Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20161124005352/@comment-61022-20161201212831

Yeah "villains" makes sense if it's a clear good guys vs bad guys situation. "Featured Character" should always be the title character. If it's a character who is classified as evil, then the antagonist wouldn't be a villain.

I have a few suggestions on how we can improve the appearance section of issue summaries.

Reorganization?

I always envisioned changing the appearance layout classifying things. I think it should be reorganized by their level of importance

Featured Characters <--- the title characters/team (usually whoever the book is titled after)

Featured Antagonists <--- Replacing Villains and placed directly under the Featured characters. This makes a bit more sense to me. That way whatever the alignment between the featured character and their antagonist doesn't really matter. One's the star of the title the other is the conflict.

Guest Stars <--- I'd like to see an entry for guest stars so we can keep them separate from the supporting cast.

Supporting Characters <--- The supporting cast of the book (Example: Aunt May, Mary Jane, J. Jonah Jameson) I'd think that while the supporting cast is important, they are less important than the above.

Cameos <--- Self-evident. This would also be specifically for cameo appearances of established characters.

Other Characters <--- This should only apply to the most unimportant characters in the story. The police officers who appear on scene. The man on the street who makes a humorous comment about whatever is happening. Basically, anyone who is a one-off, incidental character.

Flashbacks <--- Appearances from Flashbacks that have different continuity points than the main story.

Reference Characters <--- For mentions, photos, statues. Basically any appearance or mention of a character who doesn't make a physical appearance in the story.

Races and Species, Locations, Items, Vehicles <--- These are all self-evident.

I know that seems like a lot of options to have to fill out, but we can always instruct people to eliminate the unnecessary items if they are not applicable. Which gets me to my next point....

Helping People Label Things Properly

At the very least, I think we could alter the template with instructions on how to fill out the sections properly that's hidden in the code that could only be seen when edition. Kind of like what we have used to hide retired TRNs.

Something like:
 * Appearing1  =

Featured Characters: Featured Antagonist: Guest Stars: Etc.

What do you guys think?