Sarna News: Bad 'Mechs - Icestorm
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:From experience with other ''Catergory Independent xxxxx'', they tend to become misinterpreted over time or become dumping grounds for things that are not easy to catagorise so I have avoided an Independent characters. Hamish though there might be a cheat and we can get away with calling him a Terran Alliance character by way of prior to the outer Reaches Alliance everybody was legally a citizen of the TA, and given the gap between the end of the rebellion and him being made governor is 24 years. Even though we do not have a date of birth for him it is pretty likely that he would be older than 25 when he acquired the post (real world experience tells me he would likely be in his 40s at best.) so we can assume that for at least a reasonable portion of his life he will of been a TA citizen and his parents will of certainly been.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 04:51, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:From experience with other ''Catergory Independent xxxxx'', they tend to become misinterpreted over time or become dumping grounds for things that are not easy to catagorise so I have avoided an Independent characters. Hamish though there might be a cheat and we can get away with calling him a Terran Alliance character by way of prior to the outer Reaches Alliance everybody was legally a citizen of the TA, and given the gap between the end of the rebellion and him being made governor is 24 years. Even though we do not have a date of birth for him it is pretty likely that he would be older than 25 when he acquired the post (real world experience tells me he would likely be in his 40s at best.) so we can assume that for at least a reasonable portion of his life he will of been a TA citizen and his parents will of certainly been.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 04:51, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::It may just be me, but a lot of categories strike me as categorizing articles for the sake of categorizing. If a category or categorisation isn't helpful then just don't do it. [[User:Frabby|Frabby]] ([[User talk:Frabby|talk]]) 05:45, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::It may just be me, but a lot of categories strike me as categorizing articles for the sake of categorizing. If a category or categorisation isn't helpful then just don't do it. [[User:Frabby|Frabby]] ([[User talk:Frabby|talk]]) 05:45, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
:::For me it is because I use the categories to navigate the wiki quite a lot.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 06:06, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::::No disrespect intended! Sorry if I sounded like that. But like I said, many categories make me scratch my head - and this is one (mild) case where the usefulness of the category and/or its informative content isn't obvious to me. Overall, my point was that you're under no obligation to use categories, infoboxes or article structure templates; you're of course free to use or not use them at your leisure. [[User:Frabby|Frabby]] ([[User talk:Frabby|talk]]) 10:43, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:::::Oh I totally agree we have some real headscratchers on here, the Weapons and equipment categories especially stand out as having some interesting ideas. But I do feel every article should have at least one category and if info boxes are available they certainly should be used.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 11:03, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::::::I don't like the idea of an "Independent Characters" category because I agree that they tend to end up becoming bucket categories for everything that doesn't fit somewhere else. In the case of Hamish, I'd be reluctant to categorise him as a Terran Alliance citizen, because some of the planets - like Cynthiana or Tikonov (I forget which) considered themselves independent by the end of the 22nd century, and I'm not sure what the situation would've been with Robinson at the time. I've been pondering whether a category defined as something like "Stateless Characters" might work, with the caveat that it's only to be used for characters that are from worlds that are not Periphery worlds, and which are also not members of any nation state. [[User:BrokenMnemonic|BrokenMnemonic]] ([[User talk:BrokenMnemonic|talk]]) 16:57, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
I had a very similar conversation with Pserratv a few months ago, just checked back and he plumbed to put the character into [[:Category:Unknown Affiliation]], not sure if it is better or worse but another option.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 17:15, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
 
 
== Profession Categories ==
 
 
Most of the categories are centered on character afiliation, but we have four quicky found and a few others that represent professions... I feel some are missing. Let me try to share my idea:
 
 
We now have:<br>
 
- Category:Pirates<br>
 
- Category:Mercenary Characters<br>
 
- Category:Spies and Assassins<br>
 
 
But then we have:<br>
 
- Category: Solaris Games Aerospace Fighter Pilot<br>
 
- Category: Solaris Games BattleArmor Fighters<br>
 
- Category: Solaris Games Combat Vehicle Pilot<br>
 
- Category: Solaris Games MechWarriors<br>
 
 
But only this general one:
 
- Category:Infantry Characters
 
 
So here I'm at least thinking we need general categories for Combat Vehicles, MechWarriors and Aerospace Fighters (and truth to be told, maybe rename the Solaris Games one on BattleArmor to be Infantry that covers them all).
 
 
We have also Precentors, Archons... but we miss several other titles, like Duke... ==> Here I do not think is worth making one for them.
 
 
Which is your view on this? Which ones you feel are missing (or the other way around, which could or should be deleted)--[[User:Pserratv|Pserratv]] ([[User talk:Pserratv|talk]]) 15:57, 28 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:I actually feel the opposite. Infantry characters and Spies & assassins have been on my hitlist of things to kill for a long time, the same with the ComStar ones. Pirates, Mercenaries and Solaris Games Characters (note I am actually against the further subdivision beyond this point) are necessary "special" characters because they are presented to us often without the information assign them a specific nationality. [[User talk:Pserratv/Archive 2018#Solaris VII Gladiator]].
 
 
:A great example of why I do not think rank categories is Acolyte. We have the category but not every ComStar character is included in the category. Why not? are we assuming characters are recruited into ComStar at the rank of Precentor and such? If not we need to add in the lower ranks into every ComStar character article in order to illustrait their progression through the ranks. Seems a lot of work for very little return, especially when you realise you now need to spread a similar system to all other characters on the wiki for consistency.
 
 
:On the same kind of point is the spies and assassins, in the real world people can change careers or even have multiple ones. Imagine the MechWarrior category.. 95% of all characters, so many in fact that I feel it would cease being useful.
 
 
:Imagine the fun of having a character who has migrated between nations, served as a mercenary, secretly works for one of the houses as a spy and has worked their way upto the rank of Major in a 'Mech regiment. I count that as eight categories. Also we already have 50 subcategories in the Characters cat, if we impliment what you are suggesting I think we could fairly easily top 100, with that I very strongly think we will be entering the territory of '''Categories for the sake of categories'''--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 07:39, 29 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::That is why I was also asking if you felt some category should be deleted. I agree that if we do not have MechWarriors/Aerospace..., Infantry is useless. But myself I like Spies and Assassions, a good place for all these people from ROM, MIIO and all the secret services of a nation (+ some independants like heimdall)...
 
::As per ComStar, I do not like Precentor either, I would leave there only Primus (thechnically speaking Precentor Martial but there are like 4 or five only so).--[[User:Pserratv|Pserratv]] ([[User talk:Pserratv|talk]]) 15:12, 29 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:::I can live with a spies and assassins one because even though it is not quite "special" in the way the other ones are they are special in a different was as if we go ahead and add every named character in lore (long term goal right there) there will be lots of alias's.. I am sure this might be a good place to keep them.
 
 
:::And yeah, Precentor Martial can go I reckon because it is getting covered by the [[:Category:Titles and Positions|titles and positions articles]] that are starting to fill out quite nicely into a system of their own now.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 16:23, 29 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::::I would love more opinions. At this moment we are on "kill": Precentor (inside ComStar) and Infantry (in Characters) and on creating Precentor Martial (ComStar and WoB ??)--[[User:Pserratv|Pserratv]] ([[User talk:Pserratv|talk]]) 10:20, 30 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:::::Aff to "kill" on Precentor and Infantry and neg on creating Precentor Martial category as it is already covered.--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 10:32, 30 September 2019 (EDT)
 
::::::It's the nature of BattleTech that MechWarriors are going to be the most numerous character types we'll ever see. I fall into the camp of thinking that we don't need categories for every possibly character profession, but I do think that articles should have at least one category on them. It feels a bit odd to capture aerospace and MechWarrior characters without catching other military personnel, even if it's at the level of having a category for characters who were professional military personnel, with MechWarriors and Aerospace pilots as sub-categories. Given the characters who have articles written about them, it may be worthwhile having categories to capture those who were planetary or interstellar aristocracy/nobility, and characters who were members of civilian governments. [[User:BrokenMnemonic|BrokenMnemonic]] ([[User talk:BrokenMnemonic|talk]]) 16:20, 30 September 2019 (EDT)
 
:::::::So what do you feel on this:<br>
 
::::::::* Delete:
 
:::::::::* Precentor (inside ComStar and WoB)
 
:::::::::* Infantry (in Characters)
 
::::::::* Create:
 
:::::::::* Professional Military Personnel (we could have subcategories for what are not mechwarriors, which would be the "usual")
 
:::::::::* Nobles
 
:::::::::* Civil Government Characters (like planetary governors)
 
 
:::::::What is your feeling?--[[User:Pserratv|Pserratv]] ([[User talk:Pserratv|talk]]) 05:08, 1 October 2019 (EDT)
 
 
:Infantry is gone.<br> I had a "re-thought"... Would it be worth in the "Category:Clan Characters" to add: Infantry/Elementals + Aerospace Fighters + MechWarrior + Naval Commanders + Protomech Phenotypes? So we can categorize most of the clan characters there (only for those we are 100% sure of what they are). I know most of them will be mechwarriors, so maybe we could only do those not mechwarriors... Feeleings?--[[User:Pserratv|Pserratv]] ([[User talk:Pserratv|talk]]) 04:09, 12 October 2019 (EDT)
 

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