Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20161213202224/@comment-4651179-20161217220653

I find the extra amount of typing to be irrelevant on whether we should keep or ditch listing real names. At the most, it constitutes roughly 20 extra-words, 3 seconds of typing tops.

Personally, adding the real name complements the notion of duality in superheroes. Most of the time, Spider-Man isn't the only one appearing in the comic, but Peter Parker too. For this reason, a lot of the time I think about brining up the possibility to list the appearances like this instead (for example):

Featured Characters: Supporting Characters:
 * #|Spider-Man / Peter Parker
 * #|Mockingbird / Bobbi Morse
 * #|Wolverine/Logan

To give the civilian identity of the hero the same prominence as their costumed alias.

That offhanded proposition aside, I don't believe that ditching the real names encourages readers to click on the article. I mean, it does make them go click the link, but it's more like they're being forced to do so. The difference relies on one being more like "I want to learn more about this, *click*" while the other leans towards "Why isn't [X thing] mentioned here, ugh. *click*"

Another reason why real names are listed in the appearances section while they aren't in the history text is due to the nature of lists. List simply present the information structurally. A text needs to have certain flow which parentheses interrupt. If distinction is necessary, the history text can be much more verbose than a list. "Their plan was interrupted by #|Spider-Man, whose body was being possessed by #|Doctor Octopus at the time."

The fact that a handful of characters suffer from inconsitency on the way they are listed doesn't mean the implementation of real names should be universally ditched. And some of these inconsistencies will still happen because the problem sometimes resides on their alias. Invisible Woman / Invisible Girl, Captain Marvel / Photon / Spectrum, Mr. Fantastic / Mister Fantastic, Dr. Strange / Doctor Strange, even Thing / The Thing etc. We are a community of different people, for which I believe it'd be impossible to reach a universal way on doing things. Be it to write history texts, comic summaries, or appearances lists.

Personally, I find it unnecessary to go back and change the way a character is listed based as something like Rogue's example. I find appearances lists reflect the context of the story they are summarizing. If Rogue's name is next Wednesday revealed to be Bethany Smith, she was still known as "Anna Marie" for those +900 issues.