Forum:When something debuts in works released at the same time

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Opening

Don't think I've ever seen this happen until now: when a character or object first appears in two different printed works that happen to release on the same day, which gets priority in the "First appearance" part of the infobox?

I'm updating the page for the in-universe version of DWM 500 - including giving it an infobox - which is established not only in the real world issue, but also in certain bits of meta-fiction in DWA15 15, which published on the same day. WaltK ☎ 05:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

………Huh. I had never considered this either. I suppose |first note= could be used regardless to give context, but that doesn't establish which you actually put in the slot itself… Erm… Hmm… Anyone else have any ideas? Best I can come up with is alphabetical. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 10:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

It's not like, how with other such cases, we can pin down an exact time — as this case about something that would've been available at the exact same time. Perhaps an exception could be coded into the Infobox to allow two stories to be added?

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

10:56, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

What is |first note=? Never seen that one before. WaltK ☎ 13:40, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Its not an issue when this happens with Big Finish boxsets or when multiple books in the same series release in the same day. I feel like in situations like this, based on the precent of covering boxsets in the order one is meant to experience them, we should try to choose the more originating source as the first appearance. The Blathereen family page doesn't have this yet, but they appeared in Raxacoricofallapatorius (short story) on the same day they appeared in The Monsters Inside (novel), and in that situation, since they were created by Russell T Davies and The Monsters Inside is based on RTD's backstory published on the same day, I'd say Raxacoricofallapatorius (short story) should be the first appearance. In this situation, the first appearance seems to me to be the DWM story, because the DWA pieces exist in reference to it and are more ancillary. Of course, this route of deciding things is a bit subjective... TheChampionOfTime ☎ 14:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I think we're overlooking an obvious solution: we don't use first at all, and just give both appearances in an {{il}} in appearances. (One of them still has to go first in that list, of course, and I would tend to agree with TCOT that the DWA reference is ancillary, since DWM is closer, referencing itself.)

If we do decide to go ahead with a first, then I agree with TCOT, and also concur that we should use first note to explain the situation. (@WaltK: It acts like {{note}}, and allows you to add one into the infobox, since first is an autolinking variable.)
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 14:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that "intended reading order" is a perfectly good tiebreaker when there is one, but even if we think in terms of DWM being "primary" in a not-quite-chronological sense on this specific point, it doesn't resolve the theoretical question. We could very well end up with a situation where debuts are simultaneous but completely coincidental — say an obscure historical figure happening to appear in two stories from unrelated series and unrelated publishers that drop on the same day. I don't know that it's come up yet, nor that it's particularly likely to, but what would we do then?--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:08, 19 November 2024 (UTC)