Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas

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Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organise information in articles related to Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, and The Railway Series. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you have a passion for things "Thomas-related" and wish to make Wikipedia a reliable reference on the series (both TV and book publications), like the rest of our participants, then please add your name to the list below.

For more information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject best practices.


Shortcut:
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Contents

[edit] Scope

The scope of this project includes any articles related to the book publications The Railway Series, the TV Series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (and the two related movies Thomas and the Magic Railroad and Calling All Engines).

This includes:

  • main pages relating to each of these,
  • articles relating to characters within each series,
  • story and/or episode summaries (including video releases), and
  • any other pages relating to the content of these series (such as fictional locations).

Participants in this project will clearly understand that there are very clear differences between each of the TV Series, Railway Series, and the Thomas movies. Wherever practicable, it will be distinguished within articles whether the content relates to TV Series, Railway Series, Movies, or a combination thereof.

[edit] Mini-projects

While participants in this WikiProject are dedicated to improving all pages related to the TV Series and Railway Series, it may be necessary to form a number of mini-projects in order to improve the allover quality of the pages.

[edit] Current mini-projects

Mini-projects which are currently underway are listed below. As each stage is completed, please strike thru the text (by surrounding it with <s>...</s>).

[edit] Character page rationalisation

Overview: There is a need to better organise the pages for characters of both the Railway Series and the TV Series. This will involve the merging of less significant characters into existing pages, thus removing the need for individual pages for less significant characters.

The characters with individual pages will be:

All other characters will be covered on detailed "list" pages, as outlined below.

TV Series

  • Creation of the following pages:
  • All characters who appear in the TV series are to be listed in the most appropriate page
  • Redirect existing character pages to "new" article. (Note: Redirects are preferred, however if issues are experienced with reverts, speedy deletion will be recommended)
  • Complete profiles on the pages listed above (except people/animals)

Note that the pages listed above should only discuss characters from the TV Series perspective, not that of the Railway Series.

MODEL PAGE (target for quality): Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends).

Railway Series

Pages in which character profiles are were to be listed already exist(ed) - see discussion below:

Steps to be completed are as with the TV Series:

  • All characters who appear in the Railway Series are to be listed in the most appropriate page.
  • Redirect existing character pages to "new" article. (Note: Redirects are preferred, however if issues are experienced with reverts, speedy deletion will be recommended)
  • Complete profiles on the pages listed above. This should include reformatting "Characters" section on these pages, in line with the format for the TV Series character pages.

Note that the pages listed above should only discuss characters from the Railway Series perspective, not that of the TV Series. (Having said that, Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) is still a model page for the "characters" sections of these pages.

"Individual page" characters

  • Edit pages to common format, incorporating useful information and excluding superfluous content.

[edit] Character Page Rationalisation - Discussion

There is already enough information on the North Western Railway (fictional) page, without adding loco character descriptions too. Hence I have created Railway Engines (The Railway Series) (see below) essentially to create space for these. This is the correct location for the 'Railway Series descriptions' for Oliver, Bill & Ben, Diesel, Daisy, BoCo, and Mavis, and maybe others. For consistency with the TV series 'Railway engines' page I have included brief descriptions of the 'main characters' too. I would suggest that these could have all prototype information copied from their individual pages, in order to fill them out a bit.
I apologise that the page is copied and hacked about from the TV Series equivalent - hence all the 'incorrect' pictures! - and also that it will require a lot more polishing as a result. (I won't be able to help for a while, as I shall be on a couple of weeks holiday (US: vacation) ( :o) ) and away from any computer...) At least now it will be possible to link to the correct Railway Series entry for these characters...
EdJogg 00:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I have moved the above page to Major Characters (The Railway Series) to allow for the inclusion of the few non-rail characters in the brief summary pages. Mdcollins1984 15:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
What I have done is move all the engines into either Major/Minor characters, as a central location with links from the individual railway pages. There was no point having Culdee Fell engines there and not on Minor Characters for example (like North Western Railway) - it will give the articles consistency [whatever Felix and his many stubs (now redirected) might say]. Mdcollins1984 12:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Character Page Rationalisation (The Railway Series) Summary

What has been done so far is to merge lots of tiny articles into two main ones, but also keeping main individual article for the other major characters (they have also be linked and cross-linked). The pages which should be left are (see table above):

Others:

Mdcollins1984 20:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video page rationalisation

Overview: Having an individual page for each TV Series video release is quite inconvenient, even messy. As such, all videos will be listed on the one page.

  • Creation of "Thomas and Friends - Video Releases" page
  • Using the Category page, identify pages of individual videos. The content of these pages is to be transferred to "Thomas and Friends - Video releases", with a common format being used within this page
  • After content has been transferred from individual videos' pages to "Thomas and Friends - Video releases", the content of individual pages can be replaced with a redirect link to Thomas and Friends - Video releases#<insert video title here>.
  • Tidy up, finalise format, and create links (to applicable Season pages, for example) on "Thomas and Friends - Video releases".
  • When formatting has been completed, create a link to "Thomas and Friends - Video releases" on the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends page, and add the category to the bottom of the "Thomas and Friends - Video releases" (by adding [[Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends]] to the bottom).

[edit] Fictional Locations

See Fictional locations in The Railway Series now contains information on the less important (smaller article) locations, with links to all the railway lines and other locations. Feel free to add to the larger sections here, or to discuss on the talk page any candidates for staying as a main article. Let's try to remember that these summaries needn't be too large, that was why they have been merged into one article in the first place. And they only refer to the Railway Series, some places differ considerably. Mdcollins1984 00:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This is good work. I have proof-read/corrected the new article and made some comments on the article's Talk Page.
EdJogg 08:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Suggestions and other talk removed by Mdcollins1984, 31 July 2006 - due to completion...

Enjoy your holiday. Mdcollins1984 22:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

  • As far as I am concerned this mini-project has been completed.
  • I have created the following pages, linked and anchor-linked to them all, allowing space for the creation of new sub-articles and the inclusion of other places, and the diversion of information for The Railway Series and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and editing of the same without conflict between the two. I have also edited the Thomas infobox, and have proposed the removal of the catagory page. Only a few locations and the railway lines have now been retained in their original pages. All others have been linked as best I can, as redirect to anchor links eg #REDIRECTFictional locations in The Railway Series#Arlesburgh won't work.


Mdcollins1984 13:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed mini-projects

  • Generally, it is expected that participants who discover any minor issues which can easily be resolved will do so themselves. "If you see something wrong, fix it!" However, any propositions for restructure which either require the participation of a number of people, take many steps to complete, or affect quite a number of pages, should be put forward here.
  • As someone from the WikiBooks project, may I suggest someone keep an eye on the separate categories for The Railway Series and for Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends? Some well-meaning editors (i.e. moi) may inadvertently put characters in the wrong cats. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 03:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Railway Series Books

  • I've recently completed the article List of Railway Series Books, which contains sections on all the Railway Series books and related literature. I've also started linking to it, but it's going to be a mammoth task to link all the relevant articles. Little help? - HonestTom
Suggest this becomes a formal mini-project. I've started proof-reading the list page, but this is a big job too, and I'm only able to do a little at a time. (Having discovered that Wikipedia's coverage of traction engines is pathetic, I have been on a 'crusade' to rectify this - there's an awful lot to do, and I don't have time for both!)
Also suggest a progress chart (table), and if this includes copyable links
(like this: [[List of Railway Series Books#Oliver the Western Engine|''Oliver the Western Engine'']])
then the job will be that little bit quicker, maybe.
EdJogg 18:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
To help speed things along, you may be interested in my user page:
User:EdJogg/List of The Railway Series articles
which includes tables of character-page links, redirects and 'name' pages. This is intended as a progress chart for checking links, but also contains directly-copyable wikilinks for the characters. (No need to 'edit' to select - can cut-and-paste directly).
It is very much a 'work in progress', but already contains the grouped character pages, the most significant NWR engines and the Skarloey Railway engines. (Feel free to add the missing characters if you have a spare moment!)
EdJogg 13:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merchandising

I think the pages on various items of Thomas merchandise could do with some serious work. Looking at the talk pages, there have been some complaints that I think are very worth taking into account.

  • Many of the articles read like adverts rather than encyclopedia articles.
  • Several of them are little more than lists.
  • They often tend to be quite badly written generally.

To these points, I'd add:

  • There is very little on the subject of, for example, the histories of the various ranges.
  • There is a lot of crystal ball-gazing concerning future releases, much of it unsubstantiated in any way.

Therefore, I propose that all merchandising articles be overhauled to make them more encyclopedic, or deleted.HonestTom 13:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. My knowledge on available merchandise is limited, but I'm sure there would be participants who would know more detail. Merchandise articles, like all others, should be detailed, yet not superfluous.
Perhaps all merchandise items could be outlined on one page? Not sure if this would get too long, but it would be interesting to see if this is a viable option.
Gonzerelli 15:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guidelines for contribution

[edit] Make sure the article is clear

Remember that not everyone who looks at Wikipedia is a Thomas fan. Therefore, make sure that your article would be clear to someone who is a newcomer to Thomas and Friends. The opening of any article should begin by stating that the character or location appears in the television series, the books or the movie (with links to the relevant articles). The opening paragraph should be a brief introduction to the subject. Following paragraphs can go into more detail.

As an example of bad information, the following piece of information was recently deleted from an article:

"It was well received by young children at whom it was aimed and made $16 million at the box office; however, no reference to the film has ever been made in the television series, except for the new faces."

The latter part, "except for the new faces", would mean nothing to the average reader.

[edit] Style

Badly-written articles are difficult to read and look unprofessional. Make sure that your writing is properly spelt and punctuated, and that the grammar is correct. Common errors encountered in these articles are:

  • relly bad speling & pnuctution posibley becos the writr is tryin to rite in a hury or mayb has just not bothred to check bfor thay put it up
  • Putting Capital Letters At The Beginning Of Every Word.
  • Incredibly long sentences that just meander on, touching on several different subjects, seemingly never ending, which could easily be broken up into separate sentences, this would make it far easier to read, and would make the points expressed far clearer. When you have finished writing or contributing to an article, read through it again, preferably out loud. If it sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.

You should not speak directly to the readers or to other contributors in the article itself. An example of this which was removed from an article was "dont dare delete my paragrap" (which, of course, had to be deleted). Another was "Go see Freddy Bob!!!!!" These are not items of information, and therefore have no place in a Wikipedia article. If you must talk to other contributors, do so on your Userpage or on the article's Discussion page.

The general style should be readable, but not too informal. Do not use unnecessary slang or abbreviations. At the same time, do not use unnecessarily complicated language, particularly if you are unfamiliar with its correct use and/or spelling. Language that is too formal can be as bad as language that is too informal, with the added disadvantage that fewer people understand it. For example, do not say "kinetic motivation" where "movement" will do.

[edit] Should I create an article, or not?

While this project was created with the intention of building a comprehensive source of information on Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and the Railway Series, it is not necessary to create a new article for every single place, person and concept in the stories. For instance, the Sodor Soft-Side Truck appears in the television series, but it is not necessary to write an article about it because there is very little to say. Do not create an article unless there is enough information available to write a decent amount.

If there is not enough information, but you feel the item does warrant discussion, see if it would fit into any other article. For example, Elsie the brake van is a character in the Thomas "universe", but there is very little to say about her. As she is Toby's brake van, she can be mentioned in the article on Toby the Tram Engine. Most characters can be included in the list articles mentioned above.

[edit] Unnecessary information

Do not add information for the sake of it. For instance, in a description of an episode, the information "This is the third time Percy has been seen with the red coaches" is superfluous and frankly boring. Think, if you were reading this article, is this information you would genuinely want to know?

In character articles, it is not necessary to list everything that has ever happened to that character, unless that event has had a significant impact upon him or her. Henry's accident in The Flying Kipper is worth including, because it resulted in his rebuild. His accident in Something in the Air is not, because it had no permanent or significant effect on him.

Likewise, there is no need to list items such as characters who do not appear in a series or movie. Most articles list characters and locations that are used, and therefore such non-information is redundant.

[edit] False information, rumours and bad sources

These should not appear in any Wikipedia article. Do not post information unless it is from an official source - and note that someone simply telling you that they have some information from an official source is not the same thing. Official sources include the Railway Series and Awdry-authored spin-offs, the television series and the movies. Magazines, emails from the production company, merchandise, computer games, word of mouth, websites, television spin-off books and fan fiction are not considered canon.

It is worth mentioning at this point that simply stating that information is from "sources" is insufficient. You could technically define your own imagination as a source. Unless you identify your source, you run the risk of your information being considered false.

Rumours are unhelpful unless there is very strong evidence to back them up. Writing "it has been rumoured that Duck will return in Season 10, but nothing has been confirmed yet" does not help anyone, as there is absolutely no evidence to back it up. Similarly, something along the lines of "the Mountain Engines might appear in Season 10" is pointless. A lot of things may happen in Season 10, but unless you have a strong reason to believe them, there is no point in mentioning them.

Information that is definitely made up is completely unacceptable. An example of this is the repeated claim that a character named "Endock" will be appearing in an upcoming season, and another is the false episode lists that have appeared in the article on Season 10. Invented information is usually very obvious, and will be speedily deleted. Additionally, you risk being banned from Wikipedia.

"Fanon" is information commonly accepted by fans, but which is unofficial. As one example of this, a large crane at Brendam Docks is known as "Big Mickey", because it uses the model of a character of that name from the series 'Tugs'. While this label is undoubtedly convenient, it is misleading to claim it as truth.

Similarly, fans have dubbed certain characters with unofficial titles, e.g. "Emily the Beautiful Engine" and "Spencer the Silver Bullet Engine". These titles should not be used on Wikipedia. If you are creating a character article, a more acceptable title would be Emily (Thomas the Tank Engine), i.e. the character's official name with the clarification in parenthesis. Obviously this does not apply to official titles such as Percy the Small Engine, Henry the Green Engine etc.

[edit] Participants

As stipulated above, if you would like to become a part of this project, add yourself to the table below.

# Username
1. HonestTom (project co-founder)
2. Gonzerelli (project co-founder)
3. Thehalford (project co-founder)
4. Thomasfan
5. Patchmo
6. Skarloey
7. TOP
8. Penrithguy
9. Oliver Lane
10. Bobwinkle007
11. Rusty5
12. BoCodiseasel
13. EdJogg
14. mdcollins1984
15. thomas fan
16. imdanumber1
17. Ross06
18. Felix Cheng
19. Jienum
20. TTTEfan

[edit] Templates

  • {{Thomas}} - to be placed within articles, below all text, but before (above) any categories. (Note: This eliminates the need for many "See also" sections)
The world of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends
view • talk • edit
Book series: The Railway Series
TV Series: Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends
Series particulars
List of Railway Series Books
TV Series Seasons: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Movie and spin-off releases: Thomas and the Magic Railroad | Calling All Engines | On Site with Thomas
Characters
Thomas | Edward | Henry | Gordon | James | Percy | Toby | Duck | Donald and Douglas | Emily
The Fat Controller | Bertie | Terence | Trevor | Harold

The Railway Series: Major Characters | Minor Characters | Unfeatured Characters
TV Series: Major characters | Minor Characters | Rolling Stock | Non-rail vehicles | People & animals | Uncharacterised Vehicles
Movies: Movie-only characters
Locations
Island of Sodor
Railways: North Western | Skarloey | Arlesdale | Culdee Fell | Mid Sodor | Sodor & Mainland | "Other"

Other locations - The Railway Series | TV Series
Significant people and organisations
Rev. W.V. Awdry (series creator) | Christopher Awdry
Britt Allcroft | Gullane Entertainment | HIT Entertainment
Other relevant pages
WikiProject Thomas
The Railway Stories (audiobooks) | Thomas and Friends - Video Releases | Shining Time Station | TUGS
  • {{Thomas-project-page}} - to be placed on the Talk pages of articles within the scope of WikiProject Thomas (see above)
This page has been flagged as being within the scope of WikiProject Thomas. WikiProject Thomas aims to develop and expand Wikipedia's content relating to the TV Series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, as well as the original book series The Railway Series.
  Planning and discussion for this project can be found on the Project page. Wikipedians are quite welcome to join us in improving the quality of this article, and others.
  • {{Thomas-project-member}} - to be placed on the User pages of participants, after addition to Participants list above.
This user is a member of WikiProject Thomas, a WikiProject which aims to develop and expand Wikipedia's content relating to the TV Series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, as well as the original book series The Railway Series.
Please feel free to join us.

[edit] Related links

The founders of this WikiProject (HonestTom, Gonzerelli, and Thehalford) are all members of the Sodor Island Forums, where this project was unofficially initiated in January 2006.

An exemplary fansite, which can be used as a great information resource, can be found here.

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