Hello,
I'm an admin on the darkhorse and image wikis and was trying to find an easier way to code for character appearances rather than manually adding the category to each issue, but am at a loss of how to do this. We do have the {{Character Appearances}} and {{Cast}} templates but I still don't know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Queso6p7 15:12, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you need to add a bunch of code like we have in our template, in order to remove the square brackets from it, and go directly to the pagename.
Alternatively, you could make a template that does this:
While that LOOKS complicated, the {{{1}}} and the {{{2}}} represent the variables you would enter into the template.
So, if you were to enter {{a|Banana|Salad}}
It would DO this: [[Banana|Salad]] AND add the appearance category without having to use a bunch of complicated #explode functions.
... then anything you wrap that template around will be added to the appearance category AND put square brackets around itself (so you don't have to).
Ours is more complicated, because it does things like check to see if it's been filled out wrong, removes the brackets automatically, and adds previous and next appearance arrow... things.
That's why all of our appearances have {{a|[[Name]]}} wrapped around them, instead of manually adding categories.
Might want to reply on my wall, if you have any questions, so Kyle doesn't have to look at all of this code...
Fair enough taking out the descriptions in this diff (even though I think they kinda added context, to clarify she wasn't actually in official Robin costume) but I'm unclear why the wraparound cover got taken out.
Even though the option is there, we don't put captions in the galleries. Your's were ok but other users get pretty unusual so its better to have none anywhere. As for the covers, we don't like using the fully dressed covers with barcodes on character pages or in galleries unless there is no other choice (like a very obscure character). If you want, you could add back the textless wrap cover.
I noticed that Damian Wayne (New Earth) was moved to Damian Wayne (Prime Earth). I was off the wiki for about five days because I was having my computer cleaned, so this is news to me. Is that the new plan for all Prime Earth pages?
(I don't plan to intervene. I know the admins are handling everything. I was just a little confused why the move.)
It's not the plan for everything.
We're deciding on a case by case basis what makes the most sense in terms of BOTH continuity and for new readers.
For a character like Damian, who has nothing changed about him at all, and then who dies relatively soon after the relaunch, we figured it was best to just fold the New Earth version into the Prime Earth page.
It would have to have been one or the other, and since Prime Earth is the current mainstream continuity, for simplicity's sake, we chose Prime Earth as the destination. I think the page needs a little more work in terms of explaining that, though.
That is NOT, however, what we're doing with everyone.
For the most part, we are waiting for bigger changes to happen to other characters before we make a decision to split them (Batman, for example, has Zero Year coming out soon).
Damian's dead, so there isn't much opportunity there for his back story to change.
I spoke to Nathan and Jamie about this, and they said I should give you and Billy a heads-up as well. In anticipation of Man of Steel, we're creating a page on DC Database for "Superman's Family," with sections for his Kryptonian family, Earth family, and his "Friends." Our team will be populating it with the basics to get things started. Is this something that you and the rest of the DC community would be interested in taking on and fleshing out? We're planning to make the initial emphasis around Man of Steel, but it certainly doesn't need to be limited to that continuity.
Could you drop me a line on my talk page or email me at brian@wikia-inc.com to let me know your thoughts?
In the Prime Earth Characters page there are two Damian Wayne links. One to the New Earth other one to the Prime is that how it's so post to be?Or
is that just a mistake.Naruto 45 (talk) 03:50, May 25, 2013 (UTC)
I'd love to hear what you think of that relic of olden days, the Glossary, and more importantly, what to do with it. Personally, I think much of it can have separate pages, other things can be merged or deleted.
Done. Gizmos, anyone? Real People is also a relic, we've given many of them pages. Probably still a couple "Character/Supporting Cast" pages out there as well from the days of the Minor Character template.
And I've filled up Image Replacement and Image Needed pretty well.
Half of those things on Vehicles also had a glossary entry. Some already have their own pages. Cleanup will be short. The page itself can be a redirect to the category.
And here's something: policies. How can we expect people to follow policies if we've written them down in, what, 2008, and haven't updated the pages since?
Note: I hadn't discovered that category until today.
I was doing a bit of research on the H'san N'tall Titans and came across a character in the picture, since I never read the series myself i wanted to know if you can help me figure out who the character is
I'm talking about the purple character next to sweet sixteen in the picture
We're not that consistent, but I think typically we cover the actual stories and the text features. I'm not sure about the filler pages. We don't usually consider pin-ups as stories.
This concerns the somewhat nebulous staff page template.
1) Real name vs. pseudonym: As I already mentioned elsewhere there is no real distinction between a working name and a pseudonym. Perhaps the "Real Name" field should be renamedto "Full Name" while the working name (for example "Joe Kubert" instead of "Joseph Kubert") should be the page name. Please see also the discussion on Vicatan which still leaves me somewhat baffled.
2) Titles: There appears to be a great deal of confusion what that means. Many contributors insert the book titles the respective staffer has worked on (which I think is nonsense given that the books are listed in the work sections), others such as myself insert the fields of work/functions/positions the person has worked in (editor, penciler, inker, etc.). This should be clarified by General Announcement so that clean-up work (either way) can commence.
3) Employers: I take it this means the companies the staffer has worked for. In several cases, where people have worked all over the place, that field is too small. I had too leave out nine (!) employers of the admittedly ubiquitous Matt Wagner.
THis is quite a heap, but as I am interested in the creators and have tons of data to contribute, the questions had to be asked.
I think that could work. Requires a lot of wirk, but it could work.
Agreed.
Personally, I think the employers should only be DC and related (Fox, Charlton, Quality, Fawcett, Image, etc...). Like you say, some people really get around.
Re your 1) A bot could do it, no?
Re your 2) Yippie. Great.
Re your 3) I do not think so. Your personal opinion is understandable but that approach will not serve to give a thorough working history of the person in question. Also, for this distinction a certain expert knowledge about the companies DC has purchased or licensed from or did crossovers with or whatever is required, and that is probably outside the interest of most contributors.
I'm sure you guys tire of the comparisons of the Marvel and DC sides as much as we do, but I have a suggestion for the third point Lucien61 raised.
The template on the Marvel side is not set up to categorize the Employers field, and instead renders in plain text. This allows us to do two things:
For staff that work with the imprint publishers, like Epic and Icon, and historic ones, like Timely and Atlas, we can simply link to the appropriate page on the site for information on said publisher.
For those staff that have done work for other select companies (DC, Image, Dark Horse, and a small handful of other publishers covered by Robert Alvarez's wikis), it allows us to link to their respective staff page on another Project. (A good example of both is Joe Maneely)
I'm not sure what works for you guys, but it's a decent option for us.
1) there are plenty of staff who have more than one pseudonym that aren't necessarily the most common name. While I think it makes the most sense to have the most common working name used as the page-name in ALL cases instead of these weird full name pages, where nobody even knows the person's full name.
So, what I'm saying is that I agree with using the working name, but I don't want to have to have a bunch of arguments about which working name deserves to be used, etc. And, I don't think changing that field's name is necessary. It's the same thing.
2) The Title field is for job titles. DC Database:Staff Template#Usage explains that. People who don't put that are just not reading that.
3) We have pages for a few publishers, because they're relevant to the wiki because of crossovers etc. It's a relatively recent thing where we have people adding flippin' HUNDREDS of past employment like they were standing over the guy's shoulder for all sixty years that he was inking comics. Ideally, if we don't have a page for the publisher, we don't CARE that they worked anywhere else.
On the other hand, you could just list those hundreds of past employers, and be okay with the red links, because - as you can see, our staff pages get next to no traffic, and contain almost no useful information (like history sections).
1) A working name is the one that pops up most often. I am fine with that. What irks me is that constant incorrect use of the pseudonym field.
2) Thanks for the clarification. And I could not _find_ the Usage page - apparently I was not the only one. However, instincts served me well.
3) You said: "On the other hand, you could just list those hundreds of past employers, and be okay with the red links, because - as you can see, our staff pages get next to no traffic, and contain almost no useful information (like history sections)."
In the 90s, I did a loose leaf comic book encyclopedia which did just that - looking over the guy´s shoulder while s/he was inking away lo those sixty years. It _is_ useful information. Relatively recent - that could have been me, I guess ...
What I was saying was: I could not even get all the companies _listed_ I had found for Matt Wagner because the field did not allow it past a certain point. I would like more space for that.
For your reference, the little question mark icon in the infoboxes on our pages should take you to the template page's usage section.
Regarding more space:
I think I'd like to hear the case for why it is useful to have more than 10 employers listed, and I would like the answer to be something other than "so that people can see where he worked."
The coding effort required to make that particular field longer is... significant.
Re employers: If you cannot put a complete list in the employer field, why have one at all? Call it the German "Gründlichkeit", but that field is useful as a set-up for the working history (yeah, I know - nobody looks them up - so what?) and, indeed, as an overview. However, a field designed to be incomplete is, frankly, useless.
That limitation came as a surprise since, for example, I had credited Gardner Fox with several dozen pseudonyms without any space difficulty whatsoever.
A I understand coding (insufficiently, to be sure), it is something that needs to be done just once if done right.;-) This database is one of the three good ones about DC, but it can be improved.
The pseudonym field has limitless space, because it requires no coding at all. You could type a master's thesis in there, because no part of the template depends on that field to do something else.
The Employer field is different. Each new employer that you add requires a line of code that relates back to the first one, and the one before it, which means that adding just ONE more potential employer requires re-writing the whole thing, because it's... like an Ouroboros. It eats itself. That's on top of the fact that the employer field creates categories for each one.
So, when you add an employer for whom we don't have a page, it creates a red-link and a Wanted Category for that employer - and the more there are, and the more obscure, the less likely that category is going to have more than one person populating it, which means that there is no reason to have that category, which means that there's no reason to have that employer listed.
The field is designed to show which employers the person has worked for under the umbrella of DC comics and those publishers who have worked with DC during crossovers etc. We are a wiki for content relevant to DC Comics. The entire working history of its employees is not relevant to DC Comics.
However, if you would like to make exhaustive lists of past employers beyond the downright generous ten that are there, that would be something to add to the near-unilaterally blank "professional history" field.
Which, I'll note, is what people who visit staff pages are EXPECTING to see filled out - and are eternally disappointed that they are not.
I'd also like to point out that until I was kind enough to spend hours writing up the code that gave you those ten spaces, there was only room for ONE employer.
For which we are grateful but it rather proves my point. In a way.
OK, now I see the problem. Which means we have to select/define which companies are relevant and which shall be "relegated" to the working history.
So we will need
All-American (acquired in 1944)
America´s Best Comics (via Wildstorm)
Charlton (acquired in 1984);
Dark Horse (crossovers)
Fawcett (lincensed in 1972, MF acquired in 1991);
Fox (in 1950?);
Helix (imprint);
Image (via Wildstorm);
Marvel (crossovers);
Milestone (imprint)
Quality (acquired in 1957);
Tower (Acquired in 2006)
Vertigo (imprint);
Wildstorm (acquired in 1999).
If someone who has worked for Wildstorm and Vertigo has also worked for All-American, Fawcett, Fox, and Quality, that person was probably dead while they were doing it.
edit: or 5 years old when they started working in comics.