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Template talk:Character box

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Nov 2006 - May 2007

Users being added to Characters category.

I noticed that some users who have the character box on their page have been added to the "characters" category. Is there a way to avoid this? --Hero!(talk)(contribs) 20:44, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

  • Good catch. I added some extra code, but the cache is slowly being cleared (probably because my code is so clunky). If Category:Characters is still showing users, hit ctrl+F5 to clear the cache. It's slow, but it's working (I made the edit about a half hour ago and it's only gotten rid of about half the names from my list). However, this can be properly checked on the users' pages--if Category:Characters is showing up on their actual page (after the cache has been flushed), then we have a problem. I'm not seeing that on any of the user pages I've checked, though. ... By the way, I also removed template:noimage from user pages without images. Same cache problem, though. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 23:50, 19 June 2007 (EDT)
    • By the way, if somebody wants to clean up my code and put it on a little diet, I'd appreciate that. :) -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 23:52, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

graphic novels

I just wanted to add one thing to the template which lists the centric graphic novels of each character but i wanted to run it by everyone else first--Kettieli 10:35 19 July 2007 (HST)

  • I don't think that's necessary if the character history already notes what graphic novels they were in. If we do include it, I think it's more something that would go in notes or trivia about the character than in the infobox.--MiamiVolts (talk) 16:47, 19 July 2007 (EDT)
  • Only problem is there's more than one graphic novel for many of the characters. For instance, Hana has been in 15 graphic novels, and Noah has been in 11 I believe. And the number keeps growing. Even if we combined the multi-parters into one GN, Noah would still have 7. If we list just the ones in which the character is the main focus, Hana would still have 9. I think it'd be fine for characters like Claire or Hiro, who only appear in a handful of GNs, but it'd look a bit unwieldy for others. Plus, we're only at the end of the first season--I'd be afraid of what it would look like after three or four seasons....I like how Lostpedia has done that with centric flashback episodes, but the big difference is that the flashbacks are somewhat evenly distributed among the characters--not so with GNs. Also, there are only like 60 or 70 episodes by the end of the third season--we'll have almost that many by the time the summer is over. Like I said, I like the idea, I just don't think it's feasible to make it look nice. Besides, the GNs are listed in the character history. Hmm. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 16:51, 19 July 2007 (EDT)
  • all right i'm glad i checked--Kettieli 11:02 19 July 2007 (HST)

Other fields

Ok, so are we adding departure and ep count? They don't show but now both Kettieli and Ryan have been modifying them... I think we should define them first on the template if we do plan to add them.--MiamiVolts (talk) 16:57, 19 July 2007 (EDT)

  • Ah, Ryan mentioned on Kettieli's talk page that they are remnants (we're not using them anymore), so I'm going to delete them (ep count is in appearances anyways).--MiamiVolts (talk) 17:05, 19 July 2007 (EDT)

Just had an idea.

This would apply for people like "Bob" and Maya.

Next to powers, rather than "None" or a name we are unsure of, how about "Unestablished."?

Maya's power is unestablished - we know she has a power, we've seen it's effects, but we don't know what is done exactly.

For Bob, we know he has a power, we've seen what it does, but we don't know the full effect.

It'd apply more toward Maya, but I think it makes sense.

Feel free to "no" this. I just don't think Maya should have "None." =P--Riddler 22:42, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

  • This has been discussed several times. What it boils down to is that you can never confirm that someone doesn't have powers. Therefore, we don't divide characters into "people with powers" and "people without powers"--we divide them into "People with known powers" and "people with no known powers", and the criteria is that we've seen the character use a power. That's why why don't have a field labelled "powers"--we have a field labelled "known powers". We haven't seen Maya use a power. She has no known powers, although we can be pretty sure she does have a power.--Hardvice (talk) 16:53, 30 September 2007 (EDT)


Residence

  • I realize it's a little late in the conversation to discuss this, but I really intensely dislike these redirects and autolinks for Residence. A field labeled "Residence" on a page called "Claire Bennet" that just says "Claire Bennet's home" is just awful. It contains no useful information whatsoever--of course Claire Bennet lives in Claire Bennet's home. That's just pointless, except as an easy way to get a link in there. I'd really like to see us go back and edit these links manually to make them informative. We wouldn't have "Parents: Claire Bennet's parents" or "Known Power: Claire Bennet's power". It just looks lazy. Something like "Residence: Single family home in Costa Verde, CA" or "Residence: Loft apartment in Lower Manhattan" would actually mean we have information in the infobox and not just a knee-jerk link. I'd rather remove the field altogether than have it the way we do.--Hardvice (talk) 16:48, 30 September 2007 (EDT)
    • I have absolutely no problem with changing the links manually. I didn't have the original idea of including a residence on the page, but the idea has kind of grown on me, so I'm not keen on getting rid of it altogether. I like the descriptions you gave above. Even though both my parents are real estate agents, I know very little about describing homes. :) I think "single family home" would work for just about all the homes, with the exception of Meredith Gordon's home. Would the Petrelli mansion and The Petrellis' home be "single family homes" or "mansions" or something else? Also, Zane Taylor's home seems different, but I can't put my finger on it. As for apartments, the only one that would have a description other than "apartment" would be Isaac's loft, right? — RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 18:27, 30 September 2007 (EDT)
      • We can be as specific or as general as we want. The folks in New York let us use their neighborhood ([[Peter Petrelli's apartment|Apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan]], or we can use their address if we have it ([[The Sanderses' home|37 Parker St, Henderson, NV]]). The way it is now just rubs me the wrong way. It's like picking up a package of Oreos, checking the label, and seeing "Ingredients: Oreos".--Hardvice (talk) 18:35, 30 September 2007 (EDT)
        • Leave it to Hardvice to come up with the cute analogies. Yeah, that sounds fine, and I like being as specific as possible where we have the specifics. It means there won't be any "standard" format for how it's worded, but that's fine with me....It looks like you've already changed some of the links. Thanks. I'll fix the character box so that we don't have a double row (see Meredith) and so it forces us to do it manually. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 18:40, 30 September 2007 (EDT)


Autocat for Humans/Evolved Humans

...should be working now. I got a bit scared when I saw Adam Monroe had neither category and hadn't for some time without us catching it. Here's the breakdown:

  1. If "known powers" or "power(s)" is None or none, adds Category:Humans
  2. If "known powers" or "power(s)" exists but is not None or none, adds Category:Evolved Humans
  3. If "known powers" or "power(s)" is blank, adds Category:Humans. All of the folks with potential powers were already in cat:Humans, so good enough
  4. If "known powers" or "power(s)" is Unknown, it adds Category:Evolved Humans. It still displays as "Known powers: None" because "Known powers: Unknown" is dumb. This is really just for people from the list.--Hardvice (talk) 17:48, 19 November 2007 (EST)

Known vs Potential power

  • Could someone provide some examples where a character had a specific potential power that wasn't a "known power" and also isn't speculative? Since we can't include speculation I'm trying to understand when a potential power isn't a known power. I wan't to make sure this "potential power" field isn't speculation in disguise. (Admin 18:00, 26 November 2007 (EST))
  • As far as I remember, it's for the Journal people and a few people from the map. It's for when someone has been identified as having a power (usually by Chandra) but it's never been displayed. Another example would be if a new character was introduced and their power was stated but not displayed ("I'm Jill, and I can make people's heads explode.") Apart from that, it shouldn't be used.--Hardvice (talk) 18:43, 26 November 2007 (EST)

Nephews, Nieces, Uncles, and Aunts

This new information is nice to have, but it makes for a superlong character box, especially for people like Hana and Claire. It's also odd to see a box say "Uncle/Aunt: Richard Drucker" when Richard is clearly not an aunt. I'd much rather see these four relations combined into a much simpler "Other relatives". That way cousins could be included, too, rather than adding a bunch of new lines to an already too-long infobox. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 13:10, 13 December 2007 (EST)

  • Good idea....I didn't like the idea of over-growing the charbox, but at this point, the charbox is the only place that we really catalog relationships. With the inter-relationships that are being revealed in the Gitelman clan, and the Petrellis, and eventually others...having a dump-bucket to put important relationships will be good to have. --HiroDynoSlayer (talk) 12/13/2007 13:14 (EST)
    • Just to reiterate (and resurrect) an old discussion, we just need to make sure we stay on top of the relatives being added. I wouldn't add everyone, generally just nephews/nieces and uncles/aunts. Maybe cousins, too. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 13:29, 13 December 2007 (EST)

Debut

Now that we have several characters that have made an appearance on the show after having been shown in the graphic novel, what are we going to consider they debut? The template description says the first episode they showed up in. Are we going to change this to the episode they first appeared in if there is an appearance listed for a graphic novel? --Pinkkeith 10:13, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

  • We've always done the first episode or graphic novel the character has appeared in. (See Hana for an example of a character who appeared in a GN first.) I'll update the Usage section. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 15:56, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

Departure

As there's a debut field, should there also be a departure field? The last episode for deceased or no longer featured characters? Aki 12:09, 10 December 2008 (EST)

  • We used to have that field, but we got rid of it for two reasons. First, it's a logistical and maintenance nightmare trying to keep up with it, especially now that we have hundreds of pages about characters. But the other reason is that it's a very gray area. The debut is pretty solid--when is the first time we see the character? But the departure is a bit more ambiguous. Do you count when the character dies? The character's last appearance? Do you count flashbacks? What about the hundreds of characters who appear in one episode and that's it? What about if they continue to appear in graphic novels or Evolutions content? I think think the field is worth the trouble. If somebody wants to see the last time the character was mentioned, they can scroll down to see the last entry in the Character History. If they want to know the character's last appearance, the last time the character's name appears on the list of character appearances by episode. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 12:59, 10 December 2008 (EST)

Future characters

We need a standard for what past (present) information belongs on future character pages. For example, Gabriel Gray (exposed future) lists Sylar's apartment as his former residence, but Sylar (explosion future) does not. - Josh (talk/contribs) 19:31, 15 January 2009 (EST)

List in-laws?

Some pages list in-laws as relatives; some don't. - Josh (talk/contribs) 21:00, 18 January 2009 (EST)

  • Feel free to list in-laws in the "other relatives" section of the character box. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2009 (EST)

TEMPLATE ADDITION? "Killed by"

So, when these templates were first made, most of the characters remained alive at the end of the day. Nowadays, characters (both big and small) have a tendency to drop dead fairly often. I'd like to propose that we add (and painstakingly apply) a "Killed by" section to the Character box template. Thoughts? --Ricard Desi (t,c) 11:13, 24 November 2009 (EST)

  • I wouldn't mind it. Sounds good to me.--Catalyst · Talk · HL 11:29, 24 November 2009 (EST)
    • I don't think it's necessary. It's a lot of backlogging of information on a template that is already huge. Plus, there are a lot of times that people debate who it was who actually killed a character (like was it Sylar or Peter who killed Arthur? or was Hank killed by Sylar or Matt?)... Usually, if it's a significant person who killed the character, we'll say "deceased" and link it to the killer's page of victims: (deceased), for instance. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2009 (EST)
      • If we add this, I think something like "Current status:" would be more useful. For instance "Current status: Killed by Sylar" or "Current status: Incarcerated", etc. For unclear deaths like Arthur's, it could simply be "Current status: Dead". However, I'm not sure this is really necessary.--Referos 20:05, 24 November 2009 (EST)
        • As an alternative, what about a "Cause of death" section? This would include murder, as well as suicide, drowning, car accident, explosion, Shanti virus, etc. I tried to add it, but it looks like it messed up pages (not really sure what went wrong with it). --Ricard Desi (t,c) 18:34, 25 November 2009 (EST)
          • Cause of death is probably best left to the page about death (which, by the way, needs to be updated). -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2009 (EST)

WantedPages

This template is currently producing a ton of Special:WantedPages, I am not sure why. -Lөvөl 15:12, 3 June 2015 (EDT)

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