Thread:Arise Etrigan/@comment-1257201-20161212005625/@comment-28125426-20161212161727

Okay I've had power nap. Attempt two.

I initially stated fixing up OOU articles as it was something constructive I could do from work in moments of random downtime. As my contributions are normally just writing synopses and adding pages from my niche interests, the OOU list was something helpful I could do without source material on hand (and it's not as mind-numbing as making the Lantern skill sets uniform. Still only up to Mogo.)

My general goal going into each article, is fix the problem by altering the original author's work as little as possible. I find the OOU material and, depending on the case, will either rephrase it, relocate it (to Notes or Triva), remove it. I will also do general tidy up as I read through as well, grammar check, correct tense, add more accurate links to articles, etc. I will only elaborate and add to an article if it is a subject I am familiar with, such as Bueno Excellente. If the page is really lacking I'll add other Article Maintenance Templates too.

To specifically address your first question, most paragraphs come with headers like "Crisis of Conscience," therefore it's not just incorrect to include, "During the events of Crisis of Conscience..." but exceptionally redundant. It should be self-explanatory to a reader that anything following a header pertains to that event. I will address citations further down.

As you can see I'm only up to the "C's". Catwoman is the first article I've dealt with that had retcons out in the open like that. My first thought was to just remove the retconned information, but opted to reword it instead. SforHope's suggestion of banners is very good. I was not aware of these before now. They are much needed on big pages for long running characters. Catwoman is one of those enduring characters, however the retcons in question here are considerably minor in comparison to Superman and Robin who have entire decades changed. Selina's history as a prostitute is comparatively trivial.

I can address both your questions regarding citations and retcons at once by quoting SforHope, "we'd need an editor who knows pretty much every detail of Catwoman's history in order to put together such an article."

I am not a Catwoman expert, not even a novice. I have literally only read Year One, Long Halloween and her brief appearance in Hitman. If I could add specific citations, I would, but I can't. That responsibility should fall on the original author. Sadly the Database has more unverified info than I would have initially thought, but we are still much better than other sites. My original contributions are extensively cited, my tidy up of others' work is not for me to speculate on. Even if I could narrow down what issue it came from, without reading it, I have no idea if that information is accurate or not and will not put my name to it.

The whole Catwoman page could use a rewrite. It makes dull reading of an interesting character. I'm not the person to do it though. My entire goal of joining the Database was to edit Etrigan and Jason Blood's pages. It was a less daunting task half a year ago but since then there have been other contributions to it that have cluttered it. I am very close to completing all my core Demon reading and I will then rewrite Etrigan's essential history from scratch. Etrigan isn't even a prominent character with a long publication history and it's an enormous task to do properly. The thought of the Catwoman reading required for her page blows my mind.

If you're reading this and Catwoman interests you, perhaps you are the person for the job. Even if it was just one event done thoroughly. Just make sure you keep it in-universe.

Admin have a lot on their hands. They're constantly checking up on the rest of us with little time to do their own thing. I completely understand when one of them would just undo an incorrect edit or add a maintenance template rather than fix it themselves. That must get old fast. So as a relatively responsible person, I wanted to make a small dint in the work load. My hope is to clear the OOU article category so that the task is no longer daunting to others. With OOU sorted, there's the more specialised maintenance categories to tackle like citations and copy edits.

(Yep, this is still the short version. It's actually better this way.)