Hey JoseChung! I just wanted to give you a heads up that we will be temporarily removing the X-Files app promo banner in the right rail on the main page. We're removing it because of a minor technical issue and are hoping to have them restored in a week or so. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have about this!
Regardless of whether this gets taken as a legitimate source, which is another argument in itself, if the series did inhabit the same shared universe, then surely we'd have to add info for the whole series to be added to this wikia, not to mention Law and Order and every other 'crossover' series.
The line has to be drawn somewhere, and in my opinion, adding a page for this character crosses it.
Hard to say. This wiki already has the Lone Gunmen and Millennium since they do crossover. While including Harsh Realm (another Chris Carter series) might be too far since they do not crossover, it is worth mentioning that D.B. Sweeney who plays Chance Harper in Strange Luck also plays one of the main leads in Harsh Realm, showing another nod by Carter to include Strange Luck as part of the X-Files universe. I believe most of these shows were filmed up in Vancouver so there was a lot of working together by these studios and producers. I say at some point we go ahead and throw together something for Strange Luck, just as Kolchak the Night Stalker (father to the X-Files should have a page at some point.). The thing is someone would need to track down the Strange Luck series or some good production stills, etc. Need some pictures to make it look good.
Nice work finding that page, LostFan.
Law and Order? MadeIndescribable, do you mean because Detective John Munch appears in the "Unusual Suspects?"
Sorry, allow me to explain my reasonings more clearly. Lone Gunmen is a specific spin off from the X Files, so yes, naturally is included here. As for Millenium, there were already interweaving links (such as the character of Jose Chung) to the X Files before the main characters appeared themselves. Likewise Munch has a page here on the X Files Wiki because he himself appears in the series. They are validated by their appearances within the X Files itself, which is where I consider the line should be drawn.
If the claim that Carter allowed the use of Mulder's name can be verified, then I don't see why there can't be an out of universe page for the series as a whole. Perhaps even a page which lists all the shows with connections to the X Files, similar to the descendants page. There are countless other series with connections, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Spike also smokes Morley cigarettes), but aren't included here because it is another series linking to the X files, not the X files linking to them.
What I don't agree with is adding specific articles for characters etc from series with only the smallest of links, and which didn't appear in the X Files. Munch may prove that Law and Order exists in the same fictional universe, but that doesn't mean we add pages for everything about that series. Harper did not appear in the series, so shouldn't have a page here.
A connections page? The references might be that already or is very similar and we would need to figure out a line separating them. Some of the more interesting pages I added were things like "Descendants of the X-Files" or "References to the X-Files" since most of this wikia is about the episodes themselves and so on. I wanted some more entertaining pages I guess. Some ideas being rather silly like "Injury Tally" (a page that counts the number of times Scully and Mulder have been shot, number of times they died, and so forth [I swear Doggett was run over by a car at least twice if not more in only 2 seasons]). Just stuff to make this wikia kind of strange. Maybe format pages more creatively. But generally I don't have the time to do as much anymore so I imagine it will be up you new rising editors to do what you want, fill in the blanks and move the wikia in whatever direction you care to move it.
And with Chance Harper I don't know. I was watching some Strange Luck episodes today. It's an okay show but it is only loosely connected to the X-Files so ultimately it isn't a priority. Many pages for the X-Files itself continue to have no summaries of any kind. Older episodes and so on. Make a minor Strange Luck page if you want to look into it some and gather images and info on the show. I usually find myself promising to be the one doing it but it leave it to you, LostFan. But MadeIndescribable is right, he shouldn't have a page.
I'm going to throw an edit on something. I try to do that once a day at least. I have enough time for that at least.
) Maybe the new X-Files episode reminded you? Or you saw Kolchak recently?
Kind of strange that I took the name of Darin Morgan's Truman Capote-like character but use Carl Kolchak as the avatar.
Guy Mann. I've never seen Kolchak. I've been thinking about watching it. The only problem is that I know it had like 20 episodes and then was cancelled and I hate it when I get attached to a show and then it gets cancelled. Learned that the hard way from Constantine.
That's always bad because you wish there were more episodes but there isn't really an overarching story line with Kolchak (the original anyway, the crappy remake uses the standard i-need-to-find-what-killed-my-wife cliche), they're just stand alone stories with Kolchak as the recurring character. It's kind of goofy and the effects are super dated but Kolchak is just such a likeable lead. The first season of the X-Files looks like Kolchak somehow. I think it's the lighting. Like they somehow did 1970s lighting.
Yeah Guy Mann who dressed up like Kolchak as one of the many references in that one. Like the gravestone for X-Files director Kim Manners.
JoseChung wrote:
That's always bad because you wish there were more episodes but there isn't really an overarching story line with Kolchak (the original anyway, the crappy remake uses the standard i-need-to-find-what-killed-my-wife cliche), they're just stand alone stories with Kolchak as the recurring character. It's kind of goofy and the effects are super dated but Kolchak is just such a likeable lead. The first season of the X-Files looks like Kolchak somehow. I think it's the lighting. Like they somehow did 1970s lighting.
Yeah Guy Mann who dressed up like Kolchak as one of the many references in that one. Like the gravestone for X-Files director Kim Manners.
You've convinced me to watch it. I love shows that have a supernatural element so I should enjoy it.
JoseChung wrote: Cool. It's easy to find the series streaming somewhere.
I started watching it on Netflix yesterday and I finished the werewolf episode less than a hour ago. It is pretty good. Thanks for recommending it. Are there any others shows similar to it that you would recommend?
I liked the third episode. It reminded me of the X-Files due to the alien.
FreakyLinks. It was the X-Files if it took itself less seriously. A lot of fun. It was made by the guys who did the Blair Witch Project. Some found footage type elements (the characters are trying to catch bizarre things on camera) that work well in the series. Easy to find it online on DailyMotion or something because Fox canned it and has never released a DVD box set or anything so lots of people post it online and Fox doesn't seem to care much.
Lots of other series similar to the X-Files you would have heard of like Fringe or Supernatural or Millennium. You'd know from the word of mouth whether any of those would be interesting to you. Supernatural was okay and now is just awful. Fringe is an X-Files clone. Millennium is hit or miss depending on the season and episodes in question. One that is harder to find that I need to re-watch myself is one I have vague memories of from around the time the X-Files was on. Dark Skies.
JoseChung wrote: FreakyLinks. It was the X-Files if it took itself less seriously. A lot of fun. It was made by the guys who did the Blair Witch Project. Some found footage type elements (the characters are trying to catch bizarre things on camera) that work well in the series. Easy to find it online on DailyMotion or something because Fox canned it and has never released a DVD box set or anything so lots of people post it online and Fox doesn't seem to care much.
Lots of other series similar to the X-Files you would have heard of like Fringe or Supernatural or Millennium. You'd know from the word of mouth whether any of those would be interesting to you. Supernatural was okay and now is just awful. Fringe is an X-Files clone. Millennium is hit or miss depending on the season and episodes in question. One that is harder to find that I need to re-watch myself is one I have vague memories of from around the time the X-Files was on. Dark Skies.
I already watch Supernatural and I have heard good things about Fringe. I do agree that Supernatural is not as good as it used to be, but Season 11 has been an improvement in my opinion. Also didn't Dark Skies come on ABC?
NBC I think. It was 1997. I have very vague memories of Dark Skies. I just know that whenever people bring up shows like the X-Files, they bring up the brief lived Dark Skies. I need to see it one of these days to know if it lives up to the hype.
JoseChung wrote: NBC I think. It was 1997. I have very vague memories of Dark Skies. I just know that whenever people bring up shows like the X-Files, they bring up the brief lived Dark Skies. I need to see it one of these days to know if it lives up to the hype.
yeah it was NBC. I have no idea why I thought it was ABC.
Yeah. Usually I find them interesting and I'm glued to them, but I just wasn't into that one. Tom Bosley from Happy Days even appears in it which sparked my interest for his small amount of screen time.
JoseChung wrote: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I worried about recommending it given how old the series is and sort of corny. But that's part of its charm.
It had its corny moments, but all older shows do. I enjoyed it and am very curious now what is happening with that Kolchak movie that Depp was supposed to be part of. I also prefer older shows.
Yeah, I prefer older shows too. A lot of recent shows feel a little too polished. Processed. Not everything but a lot of stuff.
That sounds great! A Kolchak movie! The most recent use of Kolchak was the newer Kolchak tv series (2000s) and it was awful. They made Kolchak the standard brooding man whose wife was killed trope and pulled all the charisma out of a very fun lead character. I watched the first episode and stopped.
Looked that up and most of the chatter is from 3 years ago. Might be in development hell.
JoseChung wrote: Yeah, I prefer older shows too. A lot of recent shows feel a little too polished. Processed. Not everything but a lot of stuff.
That sounds great! A Kolchak movie! The most recent use of Kolchak was the newer Kolchak tv series (2000s) and it was awful. They made Kolchak the standard brooding man whose wife was killed trope and pulled all the charisma out of a very fun lead character. I watched the first episode and stopped.
Looked that up and most of the chatter is from 3 years ago. Might be in development hell.
I know, but I saw an article from last year in which somebody mentioned it so some people are still expecting it. It is kinda like the Uncharted film at this point. Both are in serious development hell, but who knows that doesn't mean we won't see them at some point.
JoseChung wrote: Well I know how much Johnny Depp loves wearing a hat in his films so I think Kolchak will happen. Ha!
True, but if the movie is made I hope they keep Kolchak's personality. I'm also curious if the movie would focus more on the dark tones of the tv movies or go for the dark, but more fun tv series tone.
The staff helps promote the wiki across the rest of wikia. We will be included in the wikis promoted at the bottom of every page. This will hopefully help increase traffic and contributors. We meet all of the qualifications but had too many Special:Shortpages. I got us below the limit but need some help to keep it there. Could you help expand some location pages?
Can we just eliminate a lot of those? I am looking at the list right now. I know they must come up somewhere in the series (I hope so. Maybe Mulder just listed every country even if they didn't all come up and did other similarly stupid things.) but it would be easier to re-add these pages or not if we ever figure out what they happen to refer to. I could help on them but I'm already frustrated because it feels ridiculous that Mulder ever made these pages to begin with. Like take the short page Congo. Yes, a country in Africa. Maybe it was in the X-Files episode with the weird killer from Africa? Nope. That guy was from Burkina Faso. So no idea why Congo has a page. Given that all countries seem to be listed, I'm thinking Mulder just tacked in every single one.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Look, I'll help with this but I think what we should do is delete some and expand others. Would that let us do this thing or does it have to be expansion rather than elimination? Do they care?
If you can't find why it was created it can be deleted. Make sure to check where it is linked at by going to the Special:WhatLinksHere to see if they give you a hint to why it was created. If it is just linked on the Africa page for instance make sure to unlink it before deleting it so it does end up as a red link.
The best thing to do with actors is to add the template I just created. If you just copy this at the beginning of the article it will expand them enough.
{{Infobox actor
|image=
|gender=
|alias=
|born=
|died=
|notable role=
}}
Sure easy to do. I figure we shouldn't work too hard towards this. This is thousands of pages isn't it? Maybe edit 10 a day or something.
The countries are annoying. I don't know what to do about the ones that do involve the story but only in the loosest ways. Like Luis Cardinal is Nicaraguan. That is why a page for Nicaragua exists.... So do we keep that page and just edit it to say this one character happened to be from that country?
Yes Nicaragua should stay. I forgot to clarify that the ones that are the problem for the staff are the ones that are under 300 bytes. They consider them to be stubs and you can have no more than 20%. I was able to get us under the threshold but still think we have too many.
When adding the template just make sure it goes at the very top of the page before the bolded name and to add the gender.
Right, so concentrate on the under 300 byte ones. There's so much to do. I still haven't done all those summaries. In time it will all get done. I should just do it incrementally.
What is your take on the ranks? I think they are useless. People aren't going to click those links. Corporal, commander, master sergeant, etc. could all go. We should delete them all (though remove any links to their pages.)
I have updated the season pages a bit and only three of them have a plot summery. You did a great job with episode summaries could you write summaries for the seasons.
Did season 2. I don't know about what I did. I told all the big reveals and mysteries in a fairly condensed way but it is still very lengthy. Either that is the way to go with all that included so the summaries explain all the bizarre stuff OR I should reduce it down to almost nothing so that they are very simple summaries that tell almost nothing.
Hey Jose. There is a lot of work to be done that requires admin rights and it will take forever to inform you or KLessard about all of it and wait for it to get done. Can you restore my admin status.
It's embarrassing how many gaps there are. I'll get working on it. I keep saying I'll do the Millennium ones. Probably should given how blank they are. Lot of work but I could just pick at it. Like add the guest stars. A picture for each episode up at the top in that table.
I was going to add the cast to those episodes as I am creating the actor pages. The Millennium and Lone Gunmen episodes need the correct infobox added to them and formatted correctly. I did Pilot (Millennium) to show how it should look if you would like to help.
Help with giving them the correct infoboxes or adding the cast? I don't know how to the do the infobox thing but I could add casts. The cast is what you meant, right?
As part of our effort to connect fans with the entertainment they love, we are working with sponsors and partners to place certain content on fan communities.
This content could be, for example, trailers or behind-the-scenes videos and would live in a prominent place on all of the pages of the X-files community. The placement is temporary (~2-4 weeks) and is only done with admin consent. This is a great way to get content that is relevant and interesting to existing fans as well as drive new fans to your Wikia community!
Here is an example http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Borderlands_Wiki of what this could possibly look like. What do you think?
Yeah I would like that. I started the "References to the X-Files" page to try and have some video content showing those references but had to walk a fine line. How would copyright play into having behind-the-scenes content and so forth? Is Wikia getting some legal rights to show certain things OR using fair use?
Temporary placement of material by non-admin members? That would be fine. I am fine with 99% of changes. It is the 1% of vandalism that I watch for and rollback.
Would this include brief scenes from the X-Files? I had always hoped to be able to show a 1-2 minute scene for major characters on their pages. Or their actor pages.
Hey there! Now that the new series is for sure a go, I was wondering if you had any plans for the wiki yet in order to accommodate it. I was kind of thinking the main page could use a little refreshing, and I'd love to create some custom headers with the classic X-Files typewriter font. What do you think? Have you considered a visual character / content portal for the main page? Just checking in, as there will definitely be an increase in traffic here the closer we get to the premiere of the new series. Let me know where you're at with these ideas, and maybe I can work with you on some or all of them. Can't wait to see what's in store! :)
No we haven't put together any plan yet but we should. I think maybe for the time being, I'll toss on a giant link on the main page that goes to a forum discussion about the return of the X-Files (need to start that discussion though). It will look shitty but draw attention.
I'll go wake up the other administrators. :D
And yes, I like the sound of updating the Wikia a bit. I like the idea of some new headers.
There have been a lot of missing pages even to this point. I just finished the Lone Gunmen pages a week or so back. I guess I should work on that some too.
Another thing, We dont know what this new x-files is being called. Technically its a season 10, but it doesn't have an official name for this 6-part mini series, so I say we shouln't add a page to it, until closer to airings.
No need for adminship, I'm already spread way too thin, and that implies a long term leadership role I would only commit to if I were able to give 110%. Definitely would like to help out though, let me know if you're okay with me moving forward on any of the suggestions I mentioned. :)
As to headers and so forth with the X-Files font, go for it.
But what do you mean exactly by "visual character/content portal?"
Do you mean how the main page template is basically just blue text of character names and seasons under headings instead of stunning images of those characters screencapped at just the right moments? I imagine that's a good guess.
Yes, I would gather suitable images for each of the characters, and an image for each season (probably use the DVD covers). Just in an effort to be more visually appealing to newcomers and the community in general, and eliminate some blank space.
Given that we're talking about the main page. I wonder if maybe we should change what is going to be listed too. Like take that the list of main characters and recurring characters. Alvin Kersh is listed but not Deepthroat or Mr. X or Marita Covarrubias. Maybe remove these awkward headings completely and just have some characters, main or not.
I'm cool with whatever direction you want to go with it, but I'm sure you know the series better than I do. If you come up with a list for me, I'll gather up & crop images accordingly for whatever characters you think would be best to include.
You got a wikia page or two with the user blog and live news feeds that we could look at? See what kind of stuff they get, how it looks, etc.
I really like the new font and the added images are great. Being crappy at the tech side of this page, I have never edited the main template page much. I can add summaries and pictures all over the place and fill in empty pages but meddling with page setups was a pain whenever I worked on that.
As to the list of main characters and recurring characters for each of the three shows, I'll talk with KLessard, lowrider, and anyone else who would chime in on one of the walls.
I would think the right side would be best, since there is so much unused space. Either below the series image links, or in place of them if they are moved- or removed. Also might not be a bad idea to join the Sci-fi Alliance - as seen here, esp. since as I said there is plenty of room on that right side.
I'm thinking that they should be removed. The links in the box go other places then the three on the side which seem to go to series overviews. We could either drop them entirely without doing anything because people probably don't want series overviews when they come here (they probably want to look up a character or an episode or whatever) OR we could just drop them but make the new titles in the box links to those overviews. Easy to do.
I suppose we should join the Sci-fi Alliance. I'm surprised there aren't more alliances though. If there was a Horror Alliance, it would belong there. Might as well join I guess.
I had to turn them back on to get to some info from those threads about the main page. I have added a slider to the main page but it still needs work. The first two images are too small. If you can find replacements for them the same size as the last two please replace them.
Oh wow, I like the slider! I don't know if I could find higher resolution for the two first ones (the alien pic is a screen shot. Is it about the shape or the resolution?) I think you can leave the message wall on, I believe Mulder's annoyance was with visitors leaving silly comments on the articles or forum.
Personally I don't like the existing Font on "Welcome to the X-Files wiki!" Perhaps we could use a font similar to the typewriter-like X from the X-Files logo or something like that?
Here is the highest resolution I can get for the two first pictures. I am adding a cropped version to fit the slider, if that's what you need, otherwise, you can crop them yourself to fit it.