Crossovers are a part of fan fiction, in virtually any genre. This is a simple fact of life in fandom. In the case of Star Trek, there's crossovers with everything from Star Wars to Gilligan's Island.
How should we handle articles for crossover elements here on STEU? There's a fair bit of Harry Potter material here now, a bit of 24 and definitely some Doctor Who. The doctor and the authors of the 24 and HP crossovers have so far done a great job of limiting the material they've included from non-Trek sources to just what's relevant for their stories/series.
Now we're getting some Back to the Future articles. Some are in the same mold as the others, but some are purely background that would belong on a BTTF wiki, and doesn't directly relate to the crossover story. For example, Hill Valley is purely the background of the town from the films, and could be a much shorter article, with paired down info that only relates to the crossover.
Right now, none of this is out of hand, but I could see things progressing down the line, and one day we'll find ourselves with articles on Batman, the Smurfs or Ozzy Osbourne that have maybe one paragraph's worth of Trek detail in the midst of an unnecessary biography.
A while ago, there was a similar discussion on Memory Beta, regarding the Trek/X-Men crossovers published during the days when Marvel Comics held the Trek license. You can read that here.
I'd like to see us limit crossover articles to what's relevant for those particular stories. We don't need the complete biography of Optimus Prime should someone wish to do a Transformers crossover. Should we work on a simple, fair policy to head this sort of thing off at the pass? What do you think? --TimPendragon 06:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
- I'm also in favour of limiting crossover articles, but it's an easy decision for me since I don't do non-trek crossover work. It would be good if authors who deal with this type of crossover to also weigh in. – JayLR 13:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- I completely agree, as it seems like common sense to me to just include any background information which is alluded to in your stories. For example, one of the upcoming Reversed Polarities episodes will feature a Dalek and the Time War is discussed, but I won't be outlining the fully revised history of the Dalek Empire in their article here, just what is referred to. --The Doctor 14:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- As stated, crossovers are a part of virtually any genre of fan fiction and it is an acceptable part of fan fiction. As a fan fiction writer myself I would hate to think that someone would tell me I can't write a particular type of story including crossovers. But with regard to this article, I think that if a crossover involves Star Trek (et al) then to be posted here the majority of the story should be about Star Trek. For example, I've actually written a Charmed/Star Trek: Enterprise crossover and the majority of the story takes place in the future aboard the star ship Enterprise. Since this site is dedicated specifically to Star Trek then the main content of a story should involve Star Trek and not just a cursory or passing mention of it. I know when I write a crossover story I naturally assume that the readers are familiar with whatever shows I'm crossing over and don't feel it necessary to go into any in depth explanations about either show other than what might be necessary for the story itself. If a story claims to be a Star Trek crossover but the Star Trek component in the story is only cursory or minimally included then it would more appropriately belong on another website; specifically one devoted to whichever show(s) the majority of the story takes place in. --User:noazmale 10:04 7 April 2009 (MST)
- Sounds like you're talking about the story itself. We're not saying you can't write whatever kind of story you want; we're talking about the articles that might come from a crossover story. We're not trying to limit what writers can do with their fanfic -- this site isn't for posting stories, anyhow -- but just what non-Trek information comes into the articles they write here. Any crossover that includes Trek should be fair game for some kind of article on STEU.
- As stated, crossovers are a part of virtually any genre of fan fiction and it is an acceptable part of fan fiction. As a fan fiction writer myself I would hate to think that someone would tell me I can't write a particular type of story including crossovers. But with regard to this article, I think that if a crossover involves Star Trek (et al) then to be posted here the majority of the story should be about Star Trek. For example, I've actually written a Charmed/Star Trek: Enterprise crossover and the majority of the story takes place in the future aboard the star ship Enterprise. Since this site is dedicated specifically to Star Trek then the main content of a story should involve Star Trek and not just a cursory or passing mention of it. I know when I write a crossover story I naturally assume that the readers are familiar with whatever shows I'm crossing over and don't feel it necessary to go into any in depth explanations about either show other than what might be necessary for the story itself. If a story claims to be a Star Trek crossover but the Star Trek component in the story is only cursory or minimally included then it would more appropriately belong on another website; specifically one devoted to whichever show(s) the majority of the story takes place in. --User:noazmale 10:04 7 April 2009 (MST)
- The doctor's got the right perspective -- if an element of Doctor Who (or whatever) background is referred to in a Trek crossover, it can have an article here, but only with information that is mentioned in the crossover directly. That makes the most sense to me. More thoughts? --TimPendragon 18:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- I vote for this, personally. Take the Emmett Brown article. In my opinion, we should snip out the information that is only from the movies, and perhaps only list what is neccisary to know, as well as any added information that occured "off screen" before talking about how the character was used in the story. --Talon Lardner 04:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Like I said in User talk:FictitiousAussie, I think that if you are just making a passing reference to the subject, and it is on another wiki, you don't need to create an article for it here, the same goes for MA and MB content in my opinion, likewise, if you find yourself creating numerous articles for this kind of thing, such as the BttF stuff, you should use the other wiki articles instead, it saves you all that work of having to research and write all these articles on STEU.– Cpthunt 21:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)