Forum:SH:Appearances Sections Need to be Cut Down!

Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Appearances Sections Need to be Cut Down!

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Toprawa and Ralltiir 20:36, October 2, 2009 (UTC)

Many pages have a section entitled "Appearances" which lists everything that's appeared in the work, including Characters, Creatures, Droids, Events, Locations, etc. But the problem is that they're becoming far too unwieldy and are taking up too much space! Consider the page Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. If I were to print out that article a FULL TEN PAGES would consist of the list of appearances-- almost a third of the article! And in some articles it's even bigger. In stubs like Star Wars Legacy: Ghosts, a full 90% of the article consists of this big useless list of appearances.

Which brings me to my second problem with them: I don't think they're useful enough to merit gobbling up an article. While I think it's important to note some things (e.g. that KOTOR was the first time Revan appeared), I don't think it's really useful to have a big list saying that the game contained or mentioned the Arkanian, Aqualish, Baragwin, Bith, Bothan), Cathar, Dimean, Duros, Echani, Gamorrean, Gran, Human, Hutt, Iridorian, Ithorian, Jawa, Karakan, Maktite, Massassi, Mon Calamari, Nikto, Paaerduag, Quarren, Rakata, Rodian, Selkath, Trandoshan, Tusken, Raider, Twi'lek, Verpine, Wookiee, Yoda's species, and Zabrak.

Seriously, I can't be the only person who just skims over all that stuff. I bet you did just now.

That's why lists of appearances are useless and need to be either cut completely or severely limited. As is, they take too much space in an article and have little to no value. I propose either completely eliminating them from all articles or setting down some guidelines as to what appearances are acceptable to keep (first appearances, perhaps). -Thunderforge 06:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

  • I disagree. They're necessary for those who do appear in said works–whether it be species or characters or whatever–so neatly sourced articles can be made out of them. –Victor Squishy Vic (talk page) 06:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • No way, dude, no way. Those lists are essential to knowing what subjects appeared in the source, editors use them to keep track of appearances and expand them as needed. If you've made mainspace edits, you would probably see the usefullness of them yourself. MauserComlink 09:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with Thunderforge. We need to either remove the lists or find some other format to display the information. --Imperialles 11:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I think an option here would be to move the lists to the Wookieepedia namespace. We would ensure that editors can still use them when necessary, but they would no longer make the article ugly. Pranay Sobusk ~ Talk 12:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Or, perhaps, set them up as sub-articles (such as "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic/Appearances")? —Silly Dan (talk) 12:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Subpages still count as main namespace articles. Which means, we would get thousands of redundant articles that way. If you really want, you may start a CT and we'll see what the community think about it. MauserComlink 12:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Well, moving the lists to subpages is the best compromise. That way we still retain the information, while making sure our articles are reader-friendly and not bogged down with enormous lists. --Imperialles 12:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
          1. Subpages count as separate articles. Which means they will be added to the article count and will be dispayed when clicking Random Article button. Is that really user-friendly?
          2. In the aftermath of Great List Purge it was decided that lists are worth keeping only if being integrated in the actual article. That's why we deleted List of Palpatine appearances and other similiar articles. What you propose is adding thousands more pure lists articles to Wookieepedia.
          3. The existing Appearances lists are not only necessary, they are user-friendly and interesting to read as well. Personally I use them very often and see no reason why they should be moved somewhere else. If you think any partilular list is too long, use either columns or scroll boxes, it helps. MauserComlink 12:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
          • It's certainly more user friendly to compromise one novelty feature (random article) than have thousands of articles filled with poorly presented information. One could make a case that Wookieepedia:Trivia applies to Appearances lists as well. As for this decision following your list purge, do you have a link to a consensus track or mofference ruling? Maybe subpages are not ideal, so how about creating a WookieeProject to store the information? Or how about creating a list namespace? --Imperialles 12:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Creating a new namespace is hardly an option, I'm not sure wiki engine would even allow it. What's the point of creating a Wookieeproject to store information, when the information is needed to be present in the article itself (it's much easier to keep track that way)? Appearances lists are nit just random trivia, they show us what subjects are elaborated upon in any listed source so that the editors would know where to find info. Seriously, start a CT vote - I'm sure the majority of votes will be against your proposal. MauserComlink 13:16, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Thunderforge and Imperialles. Is it really of any value to the reader who wants to learn something about a book, comic or game if we give him a long list of things that appear in that work - like landspeeders, star systems or elements - without giving any information about the importance of that specific list entry to the story? Or even dozens of things that are merely casually mentioned once in that work? Sure, it could be interesting for some hardcore fans, but these lists basically are only of real value to us editors and not the majority of readers. So, should information that is mainly used for maintenance and expanding other articles really be kept in the same place as encyclopedic information about that work? One idea that just crossed my mind: we could use templates and CSS to make those lists only visible for logged-in users. That way, only editors that want to see and use this information get to see them, while casual readers aren't bothered with those long lists. Wikipedia uses invisible metadata in various places, Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Persondata for example, that can only be seen by editors or by using a JavaScript show/hide button. --Craven 17:13, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
The main reason the lists seem so unsightly is that most of our articles on works are terrible. A simple show/hide would probably be the best solution, methinks. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 17:15, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Completely per Acky. We only have 3 GAs on published works - and all three are short comics from Tales. In fact, each of those articles should have a lot more content, but Appearances lists are simply the most easier part to write. Hide/show button might work, also. MauserComlink 17:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm good with just about anything that doesn't involve getting rid of those sections. Y'know how long it took me to do KOTOR's appearance section? O.O Thank God for Cylka, I'd never have finished making all those articles on my own. Also, we'd have so many orphaned articles created by that it wouldn't even be funny. Getting rid of that info is not an option. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 04:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
    • A proposal has been made on the CT to place these sections inside a template that would hide them. The sections would be kept, but simply hidden from view to make the page look cleaner. A single click would show the list. This discussion can be found at Forum:CT:Appearances lists. —Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 06:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I saw that after I wrote that. I don't have a problem with that, but under no circumstances is should all that work I and Cylka did go to waste. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 21:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
        • What an extraordinarily selfish point of view. Be assured that if the community wills it, your work will be removed. --Imperialles 22:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
          • Oh, I'm sorry if that came off as selfish, it wasn't meant to be so. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 15:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I disagree that they need to chopped, limited, severed, or reduced. I don't really like the idea of subpaging them either. I am interested though in Acky's idea of a Hide/Show button, if we're finding ourselves holding the Wookiee viewer to a higher standard than the Wookiee editor. It's still a tricky slope. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
  • A purge like this would create a tremendous amount of orphaned articles which members have taken pains to assign to their proper work. I highly support this show/hide option, and I do find these lists useful, even not as an editor. Xicer9Atgar(Combadge) 22:56, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, the reason the Appearances lists are essential is not necessarily for the readers as for the writers. As anyone that has written articles on subjects that appear in many sources should know, these sections are an extremely useful cross-referencing tool. There are innumerable times when researching an article that the "What links here" function has shown up new sources not listed in the appearance and sources lists of the article being researched. How is that possible? Only because of the lists this forum is suggesting we cut. I fully agree with Acky's suggestion of a hide/show option. In fact, I put one into The Crystal Star on the 22nd to see how it would look. The way it is currently, the various subsections still show in the TOC, but that could be prevented by changing the subsections to bold type. --Eyrezer 06:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
  • See this possible template here for an idea of what we could do. And be sure to voice your opinion at Forum:CT:Appearances lists. The advantages of this template are 1) hidable appearances section, 2) less-crowded Table of Contents, 3) consistency across the site with articles using the template, and 4) easily added formatting if we want to change the look and feel of individual sections. —Xwing328(Talk) 03:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I think that might work Xwing. It retains the information, while hiding them in a professional way, with access to individual sections. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I Don't think wookiepedia should tell mentions and I agree of the annoyance that comes with reading and reading and reading...

(usertalk:Master Rancisis)