Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-1713281-20121209010037/@comment-61022-20121209040651

Minor Characters: I think a glossary is fine if we're going to index literally everybody. I'd say they should be designated to a sub-page. With the same principal as the Expanded History stuff. I started doing this with cities in States that maybe make one appearance or the other, I've been lumping undefined American (IE it was not specified what State they are in) cities in a catch-all American Cities page. For states that have a lot of minor city references, such as New York State I've created a City Index. I also moved the listing of New York City residents to a sub-page as well.

As for disposable characters who were one off villains of the month. I'd say that it would be a matter on how unique they are. When I first started creating profiles for obscure characters from the 40s eras, I was pretty much making profiles for every bad guy who appeared. I since cut it down to unique or different villains. Even if they appeared in one story and died, I now mostly stick with something unique. Or if I can lump them into a catch-all category. For example, with western tales that feature Native American tribes such as the Apaches or Comanches, I've lumped it all together in on page.

I think the addition of pages for one name character who appear in a single panel and may say something ("This must be a publicity stunt" for example) is a bit excessive. I don't think we should give such characters their own pages because other than an off the cuff comment, they are not really adding much to the story. Indexing these characters sure, but having an individual page for them? Nah.

Commercial Properties: With due respect to Darkseid01, whom I agree with on a lot of other points, I'd have to disagree with his position on this subject. I say that commercial properties such as Dr. Who and the like don't really have much of a place on the Wiki. I feel that Star Wars characters, Dr. Who characters, are somewhat redundant because there are other Wikis elsewhere that specialize in those commercial properties that more than well covers that material. In great detail including the comic books published by Marvel, the characters and the like. I see the addition of these character as basically a duplication of work that is done elsewhere. I would say that linking people to those specific Wikis is a good way of cross promotion of each respective realm of expertise.

I'd say that it's a stretch that we have The Doctor and a lot of Earth-5556 stuff there. I'd say that really, if the rights to the character are owned by somebody else (IE, Marvel does not own the rights to the character in question) then they should be excluded. No different than any of the Transformers characters. Yes, they have a Marvel reality number, but that stuff is all covered over on the Transformers Wiki. So far as I know, the only character unique to both Dr. Who and Transformers franchises that is owned by Marvel is Death's Head. There are exceptions to this idea of course, and I'd say that it is specific to characters that have appeared in the Marvel Universe proper (IE: Earth-616)) such as Fu Manchu (who Marvel has conveniently renamed recently to get around the legal issues), ROM, Godzilla, Shogun Warriors, Conan, Kull etc. My reasoning is that these characters, despite being commercial properties, are so integrated into Marvel's mainstream reality that even though some of these properties have been picked up elsewhere (Godzilla and Conan for example was a property published through Dark Horse for a while) is that even when it comes to having the rights to reprint old comics that Marvel did they were unable to publish everything. For example, IDW for the longest time could not republish any Transformers comics that had Marvel owned characters -- in particular any issue that featured Circuit Breaker and issue #3 which featured Spider-Man, until they made an agreement with Marvel to publish everything. That said, there are plenty of exceptions, for example a lot of Marvel published Conan stuff has recently been republished by Dark Horse. However, the difference here is that Conan's Marvel publications has been integrated into Marvel's ancient history, particularly the fact that it has been interwoven with the history of pre-cataclysm Atlantis. Same can be said for Kull the Conqueror.

Actors: I say nix them all together or list them in an index page. Basically all actor appearances can be considered a "topical reference" as per Marvel's sliding time scale. They are topical for the times (For example, the Beatles appearing in ).

Imprint Content: Like Epic and the sort... That's a grey area for me. For the most part, the only stuff that is considered part of the Marvel Omniverse (at least officially at this time) are stuff like the New Universe, Shadowline, Razorline and the like. I think for the most part Marvel has outlined what imprint stuff is considered part of their Omniverse proper. I would not be opposed to profiles and such about long running series that were published through Epic or Icon.

Pre-Marvel Era: I think that Marvel has done a good job in identifying what stuff is considered part of continuity, what's an alternate reality story part of the Omniverse as an alternate reality, and so on. I'd say that if it's not listed in the reality index either on the Unofficial Appendix or in the recent handbooks, it shouldn't be referenced with a TRN. We also should not just assume that one off western/war/sci-fi stories are part of Earth-616 history unless specifically referenced, unless in the case where it is a recurring series. Good examples would be old western characters such as Tex Morgan and Blaze Carson. To date, they have not really been referenced in the handbooks, but unlike others (such as Whip Wilson and Rex Heart) they're Marvel owner characters as opposed to commercial properties, since they were a running series I think it would be reasonable to assume that they are part of Marvel cannon. Another good place to reference is the Marvel Atlas, it also identifies a lot of Timely/Atlas era stuff that is considered part of Marvel Continuity. Such as issues of Combat Kelly and Combat Casey (Specifically the entry about Korea).