Talk:Lost

This series of articles has a proposed development sheet. The listed are top priorities for these articles. Short Term Goals All Pages: Unlink all dates. Episode Pages: Fix to reflect new conventional formatting. Special Page: Update Season 2 mysteries to add unanswered questions and mysteries Character Pages: Add characters that are reoccuring or only seen in flashbacks. Episode Pages: Fill in details for already-aired episodes Long Term Goals Character Pages: Fill up biographies. Please help out by editing it. Once you have completed an item, please strikethrough it.

Spoiler tag use on the episode and characters' biography pages

Are we planning on standardizing the use of spoiler tags for all character dossiers? It seems to me, especially on a show such as Lost that the character pages are almost completely saturated with spoilers. As the site includes a disclaimer warning the user to read Character and Episode pages only at the user's risk, I suggest that we do not use the spoiler tags on either of these two catagories of pages.--Alecm 10:01, 12 Sep 2005 (PDT)

We were playing around with the concept of where and when to use spoiler tags, and it's a general consensus that character pages should not use spoiler tags. If necessary, we can split up the Information heading to Season One and Season Two later on. --Wizardryo 19:44, 12 Sep 2005 (EDT)

I currently have spoiler-tagged the Season 2 stuff on the character pages, but I will probably take them out as it is impossible to avoid spoilers without crippling the site. "Last Appearance" in the header of a character template is kind of a giveaway. --Stabbey 14:44, 21 Nov 2005 (EST)

Then again, aside from "Last Appearance", it's not that hard to make the Character pages safe for Season one-only viewers (except for Season 2 characters, where spoiler tags are obviously not used). The Timeline and Character Dossiers pages definitely can't avoid untagged spoilers. I'm also not sure what to do with spoilers on the Lost Mysteries pages. --Stabbey 18:45, 5 Dec 2005 (EST)

Why are we spoiler-tagging stuff in episode pages? If someone's reading an episode page they likely either saw the episode or didn't and want to be brought up to speed. --Wraith 19:26, 6 Dec 2005 (EST)

We shouldn't be spoiler-tagging that stuff, that's right. I'll ask in the Lost thread--Stabbey 08:54, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

Can we remove all the spoiler tags. There is a big enough warning on the front page which should perhaps go to the top of the page. --Grafix 07:12, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Yet more spoiler tags have appeared. Could we have a decision by the admin on this issue. --Grafix 14:06, 3 February 2006 (EST)

No episode page should have spoiler tags in them unless they haven't aired yet in the country its original viewership is in. A template, {{{unaired}}}, is used to designate these episodes. Spoiler tags in unaired episodes should be used for major spoilers, such as a character's death, in the event that someone accidentally stumbles into the episode page. Spoilers in character pages are completely optional, but are helpful for popular shows with a big international viewership. Lost is one of these shows. --Wizardryo | ✎ 14:40, 4 February 2006 (EST)

Short Term Goals

1. Could anyone clarify what is meant by unlink all dates? Has this already been completed?
2. Are the episode pages not already updated to reflect new standards?

Yeah, that was fixed a while ago. Changing the list to reflect that. --Sigma 14:09, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)

3. What is meant to be on the Lost/At_a_Glance page? The general show overview is given on the main article page, and the fact that the At a Glance page is listed under the Indepth section seems paradoxical.--Alecm 13:49, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)

There are several shows with finished At a Glance pages, like Buffy and Battlestar Galactica that you can look at to see what the At A Glance page is. It's generally used for various indepth facts like awards the show has been nominated for or won, international network showings information, various show trivia, and other information that would just clutter up the front page if it was put there. --Hawkman 14:33, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)

I originally meant for "At A Glance" to be miscellaneous information that really doesn't deserve its own article. If portions of it get important enough, such as the Awards, they can be "upgraded" to a full article by the discretion of the editors. --Wizardryo 00:51, 16 Sep 2005 (EDT)

4. I've added a new short term goal - to get the episode pages filled in, as many were blank. Kruller has volunteered to work on that. --Stabbey 16:29, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

What is the status of the episode updates? --Grafix 06:04, 12 Jan 2006 (EST)

Reoccuring/flashback characters

I added something to short term goals and thought I should explain. Some examples are Jack's father, Vincent, Sarah (Jack's fiance/car crash survivor). Also needed are Desmond. Maybe in the future: Locke's father and Sayid's lost love, etc. --waffle iron 00:43, 23 Sep 2005 (EDT)

I agree that more pages for flashback characters are needed, if there's something to put in there. I don't think Nathan is worth a page, there's not enough information to make a page worth the space it would take. I think only secondary on-island characters (multiple episodes) should be considered part of the Secondary Cast. Jack's father is an exception because he has appeared so many times as to be considered a recurring character. Helen does not count because she has been in only one episode.

--Stabbey 14:44, 21 Nov 2005 (EST)

Trivia from Every Episode

This is sort of what TVTome had before they sold their souls to CNet...for every episode, people can write-in and post things that others might not have seen....of course this would be 100% spoiler-city...what does everyone think?

Yes, this is an idea that is already integrated into the Wiki on many other episode pages. We have an entire Trivia section dedicated to that. --Wizardryo 04:18, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Lost Logo

Lost was one of the first pages created when the Wiki started since I had worked on it previously, so naturally the logo is a bit lackluster. Does anyone think they can upload a more hi-res, nicer looking version of it and replace the original image? --Wizardryo 04:18, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)

• I've changed the logo to something a little nicer Mazadillon 11:33, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

Flashback Count

I think I should make it clear how I count flashbacks for the characters: If Jack has a flashback episode, I count that as one, I don't count each individual flashback as a seperate instance because they are all part of one line of flashback-thought the character is having. On episodes like "Exodus" or "Pilot", where there is a single flashback for many individual characters, I count those as one flashback for each character. Episodes where flashbacks are split between two characters, like "Special" or "... and Found" also count as one flashback for each character. "The Other 48 Days" does not count as a flashback episode, because there is no flashback from the pre-crash life of anyone. --Stabbey 14:44, 21 Nov 2005 (EST)

I think we'll have to go through them and check and make sure the tallies are correct. I know, for example, that Sawyer used to have another tally because of his brief appearance in Boone's flashback. Would that count, or no? Another example would Jack briefly appearing in Shannon's flashback in Abandoned, or Hurley appearing in Jin's flashback in ... in Translation. --Wizardryo|✎ 17:56, 21 Nov 2005 (EST)

It doesn't matter in the slightest who appears in a flashback, only who is actually having it at the time. Sawyer in Boone's flashback, Jack in Shannon's and Hurley in Jin's don't count. The tallies aren't hard to count. Jack, got a flashback in Pilot 1, Kate and Charlie each got a flashback in Pilot 2, Everyone except Claire and Sayid got one in Exodus. My count is accurate, I do believe. --Stabbey 16:29, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

Sayid and Claire both got flashbacks on the Season 1 DVD. There was a special section that included their flashbacks presented in such a way that they were clearly not deleted scenes but just extra scenes not in an episode but still considered to be part of the show. --The-jam 12:29, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

But not everyone who watches the show gets the DVD's. Hence these flashbacks don't count because they were never aired in the episode. Both of those characters have their missing flashbacks mentioned on their character pages in the trivia section. --Stabbey 08:54, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

Timeline Format

The timeline is getting very long and part of this as due to the use of individual text boxes for each sentence. Would it be better to have a single text box per day? --Grafix 16:57, 28 Nov 2005 (EST)

You can certainly do that if you want, it's what I've done for the explanations page, so I have no problem with that. --Stabbey 10:17, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

I've updated the format for the timeline page so it's organized into the single text-box per day format. --Stabbey 19:24, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

"Red Herring" web sites

What is the opinion about adding more information about (possibly red herring) sites like the Hanso Foundation? Couldn't any pages on it yet --mr brown 23:04, 30 Nov 2005 (EST)

I actually just added info on one of the websites on the Lost/Dharma Initiative page. Are there more sites like the Hanso one? I can do those too. thehansofoundation.org is definitely run by ABC, as it has ABC terms of use linking from it. --Wraith 23:13, 30 Nov 2005 (EST)

There's Oceanic Air.com, the ABC site for Oceanic Air, but that's about it for the semi-official sites. bigspaceshipone is a pure red herring site with no real information at all. --Stabbey 18:45, 5 Dec 2005 (EST)

Unanswered Questions Page

I noted that some of the questions that were answered have been commented out. That doesn't help those who had those questions and wanted to see if they have been answered. I was thinking that perhaps if there are answers that they could be put in spoiler tags. And I'm not sure what to do about Season 2 information, perhaps that should be put into spoiler tags on that page. At the very least, I'm seperating the unanswered questions into questions from different seasons.

Here is how I would put the "What is inside the hatch question" from Season 1 - it gives an answer without revealing definite Season 2 information.

• What is inside the hatch? A bunker/apartment, which has geothermal power and running water.

I'm sorry that I hadn't been updating this page regularly for Season 2. I should update the page, but I want opinions on the way to proceed. --Stabbey 10:45, 1 Dec 2005 (EST)

I removed the old spoiler tag code that appears to no longer function properly and was causing strange errors.--The-jam 16:14, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

Character/Episode Images

I'm curious as to whether the episode image should be a Press Release Photo (which are nice, quality wise), or whether they should be Episode screen captures. I've noticed that a few of the most recent episodes had promo images on them, and have been replaced by (in my opinion), images of a lesser quality.

I just think using the promotional images for the episodes/characters makes the page look nicer. The episode images can even be placed in the content of the page, where the episode description and whatnot are. ----Webbeh 16:42, 17 Feb 2006 (EST)

There's nothing wrong with using promotional images when there's a promo image available that represents the episode well. Especially when there's a noticeable disparity between the quality of the screen cap and the quality of the promo image. Most if not all of the episode images for Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica are promotional images released by Sci Fi Channel, for instance. --Hawkman | talk 18:58, 17 February 2006 (EST)

secondary cast removals

Why did you remove Ethan Rom from the secondary cast? He was a fairly improtant character to the storyline of season one just because he died and isn't going to appear much any more doesn't mean he should be removed. The list is important secondary cast members for all seasons not just the current one. He's been more important a character than Candle for sure and probably will be for a while.The-jam

Even though I already recerted it back a while ago, for the record, you're right and I have re-added him. I might also re-add someone else I removed because rumor has that person in a more prominent role next season. --Stabbey 22:31, 22 June 2006 (EDT)

External Linking TVGuide.com's Lost Page

What do you guys think about adding TV Guide's Lost page to the external link section: [1]

What Time is it on?

The ABC website seems confused:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index (says it's at 8/7C) http://abc.go.com/primetime/schedule/index.html (says it's at 9/8C).

Actually, you have the times reversed. The primetime schedule in the second link is for Fall 2004 when Lost was on at 8PM. DCEdwards1966 | Talk 14:08, 31 October 2006 (EST)

Supporting/Recurring Cast

I changed the limit from four to five appearances for guest cast to be included. The previous limit was 4, but the listing pretty much included actors with 5+ appearances. OK? Pierre 15:06, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

The episode cut-off is kind of arbitrary it was included just to prevent people from adding tons of characters to the list. It's more just who is more important to the overall storyline (as opposed to individual character storylines or small arcs). Like appearing in four episodes across three seasons would make someone more of a supporting/recurring character than someone who just appears four times in a row and then is likely to never be seen again (like the freighter doctor). Increasing the cutoff as the series progresses makes some sense but isn't necessary. I'd say wait until after tonight's finale and then maybe we can reevaluate the whole list. --The-jam 16:09, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

Fair enough. I added Fredric Lehne though, since he's appeared in 8 episodes, his character was onboard flight 815 and remained central until his death, and kept being referred to even in season 4. Pierre 09:41, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Since every cast member with six appearances or more was included in the recurring cast list, but only one with five (Kevin Tighe), I changed the limit to six, and removed Tighe. To have a simple cut off will decrease the risk of edit wars or discussions, now as season 5 is about to begin. (And man am I eager for it to get starting! :) ) --Pierre 22:46, 22 December 2008 (EST)