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Talk:List of character appearances by episode

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Revision as of 10:50, 9 April 2007 by imported>Level (→‎Consideration of Incorporation)
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Appearances

  • I think you folks are just using this article as an excuse to watch all of the episodes again  ;) --Orne 16:38, 8 February 2007 (EST)


Jessica

I haven't been listing her separately because it's not always clear when she's "appeared", and because ... well, I was going from the synopses mostly and the early ones obviously don't mention her by name, so it just slipped my mind. Do you think we should add her?--Hardvice (talk) 03:18, 9 February 2007 (EST)

  • I kind of look at this list as more of an actor list than a character list, though they're listed by characters. (Oh, and Hank will finally get his due for Distractions!) I don't think anybody will look at this list and think, "What?! Wasn't Jessica in that episode? They left her out? I'm so angry I could have my alter ego snap a baton!" ... That said, it wouldn't hurt having her in there, just not necessary in my opinion. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 06:44, 9 February 2007 (EST)

Layout

Also, the multicolumn layout is pretty much essential since this would otherwise be an incredibly annoying long, thin list, but does anyone think it would be better to have each episode broken into three or four columns, and then have the episodes as rows, like this:

Genesis


I think it would make the page structure better, but it makes it slightly harder to find who you're looking for and makes the order of appearance less clear. Opinions?--Hardvice (talk) 03:29, 9 February 2007 (EST)

  • Well, I didn't know you could use headings in a column, so I learned something new. But yes, you're right, the structure would be a bit better with the four columns for one episode, rather than one episode in each of three columns. Good thinking. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 06:44, 9 February 2007 (EST)
    • Yes, yes, the new format is much easier to read. And cuter, to boot. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 15:36, 9 February 2007 (EST)

Consideration of Incorporation

I had noticed that the individual episode pages themselves, didn't contain the list of characters that appeared in each episode. When doing research, that is pretty annoying not to have there. I just happened to stumble upon this page, which has the same effect, but isn't listed with the individual episodes.

Could we not add an additional section to each epi, following the Summary Section, that looks something like this:

(Example using Company Man Epi Page)

Character Appearances
Candace, Claire, Claude, Hiro, Kaito Nakamura, Lyle, Matt, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Muggles, Sandra, Ted, The Haitian, and Thompson.

Wouldn't this be more useful and readily helpful for doing research through the episodes, if each epi contained this info?

I'll be willing to do the work to add the section to each Epi, (and a similar application to the GNs as well), if you guys agree this would be a useful enhancement to the Epi pages. --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 15:11 (EST)

  • If we put them in the individual episodes, I'd like to see them in order of appearance like they are here, rather than in alphabetical order. That's occasionally useful information to have (like the spoilers about Simone's death which referred to someone from "the opening moments of Genesis" dying).--Hardvice (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
  • I'm not opposed to the idea, but I have some concerns, in no particular order. The episode pages are quite bloated already, and I'm afraid adding character appearances would just make them even more ... portly. Each episode page already links to the appearances page--the link is usually in the trivia, but I think the link could stand to be a bit more prominent (perhaps in the See Also section). If we were to list the characters on the episode page, I would do it in order of appearance, not alphabetical. A search for a particular character is pretty easy to do either by visual scan or by doing a page search (usually ctrl+F on most browsers). — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
  • As for formatting, if we were to add these to the episodes (which I'm mildly in favor of), I'd like to keep the same formatting as here. It uses a bit more space than a straight list, but it's also less ... oppressive ... and easier to read--a nice balance between text and whitespace. And the appearance number and bold for new characters is, again, nice information to have handy at a glance.--Hardvice (talk) 15:35, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
    • I have no problem with sort-order, both ways have their merits. How about I do one with an epi, as an experiment, and you guy slook at it, and see what you think about its effect on the bloat, and then we decide to either accept it, and do them all the same; or revert it and just do your alternate suggestion of making a consistent entry link for the appearances page in the "See Also" section? --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 15:41 (EST)
      • I agree with Ryan here. The ep pages have a ton of content already, and if I want to find a certain character in the synopsis, a quick scan of each paragraph usually does it. Heroe!(talk) 15:44, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
        • Ok Guys, I just added a blurb section to Company Man to see what it would look like with a 'Character Appearance' within the epi. Everyone go and look at it, and see what you think as far as space taken up, format, usefulness, etc... And then come back and share your thoughts. If everyone hates the idea, we can roll that one back, and look at it from another way. --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 15:54 (EST)
          • Another thing to consider, would be moving the 'Watch Online' section (which is small in footprint size anyway), down to the "See Also section, as a line item. Those freeing up the space that the new Character Appearance section would use; and netting about even with what we have to begin with. Just another thought. --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 16:00 (EST)
            • I think "Watch Online" should be the first section after the summary, ahead of Story Development or appearances. I also think we should include it in the AOTW when the episodes start back up.--Hardvice (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
              • Exactly. the "Watch Online" should stay near the top and definitely before the synopsis. That way someone doesn't read through the lengthy synopsis only to find out they could have watched the episode online themselves. (Admin 16:06, 5 April 2007 (EDT))
          • The space doesn't bother me, and I think it's useful to have on the episode pages. That said, it looks really clumsy in a blurb, and kind of competes with the "story development" blurb. I'd rather just cut-n-paste the episode section from this article.--Hardvice (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
          • OK, I just re-edited the new section, and changed it from a blurb with continous names listed, (remmed out), to a list format copied from this page. I used small fonts, to lessen the footprint. Personally, I think the prior version is cleaner, and neater, and takes up less space. What do you guys think? --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 16:18 (EST)
            • I took out the tocright because it never, ever looks good on articles with a sidebar. Otherwise, I think it's a huge improvement ... it doesn't clash with story development nearly as much, and it's easier to read with a little whitespace. It does make Thompson and Candace in Story Development seem kind of redundant, though.--Hardvice (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
  • Ok, so it looks like everyone agrees it is a good idea to add to the epis. Which of the two formats is preferred?

Example Draft 1)
Character Appearances


Mr. Muggles (11), Ted (5), Matt (13), Mr. Bennet (16), Claire (17), Sandra (12), Lyle (6), Thompson (1), Claude (5), Kaito Nakamura (3), Hiro (17), The Haitian (11), and Candace Willmer (1)

OR

Example Draft 2)
Character Appearances


--HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 16:38 (EST)

  • I don't think "everybody agrees". I think you and I agree. That said, if it's a comma-delimited list in a blurb, I'd just as soon not see it on the page at all. I really intensely dislike having two blurbs right on top of each other--particularly when they are different widths, and I really think a comma-delimited list is just gawdawful design (if it had to go in a blurb, I'd rather see bullets, like, oh I don't know, every other blurb on the entire site.)--Hardvice (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
    • I personally don't care either way. I just think the section would be worthwhile in each Epi page. The only benefit I see of the blurb-style, is because it takes up a smaller footprint, and less space. As far as two blurbs right on top of each other, what if the Story Development blurb was removed "as a section", and moved down to be within the initial part of the Summary Section, since "Story Development" is essentially a super-generic overview of "the Summary" to begin with anyway? Also, is there anyway to decrease the vertical space height between rows in the table view version?--HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 16:59 (EST)
      • The vertical spacing is a result of the fact that the <small> tags only apply to the text, not the bullets (which get their formatting from the default stylesheet). You can override the formatting by switching them from asterisks to <li>, which can take a style= or a class= attribute to override the stylesheet, but I'm not convinced we even need to bother with the small font. If the section is worth having, it's worth having, and if it's not, it's not. There's no point in resorting to awkward formatting just to make it smaller. It's not a question of "how little space can we take up?", it's a question of "does this article benefit from this content?"--Hardvice (talk) 17:16, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
    • Character appearances may work better at the end of the page. I am not sure if it looks better with or without the blurb. The small text may be unnecessary as it doesn't take up any less space because of the bullets. -Lөvөl 17:11, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
      • I really like the idea, now that I've seen it. I definitely do not like the blurb, no matter where it is. I agree with Level, it should probably go at the bottom of the page, perhaps just above the notes; otherwise, it'd be best to leave it as a See Also link. If it's at the bottom, I don't think it needs to be small text. The other change I'd like to see is the parenthetical number of appearances and even the bold text. They make sense on the list of character appearances by episode, but not so much on the episode pages. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 17:18, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
        • OK, just made a third-draft. Punted the blurb format that noone likes, and redid the Company Man guinea pig, with the Character Appearances section moved to the bottom, and removed the small font. Also, I remmed out the Notes section of non-appearing characters, which the table renders redundant, so actually there is no space-loss in adding the table. Is this the best draft so far? Do we have a concensus on the inclusion or removal of the parenthetical counts on the epi page that Ryan mentioned? --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 17:32 (EST)
          • That's my favorite so far. Good call moving it down on the page.--Hardvice (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
            • I'll be willing to volunteer to do the work of implementing this across all epis, if everyone agrees to the format(since it was my idea). I will removed the redundant NOTES section from each one, "IF" all it contains is a list of absent characters, which most of them do. Otherwise, I will leave Notes if they are relating to something else. What does everyone thing about inclusion or removal of the parenthetical counts on the epi pages? Keep or remove? --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 04/5/2007 17:58 (EST)
              • The list is looking great on each episode page, and I like the link back to this page. I'm still not sure we need to have the parenthetical number of appearances on the episode pages. On this page it makes total sense--it's a running tally of how many times a character appears on Heroes. On the episode pages, it's very out of place--the purpose of the list on those pages seems to be to simply list the people that appeared, not to keep a running tally. There's no explanation of the numbers (as there is on this page), and really no need for one. It should just be "Character Appearances" and then a list. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                • I would kind of reluctantly agree. I don't think there's any problem with the counts per se; it's still good information. However, this page explains what they're for, and the episode pages don't. That said, the lazy bastard in me really likes that we can cut-n-paste the entire section from this article into the episode and vice-versa, only changing the section heading.--Hardvice (talk) 15:10, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                  • ...and if you wanted to take it one step further, no reason this page couldn't be split out by episode and transcluded both here and on the episode pages. Though whether it would be worth it or not I couldn't say. As I always say, "Why put the same string in two character arrays when you could just put it into one and create a pointer to it?" Ok, well, I've never actually said that, but I may start. :) (Admin 15:19, 6 April 2007 (EDT))
                    • That's not a bad idea, Admin (though it's a terrible catchphrase). I think come episode time, there will be enough people clamoring to work on those checklists, that it won't be that big of a deal. But you make a good point. I, too, am quite the lazy bastard (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                    • Doing them as templates would allow us to make the episode counts appear only on this page, and not on the episodes. We could also auto-bold people whose episode count is 1. Hmmm...--Hardvice (talk) 17:16, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                    • OK, I tried this with Genesis (see here and here). It's not much more work to set up, and it should make adding missing characters or changing formatting much easier. It could probably be automated even further with templates for the column breaks and the table headers if we want to (which would make it easier for people to add new templates for new episodes, and would allow us to make global-level changes to the table/column formatting.)--Hardvice (talk) 18:00, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                      • I think it's a great idea, and it will make formatting a lot easier. Two notes: first, I think the heading should either be added manually, or the whole thing needs to go at the very bottom--it's throwing off the headings again (just like the welcome template did, and the theories and spoiler templates did. Second, I don't think we need to do the same thing for all the graphic novel appearances. There are at most 7 characters in one episode, which is not unmanageable. Plus, I don't think we need to put the appearances on the GN pages. I'm not opposed, I just think it'll be more trouble than it's worth. — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
                        • Can't we use fake headings like the ones on this page, with links to edit the template like the navbars? -Lөvөl 11:50, 9 April 2007 (EDT)