giant with habitable atmosphere pockets) [unverified]
Ekeke is a very obscure author of juvenile space opera. Vanity reference?