Category talk:Characters

Category Name Change[edit]

Please see/join the discussion at BattleTechWiki talk:Project Biographies regarding changing the name of this category to Major Characters. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:55, 15 August 2008 (CDT)

The decision has been made to rename this category Characters, return all character articles to the category and require all future character articles to be added. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 23:40, 25 August 2008 (CDT)

Clan names[edit]

(Not sure where this belongs so I'll put it here for now. Perhaps a "Policy: Clan Names"?) How do we treat Clan Bloodnames? After all, the Clan naming system is radically different from the commonplace namegiving in the Inner Sphere. You cannot (imho) treat "Ward, Vlad" like you treat "Davion, Hanse" if you get what I mean. Ward is only his bloodname, and the closest thing he has to a family name is his origin from Clan Wolf. This is not only style, but also important for sorting characters as we're currently doing this by second names. "Joanna" is under "J" because she has no bloodname and Vlad Ward should really be mentioned under "V" and not "W". Perhaps the entry format for Clanners should look something like "Joanna, Clan Jade Falcon" or "Vlad (Ward), Clan Wolf". Not sure if they should be sorted by Clan or by first name. Frabby 04:01, 25 August 2008 (CDT)

There are actually several cultures this could apply to (at least, apply different measures): technically, names from the Draconis Combine should be handled differently, as the Japanese culture places family names before given names, so that even if the English presentation gives it to us given-family, in reality their names are family-given. (Ignorance prevents me from saying the same about the Cappellan Confederation.)
I state the above only as an example, not a suggestion. I agree that the use of varying names structure is actually more valid with the Bloodnames, as you mention, but my POV is that we adapt the naming structure as it is recognized within the presentation of it: Joanna is handled differently, because that is all we have to go on. Vald Ward is handled the same as all others, because he does have a Bloodname that allows the convention to remain. I wasn't involved, but I believe the consensus with characters who have names that changed was to go with Wikipedia's policy of the most well-known name, and have redirects from other versions. If Vlad were to lose his bloodname, for example, I'd think then it should go back to Vlad with a redirect from Vald Ward. My secondary criteria for a common-usage is simplicity. When people think of the character, in their mind they'll be thinking Vald Ward rather than Vlad (Ward), Clan Wolf, and that has implications for Editors using wikilinks. Afterall, characters can change Clans too. My stance is that we continue to employ common usage and leave the explanation of the character's current name status for within the article.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 09:15, 25 August 2008 (CDT)
I agree with Revanche in the interest of simplicity. --Scaletail 18:43, 25 August 2008 (CDT)
Me too. --BigDuke66 17:28, 29 August 2008 (CDT)
Playing devil's advocate once again, I stumbled across the summary from the back of Malicious Intent. And there (in a Canon source mind you!) he is actually referred to as "Vlad of the Wards". This is not to say I am opposed to the approach taken so far. I do not actually have a strong opinion here but I do see a possible issue down the road and we want to be sure that we're adressing the issue in the right way while there is still a chance to change course without too much hassle. Frabby 08:24, 2 September 2008 (CDT)
If it's not already there, then create a redirect. Referring to a warrior as "of the [Bloodhouse]" differentiates him from other Vlads. Of course, he later became Vlad Ward when we won his Bloodname. This does make me wonder of "of the [whatever]" is a viable naming convention.... See below. --Scaletail 18:41, 2 September 2008 (CDT)

Name v. Name of the Bloodhouse[edit]

Frabby raised a good issue above. For Clan warrior characters without a Bloodname, such as Joanna, should the article title be in the form of "Name" or "Name of the Bloodhouse"? I am mixed on this, so I will not weight in yet. --Scaletail 18:41, 2 September 2008 (CDT)

Nameless Assassin?[edit]

What about the assassin who killed Melissa Steiner-Davion, Salome Ward, Ryan Steiner and Omi Kurita? He is definitely a major character. What should his article be named like? [[Assassin (person)]]? [[nameless assassin]]? --Detlef 04:50, 24 November 2008 (PST)

I favor something like [[The Assassin]], but [[Dancing Joker]] seems to be the most common reference here in BTW at least in the novel character lists. Cyc 04:54, 24 November 2008 (PST)
I'd prefer a neutral term like The Assassin. AFAIK Dancing Joker is just one of his codenames. Are there other newsworthy nameless assassins? (The murderer of Morgan Hasek-Davion can be charted under Lucas Penrose or Honda Tan, the would-be-assassin of George Hasek-Davion doesn't deserve it's own article...) --Detlef 05:15, 24 November 2008 (PST)
I noticed the Dancing Joker reference too and questioned it but decided to leave it for my betters. However, even if it's one line, with sources, article it up baby! Locis 08:06, 24 November 2008 (PST)
I used Dancing Joker since its how he is referenced in the forums by both moderators and members of the demo team. Since the assassin has no official name, I figure this is about as canonical as we can get. --Ebakunin 12:31, 24 November 2008 (PST)
The only name I can ever remember seeing him referred to as besides "that guy from the Stackpole novels that killed Melissa" is "Dancing Joker". --Scaletail 17:09, 24 November 2008 (PST)

Only Sub-Categories?[edit]

Okay:

Issue: There are currently 19 sub-categories for the main category of Characters. However, there is not enough room -because of the individual articles that are categorized in Characters- to display all 19. Right now, only 10 show, and as new characters get added (and they will), that amount of space will go down. At the same time, the number of sub-categories will increase.
Solution: As Ebakunin has noted, some larger wikis solve this problem by sub-categorizing all the individuals, with none listed in the main category. Right now, we have 362 character articles listed in the main category.
Proposal: 1) All character articles that are already sub-categorized, but are also listed in the main Characters category should have the main category removed. 2) All characters that are only listed in the main category must have it replaced with an appropriate sub-category. I'm willing to do this myself, but I want to be sure no one has an issue with this major change in how characters are handled.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 22:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm good with that. --Scaletail 22:15, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
You're suggesting that "Characters" should exclusively be a meta-category. I am basically fine with that, but I see a possible problem in that many characters do not seem fit well into any category, and I really would not want a "miscellaneous" sub-category - that is the one point that we need to rule out. (I take it those characters who changed allegiances several times will appear in several sub-categories.) Frabby 08:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Won't this be confusing for someone searching the character category? How would these new sub-directories be divided. Dividing the into subsclasses like Mechwarrior, Politition, Spies, etc, instead of their nationality? Or These subclasses would be rooted into nationality, then speciality? -- Wrangler 19:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I think we can talk about how to categorize characters after we come to a general agreement that this is the right way to proceed. There are currently sub-categories that seem to work just fine. --Scaletail 23:47, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Scaletail regarding the timing. How do you feel about "Characters" becoming a meta-category, Wrangler? (As an aside, charcaters can belong to more than one sub-category...as long as they belong to the largest inclusive one (ex: House Liao), as well.)--Revanche (talk|contribs) 02:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
If its done right, it could work. I think only thing is it takes away choices from the person looking person up if they resort to the category. By having major Character listing, it would help someone whom isn't sure of character's name/spelling or even what faction their in. I know I've had to resort to that. Sometimes things don't come up in general search. I would prefer that major characters would have kind of affilitation or job there known for. Morgan Kell, is a Baron/Grand Duke of Arc-Royal, Mercenary Commander, & politician (Being noble doesn't necessary mean your active in politics. -- Wrangler 11:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Having a "miscellaneous" subcategory is not inherently a problem. When in doubt, put the character in that subcategory, and later on people can discuss which subcategory is more appropriate. --Ebakunin (talk|contribs) 01:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Or maybe in "Uncategorized," instead of ""Miscellaneous," so that it doesn't become a habit and indicates (much like {{stub}}) that it needs to be fixed. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 02:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
How about Noble, Military and Civilian/non-military as the main categories. The Noble and Military being tied to respective nationality possibly?. I imagine their are very few nobles or military characters who would fall outside of this system. --Dmon 07:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Only problem by going way your suggesting is that, Dmon. That your suggesting nobles can't be military or it would be rare. Thing is, there alot noblity in military thus you'll have duplication of character entries. I personnally, like way its listed now. There are not that many civilian, non-combatants of high regards in much of the BT fiction. I created spies as being part of new sub-category. They are neither military (not usually) nor they really civilian. Thus you run into that what do we do with them? If we need realign things it should be nationality, then primary and perhaps era. We going to have alot characters (still growing) from least two eras of Battletech current fiction covers. -- Wrangler 11:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean instead of either "Uncategorized" or "Miscellaneous"? --Revanche (talk|contribs) 11:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Consensus: The appears to be no concern about removing all multi-categorized Characters from the top-cat, "Characters." I'll start removing those (which should allow my page count to catch up with Ebakunin Evil.gif). Please continue discussing the placement of those characters that only exist in the (now) meta-category "Characters".--Revanche (talk|contribs) 11:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Is there way give sample what this thing going look like? I may have re-do article categories to make them work with new mega-catgory characters. -- Wrangler 12:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
It would look just like it does now, except all of the categories would show and no individual articles would be listed. So, if you're looking for someone, you'd open the most relevant sub-category. Remember: characters can exist in more than one sub-category.
My first step (which I'll start tomorrow night) will be to remove Category:Characters from each individual article where other categories are already listed. Once that is done, I'll go thru the remaining characters and deal with them per consensus (which hopefully will be determined by then). --Revanche (talk|contribs) 14:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Wow, that tall order to remove the category:characters from each article. So they'll be just divided up by other sub-categories? House Steiner Characters or Smoke Jaguar Characters? -- Wrangler 14:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Better now then later, when no more than three sub-categories would be visable. Its only 363 articles (total), and I'll break up the work load. A lot more larger projects have been undertaken before. As to your question, yes. Everyone should fall under some broad category, like House Steiner Characters or Smoke Jaguar Characters, and can be further categorized as Spies, Infantry, Slammin' Hotties, etc. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 15:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
"Slammin' Hotties" will be difficult to distinguish as it's very dependent on the illustrator. For example, anyone drawn by Jeff Laubenstein is guaranteed to be ug-ly. --Ebakunin (talk|contribs) 17:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Got it; it would require an Editor's opinion, rather than simply relaying certain facts. Kill the Slammin' Hotties category. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Wrangler, clarification to my last: the categories don't need to drill down from that one top category (i.e. it doesn't have to be "Clan Smoke Jaguar Spies" as a subcategory of "Clan Smoke Jaguar Characters"). Its just that each character should fall under at least one 'faction' category, and is not limited to only one, either.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Categories: Pre-House characters[edit]

I've just been working through some of the history of the Capellan Zone, and I find myself having problems when I categorise some of the characters. It's easy to make characters like the children of Elias Liao members of the House Liao Characters category, but I've just written a profile of Albrecht von Hesse, the founder of New Hessen and a planetary ruler within the Tikonov Grand Union. It's easy to make him a minor character, but it feels like he should have a national category, too; after all, there are other characters from the Tikonov Grand Union who need write-ups too, like Diana Chinn and the various Tikonov Tetrarch's. Should they simply be listed under House Liao, like the other Capellan characters, even though they pre-date the Capellan Confederation and were part of other, defined nations? The Terran Alliance has it's character category named after the nation, as does the Terran Hegemony and the various Periphery nations, but all of the Successor states have their characters listed under a category based on the name of the ruling house. It feels strange to use the House Liao category for Albrecht and the other Tikonov Union/Grand Union characters from the 22nd/23rd centuries given that House Liao didn't gain control over that region of space until the latter half of the 24th century. BrokenMnemonic 12:55, 12 February 2012 (PST)

Characters Associated with Independent Worlds[edit]

I've just come across a novel problem. I was looking at creating a character entry for Hamish McClaugherty, the first planetary governor of Benet III. Categorising him would be problematic, though; he was appointed governor in or around 2261. This is after the Outer Reaches Rebellion, but prior to the formation of the Federated Suns, and McClaugherty was a colonist from Robinson. Benet III has no obvious affiliation at that point - the world is actually described as having an initial population provided by corporations from a combination of different ethnic and national groups, which is why Benet III didn't have an overall monoculture affiliated with anything that came before. I can't therefore list Hamish as a Terran Alliance character, or a Federated Suns character, and we don't have a subcategory for characters from independent worlds - the closest we've got is the general category for Periphery characters. I'd be interested to hear suggestions for how to categorise Hamish... other than "problem child", obviously! BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:23, 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.--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. Frabby (talk) 05:45, 11 September 2019 (EDT)
For me it is because I use the categories to navigate the wiki quite a lot.--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. 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.--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. 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.--Dmon (talk) 17:15, 11 September 2019 (EDT)

Profession Categories[edit]

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:
- Category:Pirates
- Category:Mercenary Characters
- Category:Spies and Assassins

But then we have:
- Category: Solaris Games Aerospace Fighter Pilot
- Category: Solaris Games BattleArmor Fighters
- Category: Solaris Games Combat Vehicle Pilot
- Category: Solaris Games MechWarriors

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)--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--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).--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 titles and positions articles that are starting to fill out quite nicely into a system of their own now.--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 ??)--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.--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. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 16:20, 30 September 2019 (EDT)
So what do you feel on this:
  • 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?--Pserratv (talk) 05:08, 1 October 2019 (EDT)
Infantry is gone.
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?--Pserratv (talk) 04:09, 12 October 2019 (EDT)