Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20160420203803/@comment-61022-20160503201808

Mrkermit wrote: I think also that Notes and Trivia sections could be moved if we have to split long pages. One option could be /Trivia subpage where we could also move long lists of aliases, relatives, affiliations, etc. from the infobox. Page splitting should still be considered on case-be-case basis.

Agreed.

Our longer character pages also have an expanded history so I would shorten them by moving or deleting a lot of history section. Long Powers and Abilities section could also be moved to a subpage, leaving just more important stuff to the main page. I would prefer subpages over long collapsible sections which are not good for readability. I think that the main page should be short enough to being convenient for a casual reader and material interesting only to geeks like us should go to subpages. Lots of work but should be done eventually.

Also agreed.

I think we should adopt a Sliding Timescale Chronology structure for the character history for the main pages of these more "well travelled" characters. It would vary depending on the type of character we are talking about.

It could be broken down based as follows:

(1) Preface: A preface would explain how the characters history is measured in time per the Sliding Timescale. We adopt the 14+ year scale for the modern age. Anything that falls before that is "pre-modern age" with no specific era attached to it unless the character has a static pre-modern age history (Captain America, Winter Woldier, Wolverine Magneto etc.) that locks them into a specific era.

(2) Their life before the modern age of heroes. So anything about their childhood of note. For example: Peter Parker's life before the modern age. This would cover milestones like his birth, the death of his parents, his childhood, everything leading up to the birth of the Fantastic Four (or "Year One" of the sliding timescale)

(3) Then a Modern Age "year by year" breakdown starting from their first chronological modern age appearance right down to the present. These year-by-year breakdown would only cover the milestones of that character during that "year" of Marvel time. The important stuff. Each year should also have a "See Also" link that would take them to the expanded history that details that character's "year". So for example, for Reed Richards important events I'd put in "Year One" of Marvel Time are:
 * The birth of the Fantastic Four
 * Trying to cure the Thing
 * The romantic tension between Reed and Sue after Namor was revived
 * The antagonism created by Doctor Doom
 * Reed and Sue's wedding.

Everything else in between could be glossed over if mentioned at all maybe a catch all "during this year Reed faced such threats as the Impossible Man, the Terrible Trio, Kurrgo from Planet X..." etc and statements like "he also interacted with the growing super-hero community forming relationships with Spider-Man, the Avengers, etc" with references to key issues relating to those statements.

For someone with a "locked in" chronology, like say Captain America.. We could do something like this:

(1) Preface: This explains how Captain America's chronology is measured. In "real time" from his birth until he was put in suspended animation in April of 1944 and per the Sliding Timescale when he was revived in the Modern Age. (Cap was revived in "Year One")

(2) His early life leading up to his origin story. Going over the important facts of his family background and his life before getting deemed 4-F by the military.

(3) A year by year breakdown of important events that happened to Captain America between 1940 (when he underwent the Super Soldier transformation) to his being put in suspended animation in 1944. Example: If I were to break down important events of 1941 they would be:
 * His early clashes with the Red Skull
 * His early clashes with Baron Strucker
 * Meeting Nick Fury and Wolverine
 * Forming the Invaders

(4) An brief synopsis of things that happened between the time he was in suspended animation and when he was revived. IE: his replacements, the start of the age of heroes etc.

(5) A year-by-year breakdown of the modern age covering his important milestones per year.

For this to work we're going to need people to start adhering to a strict style of formatting character pages and adopt the Sliding Timescale to the standard listed in the glossary (which I researched extensively while working on the Fantastic Four. The timescale I've used has been tested on multiple points in modern age time and works the best)

Long infoboxes are even bigger problem because they are almost unreadable but luckily those are more easier to fix. My post is becoming so long that I comment only generally infoboxes, not individual fields. First and most importantly, long lists and explanations have to be moved elsewhere from the infobox. I don't necessarily see a reason to remove any of infobox fields but I can agree with your point that some are more important than others. To sum it up, infobox should summarize only most important facts about the article. Shorter it is, with minimal amount of links and references, better is serves its purpose with good readability. More we can present its information also in the body of the article and reference from there, better.

Also agreed. I think keeping what are "milestone" statements in these fields and then having a link to a sub-page about a character's personal life would be the best way to tackle flooding infoboxes with too much information that is less necessary to understand the character.

I think if we implement the idea I had above (especially regarding charactres with large family trees being redirected to a page dedicated to that family tree) would be best.

I know that often people add information to Notes which should belong to the body of an article. I wouldn't worry about that too much because it's still a starting point for later editors to improve. Editor might not have a time, skill or knowledge to add the information to the right place in the article but it could still be valuable contribution.

True... But I don't fully agree that they should be adding something if they don't know the proper place to put it. It's 2016, the resource material to place that material in the right place is out there if you put the time into research. I find that people don't utilize the tools that are out there. I understand that the subject matter we're dealing with are works of fiction and it has entertainment value. But I think contributors need to start getting more academic when it comes to finding information and adding it to the site.

When I research something I rely on the comics I physically have, what's available on Marvel Unlimited, and then I usually cross reference that with the Appendix, the Chronology Project, the Marvel Handbooks, and any fan sites out there that are doing what we do (so like Unannyxmen.net and spiderfan.org for example) so I can verify the general consensus. It's sometimes hard work and not a lot of people have the time or the resources to do so, but I'm of the school of thought that if you can't put the time in, then you shouldn't be adding anything at all. Measure twice, cut once.

The reason why there is so many gaps in information, statements without references, and junk data on these pages is because people are not putting the care into ensuring their research is as thorough as possible.

Which I can understand that there may be various age demographics that are updating things, but if someone is really stumped on where something needs to go they should toss it out into the community into the forums or talking amongst each other.

(As an aside: We should actually start a new forum section for Research questions. Maybe start pooling people into group to research things together. This would be apart from a questions and answers section)