Editing Incubator escapee wiki:WikiProject Soap Operas (section)

===Character articles===

====Notability standards====
All soap-related articles, and character articles in particular, must meet [[Wikipedia:Notability|Wikipedia's notability guidelines]], including the [[Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline|general notability guideline]]. Though there is [[Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)|no special guideline for the notability of fictional elements]], a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources|reliable sources]] that are [[Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources|independent]] of the subject.

An article should be created about a soap opera character only if the character is notable within the series and has been the subject of third-party discussions. Otherwise, the character should simply be included in a "List of characters" for that particular program. 

Character articles should always be written from a "real world" perspective, and should definitely not consist simply of in-universe plot summary. As such, it should include:
* Real-world dates for when the character was created
* Which actors have played the character, and when
* Any awards which were won by the actor for playing that character

The article should ''not'' be used for a collection of storyline trivia about the character.  As a rule of thumb, only those events which were significant enough to have been written about in third-party sources should be included. Remember that we are here to create an encyclopedia, not to provide a comprehensive guide to soap opera storylines. Wherever possible, try to discuss the character in "real world" context: Why are they important to non-fans, how are they affecting modern  culture, what have they done that is historic in a real-world context.  If a detail is only interesting to those who watch the show, it is probably not worth including in the Wikipedia article.  See [[WP:CRUFT]] and alternatively [[WP:NOCRUFT]]. 

See the "[[#Examples|Examples]]" section lower on this page for samples of good articles.

====Character article format====
Articles should include:
* The '''{{tl|Infobox soap character}}''', with basic information included. See the template documentation for important notes on usage.
* A [[WP:LEAD|lead paragraph]] which indicates the name of the character, when it originated, current or last portrayer, and a very brief summary of the other material in the article.  A good lead encapsulates the entire article in a couple of paragraphs.
* Notation of all of actors that have played the character, and the dates; this is usually done in the infobox, and often summarized in the lead section.
* Storyline summary; 500-1000 words '''maximum'''
* A list of the awards that have been won for the role
* Sources and references. Every article ''must'' have [[WP:V|verifiable]] sources such as newspaper and magazine articles that talk about the character, or at the minimum, links to character biography pages on the official website for the series (per policy, fansites are usually considered unreliable). If a character is not notable enough to be mentioned in outside press, then they're not notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia!
* Appropriate categories; see [[:Category:Soap opera characters]]

====Character relationships====
Soap opera characters tend to have complex family and romantic relationships. Obviously, notable relationships can and should be mentioned in the text of the article as they apply to a character's storylines. Though extensive relationship lists within the body of articles may seem helpful for navigation, article quality assessments have generally deemed them trivial and as having a negative impact on article quality. '''To keep articles visually appealing and manageable, relationships should be "listed" only in the infobox.''' The {{tl|Infobox soap character}} contains a collapsible section to accommodate this. In order to keep these lists manageable, use judgment on which relationships to include. 

* For most characters, relatives listed should be limited to closer family and generations having some relevance to the character in question. Remember, more distant relations (step-great-grandchildren?) will be noted in the infoboxes of other characters more closely related to them. This is especially important for long-running characters, who tend to have an excessive amount of relations. See [[Template:Infobox soap character#Relationship parameters]].
* For miscarriages or other unsuccessful pregnancies (common in soap operas), list these only on the pages of the parents, along with the year that the event occurred. In many cases a footnote may be preferred to present this information.
* To conserve space and improve readability, [[WP:COMMONNAME|Common names]] (usually the article name) should be used for links in infoboxes. For example, [[Sami Brady]] instead of the piped link [[Sami Brady|Samantha "Sami" Brady DiMera]].

====Notable couples====
In  general, articles should be about individual characters, rather than about couples; however bonafide [[supercouple]]s and other highly notable couples may be eligible for their own Wikipedia articles if:
* They have won a major award as a couple
* They have appeared on multiple "couple" lists
* They have been cited in outside (non-soap) press as a notable couple
However, large amounts of information should not be repeated on multiple articles; consider instead interlinking individual character and couple articles in a logical way to present all pertinent information without redundancies.