Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20161213202224/@comment-100066-20161225035738

Shortening Use of Parenthesis - I have been thinking about this for a while. Of course, there are good arguments on both sides, but I agree with Nausiated that we stop using names in parenthesis.

To me, the reasons are not as compelling when talking about typing time or link length or mobile usage (has anyone tried to read our pages on a mobile phone? They are...bizarre). The best arguement to drop them is that they are so inconsistent in their use.

Yes, there is a slight benefit in having a name in parenthesis. However, since a character's name is so easily clarified by a mouse over or a touch/click it becomes far less beneficial to have extra text in the list. The names in parenthesis are either too long, too short, incorrect, nicknames (Sam Wilson, not Samuel), missing information (like Earth-Designation), adding too much information (Col. Carol Danvers shows up regularly), or just confusing.

For cleaning this up, a bot run of this type is extremely easy. I can run the bot whenever we have a final consensus. I know that sometimes bot changes can sit in limbo for a while and I apologize for any unattended-to requests. I maintain a page here for bot requests and I will get to them as quickly as I can

In short, I say that our policy should to simplify when we can be simple and only elaborate when needed.