Status[]
This will be to discuss status on all "real-life" mentioned characters...
I don't see what the problem is with just using "Unknown." Sure, we know that Oswald and Booth died decades ago, but using solely the context of the show, we have no information about them other than that they killed the President. It's no different than someone like Bryce Moore, who we have zero information about. Since there's no way to determine his present status from his name on a cell phone, we use Unknown. The same should apply here - forget about the real Lee Harvey Oswald, and treat him like he's a character the writers made up. There shouldn't be a double standard. --Pyramidhead 20:35, October 8, 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that a "double-standard" would be to label them outright as "Deceased" ... I do not propose we do that. To label them as "unknown" is completely unsustainable however. Either option is a lose-lose situation. Everyone with an ounce of sense who happens to be unfamiliar with this potentially troublesome policy will come and change "unknown" to "deceased"... every time. The solution is to leave out status for this diminutive handful of characters completely. The key to my argument here is to remember: nowhere does it state that every character must have a status, when you think about it! It just states which 3 statuses are viable. Blue Rook talk contribs 03:31, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- I don't like the idea of arbitrarily not including status at all; in my view that should be the one field that is included for every character. As for people changing it back, just leave a comment next to it explaining why they shouldn't. Leaving it blank, after all, is basically the same as saying "Unknown," and some people will still feel inclined to put in "Deceased." --Pyramidhead 03:41, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- I agree with Blue Rook. The "Unknown" status adds a certain weight or subtext to the article that doesn't belong there. Bryce Moore is a different case cause he was, in some way, related to the plot and is, after all, a fictional character... as opposed to Oswald or Wilkes Booth, which aren't related to the plot and aren't fictional. I mean, if a character had mentioned "Charlemagne" or "Adam and Eve" or "Christopher Columbus", would we be putting "Deceased" or "Unknown" at their sidebars? Anyone with an ounce of knowledge would know who they were talking about and wouldn't need a sidebar listing their status. Thief12 03:45, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- If we're treating the character pages as completely in-universe guides, written from an encyclopedic perspective, then whether they are fictional characters or real-life references should have no bearing on how the sidebar is treated. The second they are mentioned, they become characters in the 24 world, and should be treated as such. --Pyramidhead 03:48, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not proposing treating them any different... but in the eyes of almost anybody who stumbles upon the article, it would seem funky to read an article about "Christopher Columbus" with an "Unknown" status, whereas putting "Deceased", IMO, would somehow add a subtext to the article which would make it feel as if Columbus died in the show. Kinda like the way the location articles felt like when they said "Los Angeles was a city in California..." and we proposed a way to walk around that issue as well. So I don't see why we can't walk around this issue in a similar way. Thief12 04:02, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- The thing is, just leaving status out on these pages is at least as unsustainable as using "Unknown." Not all, but a lot of the people who read those pages will think somebody forgot to put the status in and do it themselves. So it seems our options are to leave it blank with a note, or use "Unknown" with a note. The latter option, at least, will be consistent with every other character article. --Pyramidhead 04:07, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- Pyramidhead's right, if we leave it blank people will think it has been forgotten and try and add a status. It does make more sense to me to use "Unknown". Thief, I'm not too sure about your Bryce Moore argument, because he wasn't really relevant to the plot, I wouldn't say. It was just a moment, probably only added in by the director during shooting, to give a little more insight into Philip Bauer. Could the same not be said of John Wilkes Booth, who (if I remember correctly) Logan compares Jack to during Season 5? In both instances the characters themselves are not relevant to the plot, but more their actions are: JWB assassinated a President, Bryce Moore was a person whom Philip Bauer did not want CTU to know about. They are both as insignificant, or as significant as each other, and shouldn't be treated different.
- We have a strict policy against including OOU information in every other situation (for example on location pages, and within the main articles of real life people), so why should the sidebar be any different? --SignorSimon (talk/contribs/email) 10:16, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- Some things I think are left to consider. First, when you find yourself in a project (concerning an alternate fictional universe that takes place in today's time period without time travel or magic) where you believe you're forced to say "conditional unknown" as the definitive answer to the question of whether John Wilkes Booth is alive, you have ventured into the realm of the deeply ridiculous with a pair of absurdity goggles strapped over your eyes. It's patently unworkable to put unknown there. It makes the project look laughable, detracting from our respectability. There needs to be another answer.
- Second, Simon and Pyramidhead agree that someone will come along and add status to these pages. I don't recall this happening in the past and will believe it only when I see it (if it has happened just link the diff). I'm cool with leaving out status for Bryce Moore frankly. If anything, we should leave out status altogether and leave an invisible editing note that points to this discussion. People instantly ignore those notes anyway but this is the better alternative of the two. Blue Rook talk contribs 18:27, October 9, 2010 (UTC)
- My apologies if that last post came off sounding insulting. It wasn't my intent to sound that way, as I have worn such "absurdity goggles" plenty of times myself before. Even though there hasn't been a response in while, I don't want to assume that the discussion is over, and am still willing to discuss. Hell I just thought of a third option: we create a new status called "No data" for people we know are dead or people like Bryce Moore, but for which there is not a word stated about their status. In summary, at this point I would choose no status at all or this new idea of "No data" over the other option of "Unknown". Thoughts? Blue Rook talk contribs 01:14, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm really surprised that this is even still an issue. I used to be pretty strict on only including IU information for articles like this, but I eventually loosened up with situations where it actually causes a problem to omit RW info. For example, we technically don't know that Canada is a country, only that it's a location near the U.S. But it's silly to not mention that it's a country in the intro. We had previous discussions here and here about RW character statuses. The Manual of Style mentions including basic information when necessary to even start an article, and I think this situation would fall under that same purview. --Proudhug 15:20, October 19, 2010 (UTC)