X-Men Characters by <criteria>

[Captain Untouchable]

I know we have a sort of general wiki-discussion type thread, but I didn't want to clog it up, and I figured this was an easier way of making it spotable. :)

Long story short, there's no easy way of looking on the wiki to find out if a character has a particular kind of power. The other day I wanted to know what sort of self-regeneration and healing powers were currently in the game. To find that out, I had to go through the each character page in the wiki one by one, and the roll-call threads, and even then I'm not sure I covered everyone.

Similarly, I'm trying to think of a codename for a mutant: I have to hunt around quite a bit to see what names are taken.

Would it be useful to have some sort of category system or list system on the wiki, to clump mutants with similar powers together, and make it easier to search?

I know it'd be a pain to maintain, and I'm happy to do that, assuming we a) decide as a community that we want to, and b) decide as a community how we're going to do it (what groups/categories, list or categories, etc). :)

[Dasquian Belargic]

I don't think every mutant character is even on the wiki, so you are probably never going to have a reliable way of locating on the wiki all the mutants with a specific type of power. The roll call thread is probably more up to date, I'd think... or you could just post a thread asking if anyone knows of any mutants with [particular type of power]?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The wiki isn't madatory and is 'do what you will' in regards to character pages, etc. But yes, you could start a Category:Ice Power and put Anna into it, etc. That would be pretty simple. As far as aliases most aliases are already in as mutant characters and redirect to the main character page.

[Captain Untouchable]

Yeah - the everyone not being on the wiki is a potential hiccup. That's why I suggested the list option: that way, we can keep a list page on the wiki up-to-date based on the roll call thread or something?

And yeah - similar story with the aliases. Not all aliases are on the wiki, and if they are, they aren't necessarily categorised (so it's only if you click on a link with that name that it redirects). Again, maybe a list is the way to go? The current character list on the wiki is a bit out-of-shape.

[Dasquian Belargic]

If someone wants to try and keep a list up to date / comprehensive, good luck to them.

I still think you'd have an easier time just asking on the forum itself, whenever this issue came up :mneh

[Captain Untouchable]

If someone wants to try and keep a list up to date / comprehensive, good luck to them.

I still think you'd have an easier time just asking on the forum itself, whenever this issue came up :mneh

If I had to start a thread every time I didn't know / wanted to know something, it'd probably crash the interwebs. :mneh

Edit:

I think with a little cooperation and teamwork, it's doable. We've got enough moderators and veteran players about the place to keep it up to date, provided we're willing to endure a minute or so of inconvenience for the benefit of everyone. The wiki is meant to be a team effort after all. :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The simplest solution, rather than creating a page that contains a list, is to make a category. For both.

So there's a Mutant Powers category which contains the different powers - which then contain the mutants who possess that power. http://www.sw-fans.net/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Mutant_Powers

And then I created a Mutant Aliases category for the aliases of mutants. Most of these will redirect to the character's proper name, when there is one. http://www.sw-fans.net/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Mutant_Aliases

[Tom Harriman]

That works! :)

Do we need / want to have a category / redirect pages for the real name as well (some character pages are under the alias, not the real name - my Hurucan page being a prime culprit)?

Also, what do we do when a character doesn't have a wiki page? Like Jenny mentioned, this only works for people who have wiki pages, which isn't necessarily everyone. Do we create a page with just their stuff from the roll call thread, or leave it to them to sort it out?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The main name is under "mutants unite roleplaying characters", and if a person doesn't have a regular human name then their alias is listed there as well.

So Huurucan is under Aliases and Characters, because he doesn't have a regular name.

I hope that makes sense?

[Tom Harriman]

It most certainly does.

Hurucan is awkward though, in that he's mainly known by his alias - almost exclusively - but his real name is going to be revealed at some point down the line as part of a plot thing. When that happens, does Hurucan move to the alias bit, or does it stay in the main bit because that's what he's most commonly known by?

What about other characters, where their mutant name is better known, but their real name is known? Surge from X-Force presumably has a name that isn't a secret, but his account is under the name Surge (which people are presumably more likely to look for?). Should the main bit be for everything (aliases and real names), with a separate sub-category for the real names? :cyduck

Awkward exceptions are what makes life fun, eh? ;)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I would just make it a practice to have the wiki page listed under someone's name. Less confusing. A person should write in their wiki if they're well known by their aliases or not, if its a thing that's a thing.

Then the aliases are all redirects (unless no real name is known), and categorized under Mutant Aliases.

[Tom Harriman]

I guess it depends on what perspective you're looking at it from.

I would argue that the least confusing option would be to have the priority in the Characters category be the account that you post with. If you're skimming down a list of characters, do you want to see the name you're familiar with from next to the posts (eg. "Saladin"), or a name that may not even have been mentioned in any post you've ever read (eg. "Hektor Vespasian")? Similarly, you'd probably expect "Wolverine" over "James Howlett", etc.

You can argue it either way, I suppose. And it depends what you want to use it for. :)

What about making the master character category for the "account name", and then having a separate "real name" category that we can organise alphabetically by surname? Being able to see all the Harrimans, Fernandezes (Fernandii?), Calaverases, etc grouped together might be useful / interesting / not entirely lame.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

That seems unnecessarily different from what we currently do. That would require a lot of changes to current pages and frankly I'd just as soon rather not go there. If you want to see someone's family just look at their page.

Edit: also you can look at the Aliases category to locate someone that way very easily. I don't see a need to muddle it up, personally.

[Tom Harriman]

What's different? Everyone already has their pages set up by account name (for the most part), because that's how they got set up - just that some redirects have been added in. Unless you've been moving people's pages around? :huh

Not sure what you mean by "that way", either. Are you referring to the Saladin thing? If so then yes... assuming you know it's an alias. What about "Logan", which is neither his superhero alias (Wolverine) or his real name (James Howlett)?

I know we don't have a Wolverine. But it'd be a shame to put a lot of work in now, and then create more work for ourselves down the line because we didn't take everything into account.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

You can't organize things by a surname, you'd have to rename all the accounts to be last name first. I would not be in favor of that. And I think most people would assume a name without a last name is likely an alias. By "that way" I meant you could locate a character by their alias. Isn't that what I said? I honestly thought that my post was kind of straight forward.

Most characters have an alias with a redirect and a profile page under their real name. Some are the other way around, but tonight I was standardizing it to Alias=redirect to other name. I didn't get through everyone. If everyone wants to change them back, or do what you are suggesting, that's fine.

[Tom Harriman]

You can do that really, really easily (categorising by surname, that is).

If you put [[Category:Mutant Characters|Surname Firstname]] as the category link, it treats whatever letter you put first as the first letter.

So, [[Category:Mutant Characters|Harriman Tom]] would be listed alphabetically under H. No need to change anything, except the way the category is linked from the article.

Edit:

You don't even need to use the right letters. A common trick is to link special articles or categories as [[Category:Categoryname|*]], meaning they'll show up alphabetically under the *, which comes before A. A lot of wikis use that to highlight important articles, guidelines, etc at the very beginning of a category, before the alphabetical list starts.

Similarly, you can list any wiki pages with numbers ("1234" for example) as |#1234, so that all the number pages show up under #, rather than showing up under the first "letter" (number) they begin with.

[Dasquian Belargic]

The powers category looks good :) I added Time Travel in there, for Fran.

With regards to the Alias/Name debate, most characters mention both in their articles. So if you are looking for someone in particular, you can just stick either of their names in the wiki search field and you'll find them. I'm not sure what the problem is? :huh

[Captain Untouchable]

"Searching" and "Browsing" are two different things. The category structure in mediawiki programming is designed to make it easier to browse through pages of a similar nature.

It's the difference between searching for "Bespin" on the forums to find threads that happen on Bespin, and actually going to the Bespin section of the boards to find them. Option A might be quicker, but you also find every thread that has the word Bespin in it anywhere, whether it's happening on Bespin, Coruscant, or is a heated discussion about Star Wars happening in a Little Chef off the A3 in an X-Men thread.

We're just taking avantage of the features that mediawiki offers, and which other wikis (wikipedia, wookieepedia, marvel.wikia, etc) make use of for exactly this sort of purpose. *shrug*

[Dasquian Belargic]

Drawing a comparison between our wiki and others isn't entirely accurate. Those other wikis have huge numbers of volunteers regularly updating a huge number of pages. If you search for something on Wookiepedia, you may get hundreds of results. You are unlikely to get the same result from our wiki, because there really aren't enough articles on there to create that many matches.

I honestly don't see the issue here. Maybe I am missing something, but are other people regularly finding it difficult to locate information on the wiki?

[Tom Harriman]

I don't know. That's why I raised the issue for discussion in the first place.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Just realized an easy "get-around" the whole "is a character's profile on their Alias page or their Real Name page."

Whatever name you want to have the content on, that's fine. Up to the creator. But Alias pages will always be in the [[Category:Mutant Aliases]], and the "Real Name" page in [[Category:Mutants, Unite Roleplaying Characters]]. One of the two pages would be a redirect, up to the user/creator how they want that to work.

If your mutant does not have a Real Name (doesn't remember it or its an OOC secret) and therefore only one page and no #REDIRECT [[name]] page, then that Alias page would be listed in both the Mutant Aliases and the Characters category.

I think that makes it all make sense.

[Tom Harriman]

So Hurucan or Zero (as an example) links to both "Characters" and "Alias", correct?

And if/when their real name is revealed, only the real name is in "Characters"?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Exactly. :)

[Tom Harriman]

In that case, would it be worth making the Aliases category a bit more prominant? At the moment the only one linked to from the front page is the "Real Name" category, which under that system wouldn't include everybody.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Uh the character category would include everyone. I don't think the aliases category needs to be 'more prominent' but you could add it to the main Mutants, Unite category too I guess.

[Tom Harriman]

Right, okay. I'm with you. Had the wires crossed in my brain.

Sounds like a plan!