Wiki Tribune Report
Wiki Tribune Report
Assorted Plottings
I honestly just noticed it's February. There was this moment of "Wait. Today's the 2nd? And Thursday? ...oh —". So here we are again, in the middle of a wiki report. I know it's everyone's favourite part of the month, so I won't let you down <span style="color:#AAAAAA; font-size: x-small; font-style:italic;">at least not too much</span>.
News news news. Fistandantilusi <span style="color:#AAAAAA; font-size: x-small; font-style:italic;">(yeah, I have to copy/paste that)</span> had asked me a question about making articles for some NPCs in his character's history, and one thing that came out of the emails was naming the article in such a way that everyone can see at a glance which real character <span style="color:#AAAAAA; font-size: x-small; font-style:italic;">(for generous values of real)</span> they belong to. So, for example, say I want to write an article about my character's mother <span style="color:#AAAAAA; font-size: x-small; font-style:italic;">she's a classy lady</span>. I'd name the article something like "Benevolent Taldrya Whiner/Jane Whiner". Obviously, this wouldn't be for all NPCs, just ones that are primarily for filling out a single character's background. I like this, especially because if you look at the URL it looks like the article is in a directory of all my stuff. Fistandantilusi is trying it out with his page. How do you, the awesome person that you are, feel about it? Should it become a policy and a subsequent project to rename existing articles, or am I completely out to lunch?
If there's something else I should've brought up, I'm sorry. I've got no idea what it is.
X of the Y
DJBWikipedian of the Month for January 2012 - None
Featured Article of the Month for February 2012 - Jeric Cyrin
Featured article for this month is Jeric Cyrin. His character article will be on the main wiki page glaring at us all with his arms crossed and looking angry for a whole month. It's going to give me the chills. No DJBWikipedian of the Month this month, there wasn't anything that sticks out as wanting recognition. Lots of people worked on their own articles, which is great, but not something I'm looking for here.
Conclusion
I don't pay attention to the calendar, NPC article naming, Jeric is watching you wiki
-Ben
<span style="color:#AAAAAA; font-size: x-small; font-style:italic;">Now for that internal report...</span>
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No Wednesday report...bad Wiki-man! Bad! :P
As for the question you posed...I'm against that type of naming convention. It just doesn't look good, and it does go against one of the main features of the wiki, which is the whole linking of articles.
So, for example someone is writing about me and they read through my wiki article and they read some of my history and see I link to other articles. So, they click on the links and then read about these other articles (which may just happen to be a NPC). So, they use that information in their writing. Basically, why would other even think of looking into offshoot characters like NPCs and the like, without first looking at the "main" characters? Or "main" articles? I wouldn't even know about someone's mom if I didn't first read their normal wiki page. If they had an article on their mom they would have it linked from that page and I can just click on it and read about this NPC.
I believe having a set naming convention that applies to all cases is best. So, each article is named for that specific article. Mash-ups of names and what not just makes things messy and can probably make things even more confusing.
As with Halc, I'm against that naming convention. If we're going to allow articles pertaining to personal NPCs, we ought to have a policy where the first paragraph/intro in the article must clearly identify the Character's place.
For instance, if Vodo had a wife, the article would read something like:
Melanie Biask
Melanie Biask is the wife of Vodo Biask Taldrya. She is a female Twi'lek, blah blah blah.
I'll support Vodo's solution. If there's a way to add something into the NPC sidebar that says "Associated with (Character/PIN/etc)", that could work too.
Eiko - You can already do that by using the correct field, such as ally, enemy, etc.
My two cents:
If a character is only there to pad the storyline(an example being Kal's mother, Karina Brokkol), I like to group them with other such characters on one single page. An example of this is the Vorrac Lineage page I made when I read this. If the character is fluff, group them with like-minded creations and keep them there until they are necessary.
If a character plays a role, however(Example - Kal's father is a smuggler who actively works with a Jusadih group in our fiction), I give them their own page. This can apply to members, important NPCs, etc., but is nevertheless a good way to keep us from sifting through forty thousand stubs about so-and-so's distant relations.