Battlestar Wiki:Book and Comic Development Project

This page is one of Battlestar Wiki's many projects. This page serves to coordinate discussion on a particular aspect of this Wiki. The formal recommendations of a project may be treated as policies.

The Book and Comic Development Project, like the Original Series Article Development Project, is a large project to develop and expand articles relating to the separate continuity comic books, novelizations and original novels based on the Original Series and Re-imagined Series.

The Problem

There are many comics and novels written for the Original Series, but Battlestar Wiki's articles are stubs: Incomplete placeholder articles with little to no information of the subject.

The Re-imagined Series has received some attention with a small number of novels and comics that will be easier to develop as they are currently on-sale.

The Plan

The plan is simple.

1. Use this article as your index to articles that are in stub status.
2. Find some time to visit your local comic shop, bookstore, or library (for some of you, any of these may be your own basement or bedroom) to find a requested book.
3. Read it thoroughly.
4. Create the new article or expand an existing article with a summary.
   • Use the {{Comic Data}} or {{Book Data}} templates at the start of the article to allow you to enter the publication's unique information, such as author, illustrator, and book identification number.
   • Book and comic summaries should mimic aired episodes and their summaries with a bulleted list of events, a question and analysis section, quotes, and references as needed or desired.
5. If possible, make an image scan of the book or novel's cover for the article.
   • Some new comics may have several versions of the cover for artistic and collectible comic status. It's up to personal taste which one can be used in the episode
6. Create additional articles as needed on events, characters, and other subject matter not already listed in Battlestar Wiki that are mentioned in the publication.
   • This is the "fun stuff" that will expand Battlestar Wiki's purpose as an encyclopedia of all things Battlestar, but you have to be very careful in how you enter information.
   • All novels and comics are given "separate continuity" status, which basically says "Don't mix up events and characters that appear in novels and comics that happen to canonical characters in the books with their canonical articles."
   • For example, if Adama is possessed by an alien and becomes a vampire in a comic, you can note that event in the comic's article, but NOT in the canonical article for the character, Adama (TOS).
   • Likewise, DON'T create new character articles for any separate continuity versions of Original Series or Re-imagined Series characters. There are many continuities where Adama lives on or dies, and that's just too confusing. Likewise, the Dynamite comic series reanimates Zak Adama, but adding this doppelgänger's history as a separate character article is more trouble than it would be worth to keep from confusing aired data on the character with his comic book persona.
   • On the other hand, if you find a character that is unique to a novel or comic, like Darrin Dualla, then create the article and write it as you would a canonical article, with links any canonical and other separate continuity characters and events that appear in the publication.
7. Be sure that the {{separate continuity}} tag is placed and used properly on any novel, comic, or related character article. (There's a special flag that makes the tag say that the article is related to the Original or Re-imagined Series.)

The Articles

This section will list all known publications that could use expansion. Until it is fully developed, feel free to use the items listed in the separate continuity category to begin your work.

Use the talk page of this article to speak amongst yourselves to coordinate your work.

The Rules

1. DON'T editorialize the articles. Just as with aired episode articles, it's important to write seriously and neutrally about the events of the novelization, no matter how fanciful or unrealistic it may be to the reader. Remember that, to the characters in the publication, the situations are real to them. Stick to the Neutral Point of View, where you act as a reporter of an event without giving any interpretation as to what occurs.
2. DON'T copy or plagiarize reviews, images or other writing from other websites unless the site you are obtaining the information from subscribes to the Creative Commons license.
   • Battlestar Wiki does NOT use the same license as Wikipedia, so you CAN NOT directly copy data from this wiki or any site that uses this licensing.
   • You CAN rewrite information you find on GDFL sites like Wikipedia through the process known as derivation. For rules and tools on how to do this, see the policy, Battlestar Wiki:Derivative Works.
3. DO get permission to recopy or reuse data you find on private, non-CC or non-GDFL sites per Battlestar Wiki's policy on copyrights BEFORE you transfer such information in a Battlestar Wiki article.
   • This is a strict policy; any articles that use copyrighted information from a private source will be marked and eventually removed. Contributors that continually abuse this policy could be banned from Battlestar Wiki.
   • Yes, the copyright rules make it hard to use private websites, but not impossible. Many fans who have gathered Original Series transcripts and official data (which are hard to find, given the show's pre-Internet origin) may share with Battlestar Wiki if you ask nicely. Be sure to send a copy of your permission to the administrators so they can note that the wiki has official permission.
4. DON'T incorporate or write up fan fiction articles on Battlestar Wiki. If the author or publisher of the work was not officially licensed through NBC Universal (or its older entities) to write a Battlestar tale, it is not permitted on Battlestar Wiki.