Marvel Database talk:Character Template
From Marvel Database
Moved the older (resolved) issues to the archive page which can be found here: Archive 1 (2006~2008)
Please make suggestions/comments below and any "ToDo's" in the "To Do List" section.
Contents |
Template: To Do List
- Would it make sense to divide the "Affiliation" field into:
- | Current Affiliation
- | Former Affiliation
- and have the template auto-categorize them as members (and ex members) of ... whatever? That way, no pointless makings of lists and stuff.
- Roygbiv666 23:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
- Add Template:Tabs to the template. -- Hold off until the character names and such are updated and a consensus reached on how to approach.
- Power Bars???
- Add ToDo here...
Affiliations instead of Group affiliation:
I think it's simple and practical to use Affiliations instead of Group affiliation because sometimes a character is not associated with a group but only with a certain well known character. And other times characters are affiliated with a group and with certain characters. I found this format on wikipedia] and I think it's sweet. Copycat989 14:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I like the format...and I will change it on the "test" page @ User:M1shawhan/NewCharacterTemplate. Let me know what you think. I also wanted to know how everyone feels about the userboxes, like the one on the Wikipedia sites. I actually like them a lot and they make things look less cluttered. Plus, I think there is a lot of "lost space" on pages and putting info into a userbox would greatly be more efficient on space while making it look good.
- --M1shawhan 00:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I like the userbox idea it can make things look less cluttered. I'm kind of clumsy with them although I have some experience with editing on wikipedia and marveldatabase. I think they're pretty difficult to use and I it's hard to add more than one picture for a character because they seem to get misplaced
- Copycat989 09:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I like the userbox idea it can make things look less cluttered. I'm kind of clumsy with them although I have some experience with editing on wikipedia and marveldatabase. I think they're pretty difficult to use and I it's hard to add more than one picture for a character because they seem to get misplaced
- Noted and agreed. Less clutter, more of an eyesore on multiple pics. One pic looks good though.
- M1shawhan 00:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Would it make sense to divide the "Affiliation" field into:
| Current Affiliation
| Former Affiliation
and have the template autocategorize them as members (and ex members) of ... whatever? That way, no pointless makings of lists and stuff.
- Roygbiv666 23:43, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
- We (and by we I mean Peteparker) are trying to come up with a way to deal with this one. I know it has come up to try separating out the teams by semicolons (;'s) but in doing this it would HAVE to be entered exactly like this or it will not sort it right. We have somewhat of the same idea on the "Marvel Database:Staff Template". Check out the pages that have pseudonyms or aliases and see if this is the idea you are looking for. --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- I started using the semi-colon thing on the 'Creators' field, and had a bot go through and separate most of them out, (though I haven't "fixed" all the Creators fields yet), and it seems to be working in general. I think teams could be harder because there are a lot more things that can exist in a team name. We do need a way to separate the team names, and by utilizing the semi-colon, we're limiting what can be put into the field, weather that be good or bad. Definitely doable, as long as this is what we all want.
- --Nathan Elliott (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 01:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- That brings up a recurring challenge on wikis like this - people are able to just stick info in the template fields however they choose, without necessarily knowing the "correct" way to do so. Someone (somewhere) mentioned that it might be possible to have the template "instructions" populated in a new entry as a guide to filling it out. Not sure if that would work. It's too bad we can't have drop-downs for fields.
- Roygbiv666 12:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Adding a Summary?
So how about adding a summary of sorts to the top of the template? After the name, but before the History and Table of Contents? That way the first thing the person sees is the name/codename, the summary, and the infobox. If someone wants to know more, he/she will read the entire bio, but if he/she is just curious about the big picture, he/she sees it straight after entering the page. The summary gives a short description about that character, what he/she does, and what type of history he/she has. Having the summary would also help making the TOC appear between two sections instead cutting in the middle of the History section. Should it be calle the Summary, or would another name be more appropriate?
Ouchmaker 13:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
- I personally think the page is laid out clearly enough to find information quickly, but does anyone else feel this way about a summary?
- --Your Friendly Neighborhood Peteparker (talk • contribs • email) 21:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- This idea seems to be lost...anybody think this is should be done? Should we address it in the forums? --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- I still feel the same. :)
- --Nathan Elliott (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 01:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Adding Power Bars
Like it was mentioned in the Forums, should we add the power bars used in the Official Handbooks? Can they be done in graphical forms? Should we alter them, include other statistics? For the latter two I'm against, it would be less confusing if we were to use the same statistics and numbers as previously used. Comments? How do we make it work in graphical form (in power bars)? Discussion, please.
--Ouchmaker 09:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- I think this would be possible...we would have to integrate a template of some sort...have uploaded graphical icons and link those to individual template options 1-7. Separate out the categories and then end up with a link like this:
|Strength = 1 |Power = 2.....Doing this would make it link anything equaling a 1 to have the graphical-bar "1" attached to it and so forth. I think it could be done. Wish I was better at coding and I would do this. I can get the bar off the UHOTMU pages or we may even be able to use a mediawiki bar-graph. I will look into this more and let you know. --M1shawhan 17:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
- Good to know, this is promising. I know, I wish I had better coding skills so that I could do it myself, but I guess I will have to wait for someone else to do this. The tricky part would be the so-called Yellow bars and Green bars, which could be troubling to make into graphic form. -- Ouchmaker 22:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
- If what I plan on doing "works", then it shouldn't be too hard. Just tedious. --M1shawhan 01:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
- Well, if you manage to get something that works, I would be happy to apply the numbers to the profiles. I have the updated list of given bar numbers on my page, so it's just about adding the correct numbers on the correct profiles. But where should the bars be added on the character template? And how would you plan on solving the issue of more than one bar number on a single bar-space? (for instance teleporters can have two separate numbers on the Speed bar, and some entries have had as much as three separate numbers on a single bar-space). -- Ouchmaker 13:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
- Here is my plan --
- get a pic of "all bars" singles 1-7 & any combinations...should be able to get all these from OHOTMU issues.
- assign each "pic" a number value. (Prob 1-7 & then 1/2 or 1/7 for the combos...we'll see)
- put this into a template to use these "pics" for each assigned value you enter (ex. you put a 1 - you get the single "1" bar-pic
- Test it out... ;) --M1shawhan 17:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
- Most of the OHOTMU's use different colors as their Power Bar colors, so it wouldn't be the same for all the profiles. Simply the single bar choices would give us forty, and all the double bar choices would give us fifty choices, so we would have to use about a hundred different pics with single and double bars only.
- We could possibly use these things instead:
Problem with this one is I have no idea how to transform this so that it has Intelligence, Strength, and others written in there, or how to change the color, or how to even change it from a timeline into another type of a bar. and it doesn't show the scale of the bars, since it's a timeline and not an actual power bar. I modified it a bit, but it's from here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files
Intelligence 
Strength 
Then there's this, which is a lot simpler, now we just need it to change the color, It's not as fancy as the first one, but works. And that one is from here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula -- Ouchmaker 20:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
- I found this help page on timelines that can walk you through making bar graphs and timelines. The question then becomes whether or not you can template them. -- WhyBother 06:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- SWEET!!!! We might be able to make this work. Does anyone know if a template can be "integrated" into a template? Like maybe we have a "power bar" template that we can put in the character template or have attached under the picture or something...hmmm ---M1shawhan 01:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Should be able to...
- Let me know if you have troubles with it.
- --Jamie 03:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Still have not even attempted this, but it is "on my list". ;) --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Would this work? ;)
|
{{Power Grid
| Intelligence =
| Strength =
| Speed =
| Durability =
| Energy Projection =
| Fighting Skills =
}}
|
— Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 05:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
/Appearances
I still think it's silly to have two pages for the same thing. If we set up the Category:/Appearances page to have ==In Chronological Order:== on top, then the "written in" appearances", then ==Alphabetical==, we can have all of the Appearances information on the same page, which will help for cross referencing, and will consolidate the amount of pages and links for each character. --Your Friendly Neighborhood Peteparker (talk • contribs • email) 21:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
- I actually agree with this. It is annoying that we have to change it when it is both the same thing...appearances. I have been going off the fact that we linked to 2 places in the character page and we've always "used" 2 different links...well more recently. I think we should consult Jamie on this one though. I think we made a question or two when the category came into being and he had a valid reason that I can remember.
- We would have to correct out the following:
- Templates that use both chronological and unordered links and change the "Appearances Page Needed" auto-category off.
- Disambig "ABCD" links will need to be adjusted to just 3 options
- Possibly even move the current Appearance pages to their respective category pages using the page-links on the Category:Character Appearances.
- Other than that, I am all for it. :) --M1shawhan 00:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not sure if this was ever addressed, but I know it has not been changed. --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- I can pull this off fairly easily, a bot to move all the stuff in the /Appearances page to the Category:/Appearances page, and a template tweak to remove the /Appearances page for the templated ones.
- --Nathan Elliott (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email)
Alive/deceased status field
I think there should be a status field for the character's live status with options "Alive", "Deceased", "Resurrected" "Body is dead, consciousness is alive" (or something shorter). The automatic First/Last handling thingy is not working very well with resurrected or "half-dead" (a la Dream Girl) characters. The Clever Guy (Talk • Contribs • E-Mail) 14:15, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
- If we come up with a category, say "Category:Resurrected Characters" we can make this work. We would have to make a new section for the template (I can't even think of a good name) but if used with specific words or at all, we can have it tag the page with the category or whatever. Let me know if you can think of any ideas for this... --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think we need autocategorizetion of death upon 'Last' being filled in. Sometimes a character stops showing up in comics, but doesn't die, and it'd be nice to put their 'Last Appearance' in 'Last'.
- --Nathan Elliott (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 01:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Other Universe Characters
I know we have disambig pages for this and stuff, but you think we might need a section strictly for "other universes" that the characters hail from? Maybe we could have it be a section that uses the []'s and we give a short blurb, or we just enter in character names and it lists them out in a table or something. Thoughts? --M1shawhan 00:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'd like to see an example of this.
- --Nathan Elliott (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 01:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
/Quotes
This shouldn't be a category. It should be like [[{{PAGENAME}}/Quotes]]. C Teng [talk] 18:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
- Hi C,
- Having it as a category lets us do special things, like automatically insert all the quotes attributed to that character. If you have further questions, please leave me a message on my talk page. :)
- --Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 15:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Notes / Links & References
I think that the "Notes" section should be renamed "Notes and references," and the "Links & References" section be renamed to "External Links." C Teng [talk] 16:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
How about we move the references into the 'Links and References' section? That way we can have references in the Trivia section too. — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 00:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Mainstream
There should be a "mainstream counterpart" link on the infobox. C Teng [talk] 02:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
- That's a pretty good idea. Anyone else want this?
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 03:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Are we still adding this? C Teng [talk] 12:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, there's a problem with it, because some of the Earth-616 counterparts aren't from Earth-616. Take Bishop, Rachel Summers, or Mojo for example. The mainstream versions of these guys don't have an Earth-616 version, which makes coding this much more complicated.
- Plus, it'd also be nice to get more opinions about it beyond just you and me. :) Did you happen to mention it on the forums?
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 14:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, the {{#if: }} thing would be a small sliver of it. It's actually significantly more complicated than that, because of the need to test for 'Earth-616' in the title, and then including things based on that. Plus, if you'd like to include other universes, you have to test for those as well. Once you get to the point that the page you're on for sure isn't a main continuity character, then you have to figure out which universe is the mainstream continuity character, since it can be a person from multiple universes, (like Rachel Summers from Earth-811, Lucas Bishop from Earth-1191, and Mojo from The Mojoverse). Not to mention the situations where the alternate character's name isn't the same as the main universe character's name, like Peter Parquagh of Earth-311. I'm not saying it's impossible, just saying it's a decent chunk of programming to get it working the right way.
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 15:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh. Is that why if you don't put |Notes = in the template, it will still say, "There are no notes for this person"? Because I thought you could just use {{#if: {{{1|}}} }} C Teng [talk] 21:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yea, it's similar. In that case, it uses {{#if: to see if the 'Notes' field is filled out at all, and if it's not, it puts in "No notes for this blah", and if it is, it puts whatever was in the Notes section of the template. Like so: {{#if: {{{Notes|}}} | {{{Notes}}} | There are no notes for this person. }}
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 00:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- When it comes to the info box (The blue box on the right side), I completely agree with you. But there are two reasons for having the Notes bit show up anyway. 1. It gives people viewing the page a chance to see that something about the character is missing that they can add. 2. If we did this to all the fields outside of the infobox, like history, powers and notes, when they were all not filled in, all we'd have on the page would be the infobox, and the whole page would be unbalanced looking. Having 'blank sentences' as the default for the left side is a way to keep a balance between the infobox information and the main sections of the page.
- It's really personal opinion, as some of the administrators on the DC side think much the same way you do, and have begun to hide fields in the main part of the page. If you still believe this is necessary, I suggest you start a thread in the forums, since it seems you and I are the only ones looking here. :)
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 14:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
So, we can't just make the "Mainstream Counterpart" section only appear when it's needed, by using {{#if: {{{1|}}} }}? C Teng [talk] 02:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Wait, I don't understand why we can't have it be just looking for "Earth-616", for the Rachel Summers and Bishop and them it will NEVER find it (unless Marvel decides to throw a curve ball for a storyline). Since it will never find them, we don't allow it to SAY "Mainstream Counterpart".
- I am picturing something like this...on characters that are non-Earth-616 (no 616 in the PAGENAME), we have it do an {{#ifexist search for same PAGENAME, this time WITH the (Earth-616) and have it link to that page....is that along the lines of what we are talking about? --M1shawhan 03:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Here's test pages...do with them as you will and we can all see. The test area that I chose is marked with the (hopefully noticeable) ***'s.
- Please make changes as needed to those pages. The only problem I am seeing is forcing the 616 link (maybe needs an #explode: option?!?!) and also making a good section name other than "616" Counterpart and still fits good in the infobox. :( --M1shawhan 04:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You were missing a div in your infobox template, so that was handled right away.
- Aside from that, there are a few situations that spring to mind for me that you didn't think of right away:
- Character Test (Earth-2006161) (Has 616 in the title)
- Character Test (Earth-6161864) (Has "Earth-616" in the title)
- Character Test (Mojoverse) (Reality is made up of purely words)
- Character Test (Other Guy) (Earth-1298) (Has more distinguishing characteristics)
- Character Test (Alien) (No Reality)
- I put in work-arounds for most of these, but I know they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exceptions. We'll just have to see. I'll install it, and if you guys see jacked pages, leave a message here. Like I said, to handle the exceptions is the most complicated part. Not impossible, just time consuming and difficult.
- I also took out the categories from the test page, to keep these pages from hanging out in the character categories.
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 21:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Now see, you had to go and smash all my dreams of a fix, huh??? I think that the most annoying one that you caught will be the (Other Guy) one. It will affect the characters without real names from what I can think of offhand. Like, Wolverine (Weapon X) (Earth-616) and Wolverine (Not Wolverine) (Earth-616) type of characters....grrrr. The other issue with the (Alien) example, will be fixed when we convert to Earth-designations. I am somewhat in the process of converting those pages that do NOT have an Earth-des to having one. Slow going, as I created a DPL page to get these letter by letter. After working from Z->A, I have only done Z. Once we get it cleaned up once, we can have a "task" page of sorts that we can check all the characters that don't have "Earth-blah blah" in the name. That will help clear up that issue, but the others may still be questionable.
- Now I am seeing more of what you were talking about as far as the "Mainstream" characters. Since Bishop and Rachel Summers' "mainstream" character would be their non-616 designation....why didn't you just SAY that. ;) --M1shawhan 00:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yea, not to mention that most of our alt-universe characters don't use the main template anyway, but the Minor one.
- It's not an easy problem to tackle in general, as it requires a kind of brain behind it all, deciding where to point the reader. But at least Earth X Reed Richards has a link now. :)
- — Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk • contribs • email) 00:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Creators?
Could we have a Creators2 section there for notes / references? C Teng [talk] 17:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)