Talk:Todd Manning

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WP:URFA/2020 notes

I took a look at this for WP:URFA/2020; here are my comments from a quick glance, Figureskatingfan. For an article with 14,000+ words the FAC seems shockingly light. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but:

• I found it odd so many sources lean on the self-published side (About.com, etc.). Is there not commentary available from published sources instead? Llanview Online doesn't seem like a high-quality source, for example.
• Some articles from magazines are missing page numbers. What about volume, issue?
• Timestamps on television episodes would be helpful.
• ""Roger Howarth Appearance". Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee. May 1994." → how is someone supposed to verify this? there is no timestamp or even a broadcast date.

Heartfox (talk) 01:13, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Heartfox, I will try and answer your questions. I'm not sure what you mean by the FAC seeming light. Is that because there were only four supports? At this point in my WP editing career, I worked hard at making sure that it was ready for FAC. Which is was, I think. It was promoted, even with the fewer reviewers.

Yes, many of the sources are reviews of OLTL, often in blogs on sites like about.com. That's the nature of the medium, I think. One of challenges of this article was the fact that much of the commentary about Todd was published in soap opera mags that were never archived on the web. We included less reliable sources like Llanview Online because that's what we were able to find in order to be comprehensive. The FAC reviewers noted that and accepted our explanation. Many of the magazines were at one time owned by the article's other writer, the late, great Flyer22 Reborn (gad, I miss her so much), but were disposed of by the time we worked on it. Again, the reviewers didn't seem to mind. We also weren't able to find broadcast dates of individual episodes (the good people on YouTube didn't include them) and the Live! episode.

Our experience in working on this article is similar to the experiences and challenges of other articles that live in the gender gap here on WP. It meant that we were driven to technically not the most reliable sources because the sources that discuss topics like soap opera characters are non-traditional, even during Todd's time on OLTL. Then these sources are often lost or not easily assessable. I don't think that means articles that focus on topics like this shouldn't be FAs; it behooves the WP community to take those things into account and assume good faith that the editors of these articles are doing the best they could. I think that Flyer would agree, since her legacy is articles like this. (BTW, I really wished that General Hospital would've brought Todd back, now that they killed off Howarth's character Franco, but I understand why they can't. They'd be stupid not to recast Howarth as Drew Cane, though. My apologies for the tangent, but I'm such a big fan. I wish Flyer were still around so we could dish about that, even though she wasn't a fan of GH like I am.) Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:57, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan: Yeah I'm just saying because (based on my experience), depending on the reviewer, this might not pass a source review today as some of the sources don't really seem reliable. I completely agree that "high quality" sources or whatever sometimes seems to be the only thing focused on in reviews and how the comprehensiveness of the article would be impacted is never taken into consideration. I think a lot of people do not understand how difficult it is to write FA-worthy articles aside from war and history topics so congratulations on the article as it is. The gender gap is definitely real and I've also noticed a race gap. So many articles about Black celebrities/TV shows etc. are embarrassingly lackluster. It's quite sad. BTW I looked at your article for Mom & Me & Mom to write The Meaning of Mariah Carey (not done yet) as I had never written a book article before so thanks for the influence :P Heartfox (talk) 03:47, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Heartfox: Yes, that would be the systemic bias that's also an unfortunate reality here in WP-land. It's nice to see that you're doing your part, like so many, to mitigate its effect. The more of us who are dedicated to doing something about it, the better it will get. I'm so glad that Dr. Angelou and I could help you write about Mariah. Please let me know how I can help, like with a GAN review or a copyedit. BTW, one of the ways to fight bias is to have well-reasoned arguments about why it's necessary to break policies and procedures. Reviewers tend to be fellow content editors, so they're usually reasonable. I can help with that if you need it, too. My favorite WP policy is WP:IAR, and it exists for a reason. ;) Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:25, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan: Following up with this conversation (which I know was a long time ago) but there are some concerns that I have about this article that might be connected to the above, and might not be:

• My biggest concern is the article length. At over 13,000 words WP:TOOBIG recommends that the article prose be spun out or trimmed.
• Connected to the above, there are lots of sections in the article that are quite large. I recommend 2-4 paragraphs per section before another heading breaks up the text. Some of these sections might become smaller if they are trimmed.

Are you willing to take a look and the article and consider areas to trim? If you would like suggestions, I am happy to make them below if pinged. Z1720 (talk) 02:53, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

I will take a look at the article and paragraph lengths, but please give me a little time, since I'm busy and have other irons in the fire. Thanks, appreciate it. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:45, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

• @Figureskatingfan: Take as much time as you need. I might periodically ping if there are any questions. Z1720 (talk) 17:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Ideas re forked articles

As promised, I'm taking another look at the length of this article. I think one of the ways we can make it shorter is to break off the content into new articles. Here are some ideas below. If they're agreeable to folks, I can go ahead and create the new articles.

• Todd Manning storylines. Back when Flyer22 and I were working on this, I disagreed that this section was even necessary, but I went along with it because she, as a soap opera article expert, insisted that it was the convention for articles about soap opera characters. So I'm fine with putting this section into a new article.
• Todd Manning reception and impact. Mostly, I think that this section is long enough to warrant its own article.

I think that these suggestions would make a big impact on this article's length. I'm open to other ideas, of course. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:29, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720, see my above note. I've also finished going through the article, doing some minor copyediting and separating paragraphs. Let me know what you think and if you (and/or anyone else) would like me to move ahead with creating the new, forked articles. Thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 00:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan: Sorry I didn't respond sooner.

• Typically, I would expect character arcs to roughly follow MOS:PLOT. That might be difficult for characters who have existed for decades, but readers do not need the excessive detail.
• If there are enough sources that the section could pass WP:GNG then editors could spin it out. I think the "Controversy and fan debate" section is too much detail and should not be in this article, or at least summarised more effectively. This article has a lot of "X says Y" which makes the section read more like a college essay and less like a Wikipedia article. Z1720 (talk) 04:02, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720, I will do some further copyediting. Remember that this article was written several years ago, so it's lacking in the newer policies. Plus, I was a little skittish about changing anything, since it felt disrespectful to Flyer22's memory. I'm sure she'd yell at me for daring to change what's already a FA, but I think that we need to move ahead, anyway. I think that the Reception and impact section and its subsection easily passes WP:GNG, so I'll go ahead and create a new article. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:17, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan: It sucks that the editor who brought this to FAC is no longer here to make improvements. There's no rush, and if work is ongoing I won't nominate an article to FAR. Please ping me if there are any questions, and I might ping you every once in a while for updates if work seems to have stalled. Z1720 (talk) 17:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Storylines of Todd Manning

Everyone, I have created a new article, Storylines of Todd Manning, as per our discussion above. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think, preferably over at its talk page. I also summarized its content here and added the main template, so please let me know if that was enough. Thanks, Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 19:15, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Reception and impact of Todd Manning

Hi again all, in the interest of creating forked articles for the purpose of decreasing the length of this article, I've been working on improving the "Reception and impact of Todd Manning" in my sandbox. See here for what I've done so far; please ignore the first section, which is notes about figure skating. ;)

I have a few thoughts I'd like to run past folks because I move the content from my sandbox into main article space.

• The title of the section no longer fits the content in what will be the new article. (Actually, it can be argued that it never was.) Instead, the new article should be named, "Depiction of rape in One Life to Live" because that's what it's about. One of the things I'm proudest about the Todd article is that it includes a literary criticism of rape in a particular soap opera. As the new content already states, rape is an interesting and common theme/trope in the genre of the soap opera. The way that OLTL handled it is particularly interesting, and this article does a good job at presenting it. As a result, the content is deserving, and not because of its length, of its own treatment in a distinctive article.
• The new article's subsections also need to be renamed. The first section, currently called "General popularity", should be renamed "Background" and include more synopsis of the storylines. I could also see it being separated into two sections: "Storylines" and "Background".
• The "Controversy and fan debate" subsection should be turned into a section and renamed "Literary analysis", since Jennifer Hayward isn't the only person who does such an analysis. It also goes deeper than a simple discussion about the controversies the rape storylines created and about fans' perceptions of them.
• "Merchandising" subsection: You might that a discussion about a doll wouldn't fit in a discussion about rape, but I think that it does because it's about how ABC botched the way in which it was handled. I'm not sure how yet, but it should be folded somewhere into the new article.
• "Violence towards teenagers" and "Revictimizing Marty" subsections: The content here absolutely belongs in this article. It brings up an interesting point, however. Back when Flyer and I worked on the Todd article, we made the decision to not include any storyline about Trevor St. John's tenure because it turned out that he wasn't really Todd, even though he and everyone else (including the writers) believed that he was. There was quite a lot of discussion about this, with others chiming in who disagreed with that choice, although our position eventually won out. Considering that choice, though, we chose to include the violence towards teens and the re-rape storylines, even though they occurred during St. John's tenure. We didn't really discuss it at the time, but looking back, I think we made that choice because it was part of the overall treatment of how rape was presented in OLTL. I think that we should include it in the new article, but explain that both storylines didn't occur during Howarth's tenure, the "real Todd." These discussions actually support my assertion that the new article is about how rape is presented in one soap opera, not about controversy and fan reaction.
• "Execution" storyline": The last two paragraphs in what is now the "General popularity" subsection is a discussion about a storyline that doesn't involve rape, so it should be removed. Additionally, it shouldn't be folded into the main Todd article because of the above point, that it involves a non-Howarth tenure storyline. Instead, it should be folded into List of One Life to Live characters introduced in the 2000s#Victor Lord, Jr. I've always thought that poor Victor was a major enough character, especially when you take into account that everyone thought that he was Todd, and that he warranted his own article. The new content would make it long enough to create such an article.

Please discuss; I'd like to hear what folks think about my ideas/suggestions/proposals. I'm happy to create the new article, as I did with the Storylines article. Thanks, it's been fun. Pinging User:Z1720. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 05:28, 26 July 2025 (UTC)