Template talk:Sidebar individual

Initial proposal
I would like to propose a Sidebar Template for Characters. I have noticed that there are almost as many variations on the sidebar as there are characters. Obviously not all information will be available on every character, but we should still strive to make this as uniform as possible.

I tried to search through as many different characters as possible to find what most of them have in common and give it some logical order. If more than one actor has played the role, I'm not sure whether we should make it as above or more like Jean-Luc Picard's, Keiko O'Brien's or Amanda Grayson's sidebar. Another problem is it doesn't really work for Data, The Doctor or any other non-biological character. But those have pretty solid sidebars anyways. I wanted to put this up for consensus and then maybe someone with a little more experience can help by actually creating the template. Also, if this is approved, how does it get implemented across the wiki? --Topher 13:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This kind of comes across to me as a bit of overkill. I'm not sure the sidebar shouldn't be a summary of or substitute for the "personal life" section. --Alan del Beccio

Most character articles have a sidebar very similar to this one already, but they are just not organized in the same order. All I am suggesting is that if a character has a sidebar (which most do and most contain the same information) that it all be uniform. If the purpose of the sidebar is not to give all this information then a lot of editing needs to be done to a lot of character sidebars to remove "extraneous" information. Most articles will not have a sidebar this long since we don't have canon information for each item for any single character. There are three categories that I agree might be a little unnecessary: Occupation, Rank, and Marital Status. Occupation can be gleaned from the article. You can see what rank a character is based on the latest picture caption. Marital Status is a little more fuzzy. Characters who were never married should not have "single" listed. This just seems strange. Married characters would be noticeable because Spouse would be filled in. However, a character like Katherine Pulaski has spouses with unknown names and Marital status has some pertinent information in it. --Topher 20:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * "Uniformity" could also mean to remove entries from sidebars to the main text or at least changing the current content, though.
 * Take the images, for example. Your suggestion allows up to three images, one "early", one "late", one "alternate actor". Why, for example, would we want to have different orders for these pictures on TOS and other character pages? Let's choose one or the other, but let's stick to that order throughout. Then again, if we're already talking about and deciding that, another option would be to just use one "typical" image instead of an "early" and a "late" one. This would lead to more uniformity in regard to minor characters, which we only have one image of anyway. Also, what about that "alternate actor" image. Do we really need it in the sidebar? Do we need it on top of two other images? Doesn't it break the POV, anyway? What if there are several "alternate" images? -- Cid Highwind 13:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just basing the images on what is already being done. I personally feel that it would be best to have them all the same. And by the same, I mean all "late" ones first. However, this is not the way the sidebars are currently being executed. That way, if the latest image is above the information, then underneath is a chronological viewing of the character. It doesn't really break POV by showing different actors playing the same character. You would have a picture of the actor as the character not just some random photo of the actor.

Take Spock for example. He has been played not only by Nimoy, but was played by five different actors in addition to Nimoy during and will have one more actor play the character in. To have a picture of Nimoy as Spock from either his TNG appearance or from at the top and then a picture of Quinto as Spock underneath the info would not be breaking POV as long as the captions weren't "Nimoy as Spock" and "Quinto as Spock". As far as adding a picture of each of the actors that played Spock during ST:III, that is probably extraneous. Take a look at my example Spock sidebar to the right.

A limit of one main "late/typical" image up top and two chronological pictures underneath would be as many as most characters would need. However, this does technically go against the MA Manual of Style that reads, "Sidebars should have no, one (at the top) or two (at the top and at the bottom) images." I admit that Amanda Grayson's sidebar is probably a little overkill. Four images for a relatively minor character is going overboard. Animated Series images and images from either alternate timelines, dreams/mental images (like the first Amanda pic), or holographic representations should not be included in the sidebar.

Also, aside from the images, I just put out all the information that any of the sidebars I looked at had on them. If we want to scale back the scope of what goes into the sidebar, then by all means let's review it. The reason why I think a template is necessary is so that you can look up and down any character's sidebar and see everything in the same order with each category called the same thing in every article.


 * What I meant re:POV is not that it would break our POV to simply have an alternate actor image there, but to identify it as such. If that isn't what you meant, then everything should be fine. Regarding the amount of images - if there are more than two images, then the nearby article body should probably be long enough to contain at least one of them, right? :)
 * If we implement this sidebar, I'd like it to not have more than two images. The most prominent image (at the top) should then be one that's easily recognizable - not necessarily the first, last or any other specific timeframe, but one where even Joe Starwarsfan would say "Hey! That's character X!" ;) The other image should then be optional (for minor characters where only one image is necessary) and show (in that order) either the "most important other" actor playing the role, or the same actor under "most different" circumstances (for example, if Riker's top image is from TNG Season 5, then the other one should show him without beard, Season 1 or Nemesis). -- Cid Highwind 09:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The sidebar to the right looks good to me. Just my two 1/2 cents. --From Andoria with Love 06:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Cid, I'm glad we're on the same page with the POV. Only in the meta would an image be referred to as "alternate actor." The only issue I have with making the most prominent image the "easily recognizable" one is that it leaves it open to almost too much interpretation.

Take Scotty for example. Some would argue that he is most recognizable as the thin clean-shaven red-shirted chief engineer. I would probably pick the heavier movie version. Which is "correct"? I would suggest that, particularly for TOS we choose whether we want the "movie version" or the "series version" since for the other casts the differences are not nearly as abundant. If we're trying to please Joe Starwarsfan, he probably skews a little younger and would have more recognition of the movie versions. But if we are concerned with Joe Public he would likely have a more diverse view and would mix and match depending on the character. Some would be recognizable either way (Kirk, Spock, McCoy). Others would be one way or the other based on your viewpoint.

On another note, I am still hoping to sway you on this two image limit. Particularly for TOS, I think it is important to be able to have 3 images. The Scotty example is a good one. Once the new movie comes out next year, which would you leave off, series Scotty, first-six-films Scotty, or the new Scotty?

Does anyone else have any opinions on the subject? Pretty much only been Cid and me talking about this. I would love to get some more opinions. --Topher 09:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Are there any more objections to this sidebar? Any more suggestions for this sidebar? Still looking for some sort of a consensus, which is not made by Cid and I discussing it and Alan mostly objecting to it on principle and Shran giving it the thumbs up. Where are all the other admins who usually weigh in on such things? --Topher 06:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Three images sound fine to me, at least for TOS and perhaps Picard (As the actor who played Shinzon was a "young" Picard), for the most part in the sidebar, it probably is fine at two. The only other thing I can recomend is using the varible field code, so that any unknown field is not showing.--Terran Officer 22:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hoogamagoo 20:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

That looks much better! Great work, Hoogamagoo!

Only thing I see is the "Spock (2268) pic is very far to the left. Or the Ambassador Spock pic is too far to the center, I can't tell which. The unintuitiveness you mentioned is likely why I never managed to get this done for the English wiki. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I hope we can round up some support on the english wiki and get this thing off the ground here. I think it clears up so many of the issues that the admins were having with it and makes it a viable template for the character pages. –Topher 02:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

My [initial] proposal got very little response, but it could benefit this template now that it's been started. – Topher 05:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Two Suggestions
Not a bad idea at all. I have two suggestions though. First, is there any way to remove the white space now created on either side of the sidebar? It looked better pre-template if the image stretched all the way to the edges of the siebar. Second, the actor line should be italics, as it's out of universe.– Cleanse 12:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

In Universe Status
The sidebar seems to be really out of tense for MA and seems to show everything in present tense. I know it's no big deal but I guess the question is Is that information necessary? What say you oh great community? – Morder 07:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Status - well, the general assumption is everyone is deceased.
 * Martial Status - Well...they're all dead...so they're not married.


 * I'd hate to lose "Marital status" as we know that for many main characters. It would probably be best if we followed the example of starship listings and have - "Active (2380)" or whatever. So basically their last known status. The same could go with marital status ie. "Divorced (2350)" etc. – Cleanse 08:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I was actually going to post that just now since I saw it on a couple pages so I support something like that. :) – Morder 10:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Sidebar should have an in-universe name
It should be sidebar person or something. "Sidebar character" breaks the in-universe POV of the article. Compare with sidebar fictional. --bp 00:11, February 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * How about Sidebar individual? --Golden Monkey 00:45, February 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * Individual is consistent with the rest of the naming on site, so I second that idea. - 12:10, February 9, 2010 (UTC)

How 'bout. --bp 12:35, February 13, 2010 (UTC) --Idiocracy joke... individual is fine. --bp 12:36, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * No one else answered this...really? Wow...as for the suggestion, I'd be down with that, after all everything else seems to have an "in universe" name, but I suppose it wouldn't really matter per se. Could go either way, I guess is what i mean, but an in universe approach to the name may have a better appeal to it, as it'd fit with the rest of the wiki and also that's what a good deal of other wiki's do with content like this.--Terran Officer 02:08, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

Gallery in the sidebar

 * That just looks misaligned and wrong, in my opinion, and no amount of CSS being thrown at that is going to fix it. I believe we shouldn't follow that way. -- Cid Highwind 11:46, February 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks better than the mess above. Though we shouldn't have anything like that in the sidebar at all. &mdash; Morder (talk) 11:56, February 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's true, but "that mess" hasn't made it into the template after first being suggested 2+ years ago. I think it's safe to consider that suggestion dead for now. ;) -- Cid Highwind 12:04, February 13, 2010 (UTC)

Cid, you are so often misaligned and wrong. A small amount of CSS could make it look the same as the result above. They have almost identical structure in HTML. The difference is style. Anyway... --bp 05:13, February 14, 2010 (UTC)

Affiliation
I finally decided to ask...as it seems to be somewhat interchanging or not entirely constant, but Affiliation, what's it meant to be for? The organization the person has served, or lived in/a citizen of, whatever? For Starfleet officers, I notice it tends to say "Federation Starfleet" so what are we saying, the "United Federation of Planets" and "Starfleet" or the older once semi used "Federation Starfleet" in the same vain as "Earth Starfleet"? That is does the line credit one specific organization (Starfleet, here known a Federation Starfleet) or two (UFP and Starfleet)?--Terran Officer 02:13, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's crediting both, but only because Starfleet has reported to two different governments, the United Federation of Planets and United Earth. If belonging to an organization automatically means you are affiliated with a government, you generally shouldn't list the government. So list known organizations first and governments second, if necessary. That's how I've been using it, hope that helps. - 03:12, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

I guess it does, I still feel somewhat confused though but that's probably because it's not really clicking yet, is this a set "style" of doing it, or does it seem to have just...happened? I guess I am confused, because Memory Alpha has Starfleet as one article, and not "Earth Starfleet" or "Federation Starfleet" and there are articles on this wiki where the sidebars simply say "Starfleet", seems to me that it should simply say "Starfleet" (the era they served in would more or less indicate the "version" anyway) or perhaps the sidebar should all out say "United Federation of Planets" then "Starfleet" on another line (in the same vain that the Martok article's sidebar says Klingon Empire, Klingon High Command and House of Martok {yet it doesn't say anything about the defense force, odd}), either way I suppose. It just kind of feels to me (now that I had been thinking about it), that there's some articles doing both and some not type of deal going on, and also? There's been cases of non-Federation citizens being officers (at least with Nog), so perhaps some sort of mention or differentiation of being affiliated with the government should be made to? I notice some other wiki's tend to do that (In particular, the Babylon 5 wiki), or am I just being OCD and making a big deal out of nothing? I tend to do that, sometimes... --Terran Officer 05:14, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's what I've been using personally, since as far as I know there's some flexibility to what goes where in the sidebar. Look at Occupation, Martok and Worf have Chancellor of the Klingon High Council there, but Gowron has it as his rank. It seems to be both, so both seem to be right. Going back to Martok as an example, the Empire link would be redundant to me with the High Command link right there, but I don't remember Martok being part of the Klingon High Council/High Command, so maybe that one is wrong. Either way, the High Command controls the Defense Forces, so it seems like it could go either way as far as a Defense Forces link goes. Nog, on the other hand, is "probably" a Federation citizen, as least in the bg info, but there could be a Ferengi Alliance link in there also. As for disambiguation between which government Starfleet is reporting to, that is probably left over from when there were two Starfleet articles; it could just say Starfleet as far as I'm concerned, my only preference is that it doesn't say United Federation of Planets and then Starfleet, like at Joseph Carey. - 12:59, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I can see why you wouldn't want to mention both, technically people like Joseph Carey, Data, and so forth are serving/affiliated with Starfleet as they don't have an actual "Federation" occupation. It somewhat sounds like that the sidebars should eventually get a switch over to simply say "Starfleet", depending on how the community feels, I wouldn't be opposed to simply saying "Starfleet" and not mentioning the Federation as well, because as we've said, their job is within Starfleet. The question therefore would be, should something be done and...what effect would this have on Starship sidebars (though that's a different discussion, I'd imagine).--Terran Officer 18:39, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

So, does anyone else have any further input/insight onto how this is currently done and what the idea behind it is supposed to be? For instance, if the idea behind Starfleet officers is to merely list their affiliation with Starfleet should the sidebars be fixed to mention this? In a further question, what about Klingon military officers, or Cardassian military officers, etc... and something I had recently asked, people that serve on Earth Cargo Service freighters?--Terran Officer 23:11, June 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not really sure what you mean by "fixing" this to mention Starfleet. If you just want to impose some order on what this section in the sidebar is used for, I would say go ahead. This has been here for a few weeks already, and the whole idea behind a wiki is that it's self correcting, so if anyone has an issue with your changes I'm sure you'll find out after making them. :) - 04:31, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'll just go ahead and do that then, I often try to get confirmed answers before I do anything though (as sometimes people not doing just that tend to incite negative reactions), but I'll take your response as answer enough. --Terran Officer 04:49, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * I get what you're saying, and I know I've incited my fair share of negative reactions for not asking. I'm just saying that a week to two weeks is more than enough time for anyone who is interested, and paying attention to the talk pages, to see a post and respond. - 05:07, June 8, 2010 (UTC)