Nominations clean up: the Comics Conundrum!

[aphrodite_mine]

Hopefully all of the nominations have been fixed aside from any issue caused by multiple tag associations (this happens when a character, say "Cassie Lang", is nominated under a particular category [Young Avengers] and already has tagged associations within the archive in other categories [Marvel 616, etc

Comments

[graycardinal]

I'd argue that the subfandoms are necessary, and that the phrase "missed matches" under the "#1" paragraph above confuses the case. Let me explain:

The bulk of my comics reading took place decades ago, and while I'm broadly familiar with the outlines of both Marvel and DC continuity, my specific knowledge of most characters is derived from particular slices of that continuity. For example, I know Barbara Gordon mostly from the various television series in which the character has appeared (Birds of Prey, Batman Beyond). So for the purposes of this exchange (and given the subfandoms included in this nomination set) if I offer to write Barbara Gordon, the Barbara I can write is the Batrman Beyond character; if I request her, it's that version that I want to see. Eliminate Batman Beyond as a subfandom, and I can neither offer nor request the character because (a) my knowledge isn't wide enough to write all possible permutations of the character, and (b) it isn't reasonable of me to expect an offering writer to know the particular,

[muccamukk]

Right, like Zarabithia said above, there's so much continuity it's really difficult to know exactly what people will want even if you break it down by title. You can pretty easily read everything Kate Bishop's been in, but someone who's been around for a bit like Wanda Maximoff? Yeah. Have fun with that.

I think most comics fans are pretty used to that. I'm willing to read up if someone wants a different period than I'm familiar with, (within the same universe. Good luck getting anyone to read Ults who doesn't want to.)

[graycardinal]

Let me lead off by admitting that I'm definitely much more conversant with DC than with Marvel (and most of my Marvel-literacy is derived from film and/or animated continuity). Having said that, two thoughts:

First, given the various recent makeovers on both sides of the DC/Marvel divide, I am not sure "main [insert publisher] comics universe" is an entirely meaningful term these days. (I know there is such a thing as the "New 52" on the DCU side of the fence, but I couldn't tell you what's going on in it, let alone how a given character's history has been retconned therein.)

Second, if I understand the situation correctly, I have the impression that the issues with comics-character tags (over which we evidently have some control) are to some extent intertwined with the AO3 tag-association muddle (over which we don't have control). That is, based on the comments to this point, it isn't clear to me whether we can rearrange the tags in a way that both (a) groups characters into one large print-comics fandom and (b), retains the

[muccamukk]

But I don't think we're talking about taking away different universes?

To use your example, you could still have Batman Beyond, the cartoon as it's own thing. This is more a discussion of Babs showing up under Birds of Pray the DCU comic, AND Batman the DCU comic AND DCU generally. They're all the same character in the same universe. Instead of having little categories for all the different individual titles, say Gotham Central, Batwoman, Tec Comics, and BoP (the comic) AND DCU generally, it would just be DCU.

So the categories might look like.
DCU
Babs
Talia
Fire
Ice
Kate
Cassie

Young Justice (Cartoon)
Babs
Donna
Kori

Batman Beyond (Cartoon)
Babs
Talia
Whoever

Birds of Pray (TV Show)
Babs
Dinah
Helena

Arrow (TV Show)
Dinah
Helena
China White

Does that make sense?

[graycardinal]

Per my response to sheeana above -- theoretically, it might make sense if AO3's tag engine will allow for distinguishing the tags that way. From what I'm reading, though, my impression is that the AO3 engine may not let us make that fine a distinction.

And I am not sure I agree with the premise that a given character is "the same person in the same universe" throughout a long and complicated print continuity. Writing Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is not the same as writing her as Oracle; writing Renee Montoya as a homicide detective is not the same as writing her as the Question. To the extent that the subfandom tags help to place a character in continuity -- and I'll grant that some of those tags are more helpful than others -- I think they provide useful focus points.

[muccamukk]

AO3 never fails to baffle me, but yuletide ran this year with small categories exactly like that. I thought it was a mess on start up, but the mod could fix it (as a matter of manual input, THANKS, MOD!), and if I offer for Toon!Babs, I'm not going to be matched with someone who wants DCU!Babs.

writing Renee Montoya as a homicide detective is not the same as writing her as the Question
Right, but if you offer Gotham Central Renee, and I want Tec Comics Renee, is that going to be a problem? Is there that much essential difference that the request would be incompatible?

You could say the same or TV shows, a lot of the time, especially ones with longer runs/complex arcs. Characters change and evolve (and then are rebooted and mangled, oh, comics).

[graycardinal]

The ways of tag association are strange, no question. (And no pun intended, now that I see how that came out. Oy.) Two amusing observations, as I glance at the nomination set:

Talia al-Ghul shows up in "Batman (Comics)", and in "Batman Beyond", but not in "DCU - Comicverse". This seems....odd.

Renee Montoya shows up in "DCU - Comicverse" but not in either of "Batman (Comics)" or in "DCU - Gotham Central" (the latter an "uncategorized fandom"). Which is...interesting. [FWIW, most of my Renee-as-Question knowledge I picked up from the prose novelization of 52, which probably complicates this whole discussion even further....]

[muccamukk]

I promise you, the Marvel section is worse, far worse. What a mess.

My point is that if we (all/most of us/some of us) agree on what we want the tags to look like, the mod can manually re-upload them to reflect that. Or something -AO3 handwavium who knows- If feel that since this option was offered to us in the original post, it's technically possible.

There was no novelization of 52. Greg Cox does not exist. You should read the run Tec as the Question though, great stuff! :)

[graycardinal]

Heh. But if Greg Cox doesn't exist, who wrote those really interesting Star Trek novels about Khan Noonien Singh....?

[muccamukk]

Q