It is current practice to list reprints of short stories, articles and comics that were reprinted in later media (examples). This is due to the way {{StoryCite}} and related templates are structured because short stories have their corresponding story in the template. However, there are some stories that were reprinted several times, and I'm unsure if it's beneficial to list all reprints of the story because it takes up a lot of space and I don't think it is really relevant to the IU subject. I think it is kind of similar to a comic series, we don't include where the comic was collected, we just list them by individual comic issue. If something only appeared in one short story or comic, I think it is really redundant to list several reprintings of it in Appearances.
There are a couple of ways that this could be resolved. One is to not use templates like StoryCite and make it so we just list the story in sources, without the collection. Another is to only list the first publishing of the story. I don't really like this because that implies that the story was only published with that collection, when in fact it was published multiple times. I don't really know the best way to handle this, and would love to hear ideas or suggestions. ThrawnChiss7 Assembly Cupola 14:01, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Discuss[]
- I agree that listing the same story multiple times is unnecessary (except in rare cases that different printings contain notable changes). Citing just the story is the most honest way to handle it. Lathaam appears in the story "The Final Exit," not the specific printing of this story in Star Wars Adventure Journal 4 or any of the four other places it's been printed. Readers who want to know where to find the story know how to click links. Asithol (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- Since the subject has not seen a lot of activity, I just wanted to say that I agree with your proposal ThrawnChiss7, before the topic get archived. Also, the topic is quite slippery in term of typology (what is exactly constitute a reprint? There is no standard definition as far as I can tell), but by looking at the ISBN policy about ISBN assignment, reprints must keep the same ISBN: "The original ISBN must be retained, provided the publisher remains the same and there are no changes to text or binding.", thus we can't really speak of reprint when content is collected/republished within another work (which is the case of the examples provided). NanoLuukeCloning Facility 12:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately the approach of listing just the story in all cases is far from an ideal one. On your subpage, you point to the story "Mist Encounter" as an example, ThrawnChiss, so we can take a closer look at that one. In its original printing in Star Wars Adventure Journal 7, the story includes not just the prose itself, but also roleplaying game statistics and associated material for related subjects such as characters from the story. There, you can find, for example, a mention of Corulag. That world is not mentioned in the story proper, nor is it findable in, say, the reprint of "Mist Encounter" included in the Outbound Flight novel either (since reprints of RPG-material short stories, of which there are many, frequently omit RPG-specific material from them). So, in this case listing just the story in, say, Corulag's Appearances, is far from being an "honest way to handle it", as Asithol puts it above. Similarly, I strongly suspect that the cases where comic reprints omit previously published information (see Junkfort Station cantina) or add new information (think the "... months after the Battle of Endor" dating info introduced in the Omnibus editions of the Rogue Squadron comics, or see here for another example) are not as rare as one might think. BUT, speaking of potentially better solutions to this issue, why don't we just extend the practice we already use with the {{WEGCite}} template, seen in action here, to other citation templates where this could be relevant? Imperators II(Talk) 12:39, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thought I replied to this, actually. Yeah, the solution I've proposed is basically augment {{StoryCite}} to support this sort of thing, though it would require a mapping subpage and some Lua. I'll give it a try sometime this week. Cade Calrayn 20:03, 13 May 2024 (UTC)