Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Getting Involved

Welcome to WikiProject Comics, a project formed by Wikipedians to increase, expand, improve, and better organize articles related to comics in Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world! We rely on comics enthusiasts worldwide to make this the best comics encyclopaedia on the web. If you are interested in participating, why not see how you can get involved?

If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

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

Scope

The scope of WikiProject Comics is improve the vast expanse of knowledge that comics have become. This WikiProject will attempt to cover all comics-related information included on Wikipedia. We will do this through volunteer contributors and editors. If you are interested in joining the WikiProject, please feel free to add your name to the Participants list below, and find yourself an article to adopt.

What is WikiProject Comics?

Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics (WP:CMC) is a group of Wikipedia editors interested in comics. This WikiProject provides a place to discuss what we're doing, ask for help, and announce new articles. Any Wikipedian (someone with a user account) is free to join. Look at Portal:Comics to see some of our best articles.

What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is a user-created encyclopedia run by a non-commercial, non-profit organization. Type a subject in the "search box" and see what appears: Try "Comics," for instance, and read our article on the medium. The "edit this page" tab at the top of the page means you can, if you so wish, edit any page in Wikipedia and have your changes appear immediately. If you would like to try it out, you can experiment on Wikipedia:Sandbox. Enter anything you want, and see what appears! Remember: No constructive edit is too small!

Wherever you see a word or phrase underlined in blue, that means you can click and read an article. And, of course, if you can spot an improvement, you can just make it there and then. Where a word or phrase is underlined in red, that means that article has not yet been written - and, if you wish, you can click on that word or phrase and create that article.

User accounts

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, regardless of whether they have a user account; however, if you find yourself contributing regularly, it's a good idea to create a user account. Edits by registered users tend to be taken a little more seriously. You don't have to use your real name if you don't want to, and it helps if others want to contact you to discuss the work you're doing or even to thank you for your contributions.

• Click here to create a user account.

How to get involved with WP:CMC

Editing articles

Many articles need to be edited, updated, or even created. These include articles about notable creators, comic books, comic strips, characters, and country-specific topics. Because Wikipedia's editorial staff is made up of volunteers, everything should be cited. You can find relevant information at sites such as Project Fanboy, Comics Newsarama and Comic Book Resources and magazines like The Comics Journal, Back Issue! magazine, and Wizard: The Comics Magazine. You can also use information from older solicitation information, such as you might find in the Previews catalog; be sure only to write about comics that have hit the shelves and not to speculate — "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball".

The Manual of Style (comics), exemplars and naming conventions will guide you in how WP:CMC articles should look and help you refine your editing techniques.

Other useful pages

Here's a list of helpful reference pages to keep handy:

• Category:Wikipedia resources for researchers
• Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles
• Wikipedia:Lead section
• Wikipedia:Summary style
• Wikipedia:Cite sources
• Wikipedia:What is a featured article

Contributing images

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Copyright and Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ.

Comics creator Scott McCloud. Can you contribute similar images for other creators?

We always need new images and photographs. We of course must respect copyrighted images, but photographs you've taken are welcome. We need images that are licensed under {{PD}} (Public Domain) or {{cc-by-sa}} (Creative Commons); copyrighted but fair to use; or free.

We need images of comic book panels, covers and promotional art; comic strips; comics exhibitions; conventions; the tools used in creating comics; and creators, particularly if the image is of the creator working.

Pages to patrol

Looking for something to do? These pages always have articles that could use your attention:

• Task List — Add or address article creation or cleanup requests,
• Category:Comics articles needing cleanup — These articles need cleanup work done, usually grammar, spelling, punctuation, proper tense (present, when describing fictional events), and plot summary reduction.
• Category:Comics articles that need to differentiate between fact and fiction - rewrite these articles from a real world perspective, per manual of style guidelines, or trim expansive in-universe sections.
• Category:Comics - The main comics category.
• Category:Comics stubs — Expand these articles.
• Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of comics — These articles need images.
• Category:Comics character articles without infoboxes — Apply the {{superherobox}} template to the articles that need it.
• Category:Comics articles needing issue citations — Find reliable sources to support articles.
• Category:Discussion of future comics — The articles have time-sensitive information that will need to be updated to reflect when the event has happened. Articles should use dates rather than words like "current", "recent", or "soon".
• ALL CATALOGUED: Recent changes to all pages catalogued for WikiProject Comics

Work groups

Please discuss any proposals for new work groups with the project as a whole before creating them.

WikiProject Comics work groups are informal groups of editors gathered for collaborative work on a particular topic within the subject of comics. They afford the advantage of allowing editors to organize their efforts around a topic without having to expend time and energy organizing and duplicating the overall structure, style, and guidelines for a descendant WikiProject which would be completely or mostly covered by the Comics project. All users are encouraged to participate in any that interest them.

Editors interested in creating work groups should look towards creating a work group with a medium-to-large number of articles within its scope, or consider a higher-level scope if this cannot be achieved. (For example, less productive national comics scenes may be better served by creating a collective regional comics work group instead.)

Work groups should also have aroused a significant number of potential participants to warrant organizational overhead. The project, via consensus on the discussion page, will determine if a work group is to be created.

(It should be noted that work groups created prior to October 22, 2007 were moved from independent WikiProjects and should thus be considered "grandfathered" in.)

General

• Comic strips
• Comics creators
• Webcomics

National

• British comics
• Canadian comics
• European comics
• United States comics
• World comics

Publisher

• DC Comics
• Marvel Comics

Character

• Batman
• Spider-Man
• Superman
• X-Men

Potential work groups

• other national or regional comics scenes
• comics periods (e.g. golden, silver, 1970s, 1980s)
• genres (biased towards top-level genre, not subgenre)

Other comics-related projects you could help with

• WikiProject Anime and Manga
• WikiProject Superman
• WikiProject Transformers
• You could create audio versions of comics article text for Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.

Alternative outlets

• If you know a language other than English, you could translate comics-related text. See the full list of non-English wikipedias.
• You could add comics terminology to Wiktionary:, our sister dictionary concern.
• You could add comics quotes to Wikiquote: another sister concern.

• For a list of alternative sites for writing about various fictional universes, see WP:WAF#Alternative_outlets_for_fictional_universe_articles.

In closing

Welcome to Wikiproject Comics. We look forward to your edits. Once again, if you need anything, just ask.