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Remove color fields for characters?

✔
Resolved by Faern. (talk) Policies 22:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC) - Result: Keep color fields

Recently, the question came up if we should remove the color fields (hair/eye/skin) from character infoboxes because this information can usually be observed in the image(s) anyway. If any of the color fields exist, they usually come from images. Removing these three fields would make infoboxes shorter. However, some people might prefer to that information in text form for various reasons. So, what do you think? Should we remove color fields from character infoboxes?

Faern. (talk) Policies 23:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Votes

Comments

I feel it would be good to remove these kinds of fields from the infobox. It seems a little redundant to have them since a character appearance heading would have them and be a more detailed description too. I have noticed other well designed wikis appear to remove these parameters in favor of more important ones. Elia0224 (talk) 03:51, 20 February 2025 (EST)

I like having the hair and eye color, I think. Sometimes I like knowing what a Na'vi's eye color is without having to zoom into an image. But I just don't see the point of skin color, when that is obvious and I had a big debate about whether we should use Light/White in the parameter, with neither of us coming to an agreement. Skorch (talk) 19:12, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Color fields are important character traits. To not include them would be odd and make the infobox seems lacking in important descriptive character details. More so, color fields are important as not everyone has perfect color vision / good vision in general. Many people have eyesight issues, and color fields help people to envision what the character is supposed to look like. Also, like Skorch above me, I agree in not having to need to zoom in to photos/video in order to know some details. It's a pain, especially for comic characters, as details such as a character's eye are so small, that unless you have the original licensed image, most images found on the internet are of poor quality making it difficult to get a good look. Small details such as eye color are often missed by readers/viewers at first glance.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Should Infoboxes have automatic categories (ex. A to Z)?

✔
Resolved by Faern. (talk) Policies 22:22, 26 March 2025 (UTC) - Did not get any favor except from author

Some notable wikis have special functions coded into their infoboxes. A notable example of this would be automatic categories. Some infoboxes are able to automatically categorize pages they are in: Type, A to Z, Gender, Species, etc. Should the infoboxes in this wiki have this special automatic categorization function?

Votes

Comments

I am the one who suggested the infoboxes have this and I feel the wiki would benefit if they did. Elia0224 (talk) 10:52, 20 February 2025 (EST)

We already do that for male/female, but it does not really work out for species because we have characters, flora and fauna with more than one species. Faern. (talk) Policies 13:37, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Sorry to disappoint you Elia0224, but you aren't the first to suggest this, and the feature is already implemented on the wiki. Of what I know, I had tinkered with the infoboxes back in around I think September/October of 2024 about having the infoboxes template auto-add their transcluded pages to categories. In I think December 2024 before you arrived on the wiki, the character templates were modified to auto-add pages to male/female categories. This was done due to the sheer volume of character article pages. Modifying the template was practically an immediate and easy way to filter hundreds of character pages. The only other 'automatic' category topics I can think for consideration are i.e. "status", "species", and "affiliation", however character article pages already have these category tags attached to the bottom of their pages (making modifying the template to auto-add pages to these categories redundant). Also, these fields do not contain uniform inputs across all article pages, resulting in not all pages being auto-added to their respective category pages, meaning that a manual category tag would still be needed.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Good point, though I still feel it would be good if automatic A to Z categorization was included. Elia0224 (talk) 12:38, 24 February 2025 (EST)

There is no need to throw all articles into a single category for alphabetic access. You can use either Special:AllPages or Special:PrefixIndex and enter any prefix you want to get a list, without any manual effort whatsoever. Faern. (talk) Policies 22:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree to disagree. I still feel it would be good if the wiki pages had this. Moreover, I am also seeing more and more other wikis incorporate this A to Z feature. Elia0224 (talk) 08:29, 26 February 2025 (EST)

Should the wiki use Talk Pages or Message Walls?

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Resolved by Faern. (talk) Policies 22:23, 26 March 2025 (UTC) - Unfortunately no clear winner could be found

This wiki uses talk pages currently, though should it switch to message walls?

Votes

Comments

I prefer using message walls over talk pages. For one, they are easier to use such as how they have an autosign function whereas talks pages require users to sign their messages every time which I feel is a real hassle. Moreover, message walls have better notifications and makes it easier to know when someone replied to your message. Elia0224 (talk) 01:14 AM, 21 February 2025 (EST)

I prefer talk pages because there are multiple ways to learn about changes, including email notifications, recent changes page, RSS feeds and the MediaWiki API. Message wall messages are easier to use for new people, but are also more easy to miss because they do not integrate into any of the aforementioned default MediaWiki features at all. Like the discussions section, Fandom implemented them as features that are completely disjoint from how a MediaWiki usually works. People who edited other wikis based on the MediaWiki software (e.g. Wikipedia) are already familiar with talk pages. Manually adding colons for indentation of threads and tildes to sign is the price to pay, sure, but it's not hard to learn. Faern. (talk) Policies 14:03, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Message Walls have email notifications and histories for recent changes as well, just like Talk Pages in case you did not know. Moreover, they seem to have better notifications with the Bell icon at the top of the page. I noticed that with Message Walls, I always get notifications there. Meanwhile, notifications never work right in the Bell with Talk Pages. There are times when someone would reply to a message I left in their Talk Page and I would not know until several days if not weeks later. Elia0224 (talk) 01:03 AM, 13 March 2025 (EST)
I find message walls to have better notifications. Message wall notifications appear for all parties in a particular message wall thread regardless of whose user page is messaged. A big problem with talk pages is that only the user who is attached to that talk page receives a notification. The whole point of message walls/talk pages is communication. Due to talk pages not notifying all users, it hinders communication by slowing response times. Message walls work Fandom-wide across all Fandom wikis. No matter what wiki I'm currently viewing / editing, if I get a message/reply on any message wall anywhere, I'll be notified of it immediately. With talk pages, if I'm not on that particular wiki, I'll never know someone responded to me. I shouldn't have to: rely on an external website/app for inconsistent email updates (which I usually only may check my email at most maybe once a week or once a month), have to wade through a clogged recent wiki activity special page, or have to randomly repeatedly check in manually to said talk page, in order to figure out if some had finally made a reply. All of that hassle associated with talk pages is very inconvenient. Message walls also allow all users to see a particular message's individual edit history. Talk pages don't do this type of edit history separation.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 03:47, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Merge Family fields?

✔
Resolved by Faern. (talk) Policies 22:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC) - Result: Keep separate fields

Some editors, including myself, think that there are too many fields in character infoboxes. This is present in Affiliations section, but in the Family section as well. The idea is to combine the fields organization into a single field because they contain lots of redundant information that would removed by the merge. The entire section would be turned into single row/parameter that reads "Relatives. This is how it is down in several other wikis which keeps the Character Infoboxes there simpler and easier to read.

Elia0224 (talk) 12:27 AM, 2 March 2025 (EST)

Votes

Comments

Instead of having a whole header of Family relations, it would be better to just have one row that says Relatives. That way is simpler and does not overcomplicate the infobox. That is how it is done in most other wikis I have been to. Elia0224 (talk) 12:27 AM, 2 March 2025 (EST)

I sort of like the categorization, and I don't see how getting rid of the divisions will save pixel space here. If there's one thing I think that doesn't really need to be there is the clan icons. Skorch (talk) 19:12, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I am indifferrent on this. By default, you are supposed to use the family field, which is why it is in the template usage suggestions and the field descriptions also point out that the family field is preferred. The more fine-grained fields are only supposed to be used when the number of family members is quite big. Currently, only the Sully characters use these fields. Merging them all into the family parameter would get rid of some fields, but it will not save any space because the family members will obviously not become fewer. One advantage of those separate fields is that types of family members won't get mixed up. With only one field, parents, children, siblings, etc. are more likely to get randomly mixed by editors instead of being nicely grouped together. Faern. (talk) Policies 22:50, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Ditto, to what Faern said. Also, I think having the option to separate members of big families is beneficial for readers, as it makes clear delineations as to how someone is related. I've seen infoboxes on other wikis with a singular list of dozens of family members all mix-matched together in no particular order, and it seemed like an unnecessary challenge imposed on the reader to try to mentally organize to understand it.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 03:59, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Move Histories and other sections to separate pages?

Some wikis are known to put certain sections about characters such as their history in separate pages (ex. Character/History) and can also been done for other sections about a character. It can even be done for non-character pages. This is done in order to shorten some pages which can get very long and become harder to navigate. Usually, the different parts of a page are accessible in a sort of nav menu at the top (ex. Hazbin Hotel Wiki, Puppeteer Wiki, Invincible Wiki, Pichon Games Wiki, etc.) And so, should Avatar Wiki implement this feature for its longer pages?

Elia0224 (talk) 08:30 PM, 10 March 2025 (EST)

Votes

  • In Favor - Elia0224 (talk) 08:22 PM, 10 March 2025 (EST)
  • No for history, Yes for Overview/Relationships/Quotes/Gallery. Skorch (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Decide case-by-case Faern. (talk) Policies 00:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
  • No for history, Yes on a case-by-case basis for Relationships/In the Games/Trivia/Gallery sections on really long characters pages.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:28, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments

Considering how many more installments the Avatar franchise is going to receive in the coming years and how long the character and other pages are likely going to get, it would probably be good if they were split apart. Elia0224 (talk) 08:30 PM, 10 March 2025 (EST)

I hate having to click additional links for something so crucial as a character's experiences. But, I think Relationships/Gallery/Quotes are justified as long as they are lengthy enough. In fact, it would be nice to have quick access to the Gallery at the top of the article instead of scrolling to the bottom. Skorch (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I am mostly with Skorch on this one. The most relevant information should always be accessible within the article which includes the history / bio of the subject. For the more nerdy things like relationships, quotes, galleries, maybe trivia, that should be handled case-by-case. In most articles, these sections are rather short. So, moving things to separate pages in general (which need to be clicked on and loaded) does not make much sense. It's mostly main character and film articles that can get pretty long where separating some content can make sense, but that should be considered carefully. Since Fandom switched to the current layout in 2021, readers can access the table of contents everywhere in a page (second icon on the left side on desktop, icon on the right on mobile) which can be used to jump to any section of the article quickly from anywhere within the page. That somewhat alleviates the pain of navigating in long articles. However, I don't know if many people are aware of that feature. I generally either use the TOC at the top of the article or CTRL+F to move around quickly.
Those simulated tabs at the top only make sense to me if the tab's content (let's use relationships as an example) is always on a separate page and never within the main article. If some articles have relationships as section somewhere down the page and other articles have a link to a relationships page at the top, this is quite inconsistent and confusing. You'd have to look in different places in each article to find info about relationships. Currently, you always find it in about the same place: in a section below the bio with either the content itself or a link to the separate page. Same for galleries: They are always near the bottom, directly or indirectly. Faern. (talk) Policies 00:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I would like to add I just don't like separating Trivia off though, it seems unnecessary. Skorch (talk) 03:50, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Return Galleries to Their Respective Main Article Pages

Similar to the topic just above, when a reader visits an article page, there is a general expectation of what information should be present on a wiki page. Galleries are one of those expectations. The proposal is to restore galleries to their main article pages as they normally should appear on; to get rid of collective broad topic gallery pages. On a case-by-case basis, a specific individual external gallery subpage may be created if the gallery is determined to be too large to be hosted natively.

Affected broad topic gallery pages include (but not limited to):

  • Gallery: Flora
  • Gallery: Na'vi Weapons
  • Gallery: Pandora Locations
  • Gallery: Pandoran Creatures
  • Gallery: RDA Vehicles
  • Gallery: RDA Weapons

X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Votes

  • In favor X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
  • In favor Elia0224 (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2025 (EST)
  • In favor, but only if the subject has less than 40 images Skorch (talk) 03:50, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments

For some unknown reason, an ill-advised decision was made several years ago to seemingly pull almost all galleries (not just large galleries) off of their main article pages regardless of: the amount of content on the main article page, that main article page's length, and the size of the gallery. These galleries were then pooled together by broad topic and placed on separate article pages. I.e. Gallery: Flora, Gallery: Fauna, etc.

(From what I can only speculate, it was a messy round-a-bout way to try to mass-edit and 'categorize' images without actually adding a category tag to the image file to properly categorize the image). This created a coordination problem in conjunction with not properly categorizing images in which images where now separated, with some still on the main page, while others were on the gallery page, with the gallery page also containing duplicates of images currently being shown on the main page.

The overwhelming mass majority of these main article pages and their galleries were very small with little content, making the removal of any content from the main page completely unnecessary, as the images were originally able to be hosted comfortably on their main article pages without issue.

In creation of these broad topic gallery pages, many galleries were removed from their respective article pages and replaced with a link to redirect the reader. This can frustrate readers as, 1) they can't see everything on a single page, and 2) it takes them unnecessarily to a separate page for only an handful of images. As mentioned just previously, with a lot of these redirected small galleries containing duplicate images, it doesn't make sense for readers to be redirected to see the same images again.

Broad topic gallery pages do not serve a functional purpose on a wiki, as majority of users are not searching for a broad topic. Most users only look to a broad topic category in order to find a singular narrow topic (i.e. Category:Flora to find a particular type of tree). Having thirty plus small galleries included on these broad topic article pages is in itself defeatist, as it wildly balloons the length of the article page, straining both the servers and personal devices in trying to just simply load such enormous pages. With future additions to the Avatar franchise, this strain will only be exacerbated as more and more topic entries are created. X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I think 40 images is a reasonable maximum number of images, and anything more than that deserves an independent gallery. Skorch (talk) 03:51, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure if I am in favor of the idea or not. In general, the idea is good. However, the few gallery pages that aggregate galleries for multiple articles have proven quite helpful in the past for editing purposes, especially in the case of flora and fauna. Given that a lot of them look pretty similar, it can be hard to assign an image to the correct article if an image you found on the web has no useful name attached to it (e.g. screenshots, concept art, any images shared by artists on social media) and if you are not a walking encyclopedia. A page that lists all images of a type makes it much easier to put them in the right place. It may also help readers discover other interesting articles just by scrolling. Do you guys think that aggregated galleries as an editing tool for image identification are negligible or would be helpful?

In case of the latter: One idea I can imagine is having a couple of auto-generated aggregated galleries if we implement the /gallery subpage approach proposed below. A bot script could query all pages in a given category, check if they have a /gallery subpage or a gallery section with a <gallery> tag, collect those images and generate an aggregated gallery page similar to the existing ones mentioned above. A gallery page showing all flora images obviously does not make much sense at 250+ flora articles, but it would make sense for a selection of subcategories. Example: Category:Trees gets an auto-generated gallery page Category:Trees/gallery containing all gallery images from all tree articles, grouped by article of course. The bot script that generates that page could be run on a schedule (e.g. weekly/monthly) to pick up changes so that the generated page never needs to be touched manually. Next time you find a tree image, you can check the page to see if we already have an article about that particular tree.

In some cases, we have had images of plants or animals long before we had some actual info, so that they went to the "unknown" section of those gallery pages for a while until there was a name and some info to warrant an article. I guess the "Pandoran Flora" and "Pandoran Fauna" articles that we have since last summer serve as a suitable replacement for this purpose as most "unknown" images have already been copied there. Faern. (talk) Policies 23:10, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

I think it is alright if we list Unused/Unknown plants/flora on the articles, probably near the bottom, so we could put stuff that needs to be identified there on the article. I think we're at a point in time where the loooong Galleries served their purpose, and it's time to move on. We are also at a point in time where Frontiers of Pandora has identified many flora already that was once unnamed. I put a lot of effort into Flora articles lately. It's time to build up the Pandoran Flora article instead, with one good image of every plant.
I just finished making a pretty definitive Pandoran Fauna article, although I do not have the mental capacity to make a definitive version of the Flora article right now. It's too much effort for me, so I would appreciate assistance with that. Honestly, I'm feeling a bit cooked with the wiki and feel like I need a break, and would like to lessen my time here. Lastly, the auto-generated idea sounds daunting, for not that much pay-off imo. I like having custom galleries with captions we can manually edit. I would like to start with moving most of the Pandoran fauna back to their original articles. Skorch (talk) 07:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Rename Gallery Pages

Proposal to rename all gallery pages from i.e. Gallery: Neytiri to Neytiri/Gallery to identify the article page as being a subpage of a main topic. X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Votes

  • In favor X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
  • In favor Elia0224 (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2025 (EST)
  • In favor, since it seems we're going to separate Relationships/Quotes/Gallery, it is better for consistency. Skorch (talk) 03:50, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments

If content that is intended to be featured on a main article page is moved to an external subpage page (due to either quantity and or either to reduce main article page length), then that subpage page should be properly formatted as a subpage to reflect this connection.X20ArchAngel09x (talk) 02:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

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