Forum:City and state links in "real world" POV articles


 * See also Forum:Link Context.

A question has arisen as to whether or not we should be linking "real world" POV articles, such as actors, etc., to city and/or state articles, which are written from an in-universe POV. Shran mentioned that New York in our world should be the same as New York in Trek... or is it? I had originally been putting them into articles, until the issue about not mixing in-universe and production dates came up, which got me thinking about the cities and states as well. Now we're careful to use the proper years, etc. on the articles that have dates... should we be doing the same with all links? Or is it OK to mix them for something like city and state? What's the consensus here? -- Renegade54 02:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a problem. Some of the states/cities/countrys articles have a background section at the bottom saying "So and so was from here." - AJ Halliwell 02:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've always been of the mind to put them into those articles, since it connects the reader back into the "universe" half of the wiki, but generally have no real issue if we decide to remove them all (if that's what the consensus goes with). Now, the production dates and in-universe dates are definitely another issue entirely, and that's why we have the d, m, and y templates to use now, to make separating those dates even easier.  But cities, states, countries, etc?  Idaknow.  Especially since 90% of them have links to Wikipedia with the "real world" information on those locations... perhaps they'd be useful for that reason alone. -- Sulfur 02:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have been thinking about this lately as well. It's more than just cities and states though, I wonder whether we should ever link items into a universe definition when the real definition would be required by the context. I am leaning toward no, the context should be respected when linking words. --Bp 02:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I am guessing the alternative here is to use wikipedia links? I actually have to agree with doing that. If you are saying some actor was born in New York, they were not born in the New York that was occupied by the Nazis in an alternate timeline. They were born in the real world New York. We should link to the real world one. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  02:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * About the only thing I can think of to use as a point of reference is the Archivists page, where we've used links back to Wikipedia for cities, states, and countries. -- Renegade54 02:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What about things that have historically happened in the real world but not in the Trek universe and vice-versa? Also, the links will be going 400 years in the past.--Woody T. Kirk 03:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you are getting at with the 400 years in the past thing. What does it matter the year? It is a link, not a time machine. As for real world events not in Star Trek, for the most part they should not be mentioned on Memory Alpha. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  04:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In any case, we should keep in mind that linking from a production POV article to an in-universe article isn't as bad as doing it the other way. We're keeping links to dates separate, because we already have the two different timelines and need them anyway, so they should be used properly. With "city" and "state" links, I think it would be much better to link to an in-universe article (but only if we already have that one, otherwise don't link at all) than to throw readers off the site at the first opportunity by using those dreaded inline Wikipedia links. -- Cid Highwind 10:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a policy provision -- if you have an "in-universe" article, dealing with a "real" subject, linked from a "realworld" POV article, maybe it should be under the proviso that the target "in-universe" article must contain a wikipedia link to a more complete survey of the subject. This way, those interested in knowing the San Francisco where XX performer lived is a real place they could read about it, and discount our site's description of the city as a target for time-traveling aliens (which i am only pretty sure it is not). -- Captain M.K.B. 18:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What, you mean there weren't any weird people walking around with snake like canes in the 19th century? BLASPHEMY!! --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  18:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)