Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20161124005352/@comment-61022-20161209180049

ADour wrote: To get it out of the way first: I didn't say the APN tags were contrived. Additionally, just because I'm saying one practise is not visually appealing doesn't mean I'm saying the other one is (in reference to bringing up the initial point of this whole thread). And finally, there's a difference between appearances list taking up space due to abundance of characters and repetition of characters.

I think stating that an abundance of duplicate characters is a bit of an exaggeration. If you've taken a look at the way I've formatted appearances by adding the Flashback section:

The only repeat characters are characters that have one or more chronology points. So far the maximum I've encountered is three, but with someone like Spider-Man, yes, I can forsee that getting quite complicated (especially for a much expanded upon story such as the one in )

Outside of that, if a character appears in the main story and a flashback, but that flashback does not have a chronology point (because in reality it's a recap of another story as opposed to a true flashback) I list that character in the appropriate spot (Featured/Villain/Supporting Etc), no tags because anything else is, frankly, irrelevant.

If a character only appears in a "Flashback" be it a recap or an actual Flashback are put in the Flashback section.

It's my position, especially after editing thousands of summaries, that most flashbacks are in fact recaps. If there is a flashback that is legit, then usually it's of minor importance to the main story. I really don't see the need to try and split hairs on who was a protagonist or an antagonist in a flashback. The only time I do differentiate is when a story is told from different points of time, in effect, have two different plots in the same story, one being the "present" and one being a flashback.

ADour wrote: With that cleared up: If the APN tags were meant to be a simple alternative to listing where does certain character appear next, but finding a way to properly organize them is pretty hard, then it's possible that listing the chronology of a character is not simple enough to compact it into two or several blue arrows, and using the notes section for this once again could be an option.

My concern about putting it at the bottom of the page is what is, to coin a phrase from the newspaper industry, below the fold.

I'd put the "fold" point roughly about where the info box stops. Meaning that people skimming a page will slowly begin to lose interest unless they are really devoted to the page.

I would say if we've exhausted every possible way of dealing with APN tags and how to make things esthetically pleasing as possible maybe instead of making the appearance tags more detailed, maybe we should make them redistribute those details. Perhaps even scrapping the APN tags all together because perhaps it is just getting far too complicated.

This idea just struck me so hear me out...

We have a section for the most important appearances in the story. This is at the very top of the page and runs parallel with the Info Box.

It's very basic:
 * Featured Characters
 * Supporting Characters
 * Primary Antagonists

End of list. Nothing but {{a| tags. No {{1st}}, no {{FlashOnly}}, just characters that can be identified as being part of the main story.

This is followed by the issue summary and then...

Instead of a generic "notes" section, we create three new specific "Notes" sections.

Appearance Notes:

Goes into more detail about the appearances of characters. Any other characters who appear in the story, locations and what have you are detailed here. The "Main Appearance" page on the top could end with an anchor link that takes people at the bottom of the page so they know there is more appearance data.

This goes into further detail about the above characters (So, lets say a featured character appears in a flashback, recap, and flashforward all in the same story) we can detail how that works. We can add all the other less important appearances here, and add a level of flexibility to customize and be more detailed, like with specifying two different time frames.

As long as we put appearance tags on something, it will be categorized regardless of where we put the code on the page. So putting the less important info after the summary might make sense.

Chronology Notes:

Replacing the APN tagging in the primary appearance section all together. It would be a section where we can break down the details of when a character appears next in a comic. Depending on the focus on that character the details from point to point would vary.

I'd recommend taking the same route as Marvel did when they put in appearances in their 2009-2012 indexes. For a title character their appearances between issues are all identified, whereas a supporting character a villain or what have you only have their previous and next appearances detailed.

So for say, Amazing Spider-Man #1, for Spider-Man we list all of his last appearance before the first issue then all of his appearances between Amazing Spider-Man #1 and #2. In issue #2 we detail all of last appearance before Amazing Spider-Man #3 and all the appearances before Amazing Spider-Man #4. etc.

A supporting character like J. Jonah Jameson though would only (and always) have his immediate previous and next appearances listed.

Continuity Notes

Which detail important points of continuity that apply to a given story that would distract from the synopsis of said story if explained in the comic book summary.

Publication Notes

Details about the letters page, order numbers, the creative team, where that comic was reprinted etc.

I'd also suggest scrapping the trivia section, because if the above three categories are filled out, then there's not really much trivia that couldn't be covered in those three sections.

My position would look something like this: {{Marvel Database:Comic Template
 * Image              =
 * Month              =
 * Year               =


 * Editor-in-Chief    =
 * CoverArtist1       =


 * Quotation          =
 * Speaker            =


 * StoryTitle1        =
 * Writer1_1          =
 * Penciler1_1        =
 * Inker1_1           =
 * Colourist1_1       =
 * Letterer1_1        =
 * Editor1_1          =
 * Synopsis1          =

Featured Characters: Supporting Characters: Villains:  More Appearances Races and Species: Locations: Items: Vehicles:
 * Appearing1         =
 * MoreAppearances              =


 * AppearanceNotes    = 


 * Continuity Notes =

}}
 * Publication Notes =
 * Recommended        =
 * Links              =

Thoughts?