Forum:Manga Chapter, Character Tables

(for Jademing) About
This is a character table:

1: first introduction

3: first appearance

and this forum is all about them.

The blue words in grey spaces are they categories, one of these categories is animals.

The bold letters in blue are towns/villages/cities (aka locations) and pirate crews.

And the words below them are character names.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 13:57, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

Introduction
Since something so small as updating chapter character tables had led to so many discussions and arguments even after things were talked about with a bunch of member on chat it is now best to create a forum about them to 1) have everything talked about 2) have everything diceded about and 3) as to have proof of the things that a majority of people decided about once upon a time ago.

So without further adue lets get to all the different issues :

(OnePieceNation (talk) 10:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

Issues
1 Links

2 Categories

3 Parentheses

4 Notes

5 Lines

6 Locations/Crews

7 Animals

(OnePieceNation (talk) 10:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

1 Links
Once upon a time the majority decided to make the character table all links like this :

Example 1

instead of partly or not at all links like this:

Example 2

To me having the character table be all links meaning all character names, catagories and locations are links to that character, location or catagorie is the only logical way of doing character tables. And to me it also look the most proffesional but I will get into that in the catagories section below.

If you don't want the character tables being all links please state your reasons under this post.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 10:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

To make things simpler two options:

Option 1 :All links (characters, categories, locations, crews)

Option 2: Not all links (others)

(OnePieceNation (talk) 11:38, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

Could you show how your second example would look like with option 1? I'm not sure I get your point.

I changed the example the first one shows option 1 and the second shows option 2. (OnePieceNation (talk) 19:13, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

What would actually be meaningful is showing the same example for both options, so that one can compare.

2 Categories
The second issue are the categories, which to use and in which order to use them. In the example 1 above you, you will see that all categories are links and at the top of the table and that each categorie is one column.

The categories in the most logical order are like this:

Pirates

Marines

Citizens

World Government
 * Shichibukai
 * CP9

Revolutionaries

Bounty Hunters

Bandits

Animals

First as you can see the categories are by character frequence meaning the categorie which contains the most named  important  characters comes first (pirates) and the one who contains the least comes last (bandits) and is only followed by the categorie animals who can be viewed seperately.

Second as you can see Shichibukai and CP9 don't get their own categories but become sub-categories under world government instead.

Again to me this is the only way to do categories, since just writing other as a categorie is both ugly and lazy.

Again if you don't agree with these categories, want to add, change, remove, change around categories than please list/state your view or ideas about them under this post.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 10:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

To make things simpler two options about categorization:

Option 1 Categorize in order of character frequency with Animals always coming last and with every little group (bounty hunters, bandits) getting its own categorie.

Option 2 Categorize only by big categories and little catagories becoming sub-categories (CP9, Shichibukai, Bounty Hunters, Bandits).

And two options about where to put shichibukai.

Option 1 Put them under World Government because they work directly under them

Option 2 put them under Pirates since they are still basically pirates.

And two options about Bounty Hunter, Bandits.

Option 1 put them under citizens because they are still citizens of the one piece world dispite the fact that they are bandits/bounty hunters.

Option 2 Leave them to their own categorie.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 11:38, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

3 Parentheses
Again when it comes to parentheses/brackets there are two issues, first what to put in them and secondly how to display them.

So far only four things by my reckoning have been put in brackets namely : cover, flashback, shadowed and on wanted poster. If there are others I must have overlooked them. To me nothing more then these three things need to be in brackets, though some people may argue that notes can be created for these things instead, which would make the character tables shorter.

Next is how to display them which has caused a lot of arguments and back and forth undoing. Seaterror told me it was decided to only do the words in brackets and not in brackets and italics as DP keeps doing it. DP for some reason wants to have them in italics which is unnecessary and stupid, for the simple reason that the words are already in parentheses and that putting them in italics does nothing more then accentuate them a little bit more, which is unnecessary.

So there are three options here:

Option 1 Only do them in brackets

Option 2 Do them in brackets and italics

Option 3 Don't do them at all and just make them notes.

Please state what you prefer and why under this post.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 11:38, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

4 Notes
So notes, here is a can of worms if I ever saw one. This is by far the most complex issue of the lot, for the simple reason that you can go so many different ways with them. So hopefully I get all the problems with notes down here but I doubt it.

To start off lets first ask the question what to note

Currently we note 1 first introductions as the first time a character is introduced through 2 new member/former member 3 first appearance/first mentioned and I do believe we have used 4 and 5 for a bunch of different stuff.

Sff9 suggested to change it to something like this:

1) first mention 2) first intro 3) first infobox 4) first appearance 5) new member

what will stop to confusion that occurs in people when it comes to intro (first time we hear their name) and introduction (the first time the character is named through an infobox). And also the confusion between mentioned (not seen in chapter but talked about in the chapter) and appearance (seen in the chapter whether named or not).

A valid thing to consider here to is whether we should do everything in notes and leave brackets out altogether.

Next is where to put the notes and whether to put a space between the name and note or to put it directly after the name.

I am certain there were several other issues with notes but they slipped my mind while concentrating on the first so I am just going to list options for now and wait for a discussion to start because there is a lot to discuss and decide about them.

So about brackets and notes two options.

Option 1 Do everything in brackets

Option 2 Do everything in notes.

About what to note (countless options can be added here, but I am trying to keep things short) :

Option 1 Note only introduction/new member/former member/mentioned/appearance

Option 2 Note all there is note by 'something' example of Sff9

Option 3 Note only first appearance

(OnePieceNation (talk) 12:32, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

5 Lines
Lines can be put in the character table many different ways or not at all.

From the moment I started editing here the lines in the pirate columns where always under the crew for example :

Put now the new editing format puts them under the crew like this

And when it comes to citizens the lining goes completely random, three examples.

Example 1 Lines under

Example 2 Lines above

Example 3 no lines

So again we have several issues in one.

First we have three options about lines in general.

Option 1: No lines, we don't need them.

Option 2: All lines, lines under each separate entity.

Option 3: Only lines under Pirate Crews and Towns/Villages/Cities.

Then we have two options about lines under pirate crews

Option 1 Above the actual crew

Option 2 Below the crew.

And last two options about Citizens

Option 1 Above town/village/city

Option 2 Below town/village/city.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 12:32, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

6 Locations/Crews
This luckily is a small issue. The current character tables all list the crew the pirates are from and the locations the citizens are from. However when we look at the marines the place where they are is scarily mentioned but still we list it when it is to me this is unnecessary. Only Locations and Crews need to be listed.

So we have two easy options here to talk about:

Option 1 List only crew and locations

Option 2 List everything there is to list.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 15:34, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

7 Animals
Last but not least we get to the problems that animals present. The first of these is the fact whether we list only named animals or whether we list all encountered animals (species).

named animals are animals that have been given names like: Laboon, Cocox, Mohmoo, Eyelashes, Scissors, Carue etc.

and all encounterd animals would include the blue elephant tuna, batchee, wasagi, laphan, banawani, erimaki runners etc.

In almost all chapters only named animals are listed, but there are some that list species.

Next issues I have with animals is that if we choose to list all we should do it seperately or only list it in the chapter notes and not in the character table,

So we have two options about what animals to list and not.

Option 1 List all animals, whether named or not and put the species of named animals behind them in brackets/note.

Option 2 Only List Named Animals in the Character Tables Because They Are The Only Real Characters.

(OnePieceNation (talk) 15:34, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

Discussion
What are you trying to say on this forum? 09:29, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

Huh? What is this I don't even Galaxy9000 (talk) 09:32, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

What part of not yet finished do you girls not understand? I am obviously still looking over character tables and what problems the present. (OnePieceNation (talk) 10:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

I'm a male. Galaxy9000 (talk) 10:17, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

First things first. It's difficult to take you seriously on such an OCD-filled topic when you keep saying things like 'catagories'. It's categories. Now, the actual issues: Regarding categories: 10:45, August 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by 'all links', 'partly links' and 'not at all links'? If you're just referring to the existence of the 'Other' category, well, you just have to deal with it. The fact is, not every character fits into one of the categories, and in such a case the 'Other' category is necessary.
 * Shichibukai should be under Pirates, not World Government, as we've been doing in recent chapters. The Shichibukai are defined as "seven powerful and notorious pirates who have allied themselves with the World Government". That is, all of them can be considered pirates, but they're not members of the World Government themselves - they merely serve under the WG in the same way the Marines do.
 * As a side note, in the Alabasta arc, I think Crocodile should be put in the Baroque Works category, not Shichibukai (same as how Gecko Moriah is associated with Thriller Bark and Boa Hancock with the Kuja Pirates). This will get rid of a useless column.
 * The necessity of the 'bounty hunters', 'bandits' and 'animals' categories is questionable. They could go into the 'Other' column as subcategories (similar to crew names).

One spelling error really, that's just lame of you. Anyways there is no need for an other categori as all characters can be categorized under one of those categories. Example 2 should have the locations fish man island and arabasta instead of others and Gyro should have a link to pirates like this ??? Pirates. The point you make about the shichibukai is a valid one that the community should decide on. Your totally right when it comes to crocodile. The bandits and bounty hunters categories wheren't thought up or created by me, but I do feel that they can be put under citizens because they are basically still that, but again this is something that should be discussed further. (OnePieceNation (talk) 11:38, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

OPN, either use preview or a sandbox, but don't expect people to wait hours before answering to a forum. I suggest you move this page to something like while you're working on it, and move it back there when it's over. Like this you can take all the time you need.

What is this forum about? From the title which is Manga Chapters, Characters..., everyone expect this to be about the chapters. And here you are, talking about locations, animals, categories and whatever. What? 13:34, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

if you can read it says quite clearly character tables. (OnePieceNation (talk) 13:37, August 14, 2012 (UTC))


 * Don't change the fact that you are talking about animals, locations, crews, categories, and whatever else I don't know, doesn't it? 13:48, August 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay, thank you so much, this is the first time I got a section of a forum named after me! 14:04, August 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * What the hell is this? A lot of stuff you're refering to is just older than the way stuff is done now and needs to be updated, like the separating lines and numbers. Things in parentheses are normally italicized. 15:33, August 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * DP I speak for a lot of people when I ask why? Why are things that are already in parentheses put unnecessarily into italics? The italics have no added purpose or value. Yeah but that is the heart of the problem a wiki needs to be consistent everything done in the same way and it isn't almost all chapters have character tables now but they are different throughout and all these issues need to be resolved to create one standard way of doing them. (OnePieceNation (talk) 15:38, August 14, 2012 (UTC))


 * So we take the old stuff and make it like we've been doing the newer stuff. It's called modernizing. 15:44, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah but most people don't know whats new or old what has been diceded and what has only been discussed once or twice on chat. We need to make clear how and what and make decisions together. (OnePieceNation (talk) 15:53, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

Most people look at recent chapters, that are done correctly, so it's not really a problem. Besides, the people that actually do work on the chapter pages know how they're done. 15:56, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

Agree with OPN. The fact that not all users agree on the italics thing, for example, is worth making a forum. Would have been better to address one problem at a time though, this forum is kinda messy and confusing…

DP Thats what I did when I started doing character tables but the character tables weren't anywhere near as bad as they currently are on the latest chapters, All of them have an unnecessary others and lines everywhere and nowehere none of them are in any ways shape or form either good or consistent. You are so far I know the only one who insist on doing brackets in italics. The people who work on chapter pages all do things differently and want to do things differntly we are miles and miles away from consistent chapter pages.

Sff9 that might have been better but it would have taken 50+ forums to short through everything. We can however take things one step at a time. (OnePieceNation (talk) 16:06, August 14, 2012 (UTC))

So? Just make the old character tables the same as the updated tables. Simple as that. Really, practically everything I read on here is useless. 16:12, August 14, 2012 (UTC)

no it isn't because there hasn't been anything decided yet there are tons of problems with the character tables and there a thousands of ways to do them and many different opinions about how to do them and if just updating them was the problem we wouldn't be here. Jade it is perefectly alright to not care and/or be part of this discussion/forum but please don't get in the way of it because it needs to be there since things need to be discussed, decided and figured out. (OnePieceNation (talk) 16:17, August 14, 2012 (UTC)_

Text wall!! I appreciate what you're trying to do, but as it is now this forum is pretty disorganized, and there are a couple of things I think you've missed. Overall though, I think the issues can be split into two types: If we want to make any progress at all, the first thing we should do is ignore everything to do with categories to start with. The reality is, there are a dozen different ways people could be categorized for any given chapter, and all of them would be perfectly valid. The goal should be to adjust the categories on an arc-by-arc basis so that they best fit the major groups in each arc.
 * Everything to do with categories; and
 * Everything else.

Having said that, deciding what to do for everything else is much more straightforward as the number of options is more limited. We should probably have some sort of Manual of Style for character tables specifically that can be inserted into the main one. This is how I've done and have been continuing to do things:
 * The following terms may go in parentheses after character names: (flashback), (silhouette), (image), (cover), (K.O.) and (deceased). (Wanted poster) was used in some early chapters, but as far as I can tell has not been used recently. If a character's only appearance is in a picture or portrait of some kind (e.g. the room filled with photos of Victoria Cindry), they are not marked as appearing in the chapter.
 * Things in parentheses should be in italics. They've been done that way for a while now, and the only people who've complained are OPN and ST (who got into an edit war a few weeks ago repeatedly trying to change the latest chapter character table to a scrollbox, so I don't really trust his opinion on this).
 * (cover) is only put if the character isn't in the chapter in some form. Similarly, if the character is conscious for a single panel, don't put (K.O.) or (deceased). (silhouette) is when the character is in the chapter but shadowed, (image) and (flashback) can be distinguished by the fact that a flashback goes back to a specific event, while image is just a general image of the character. If there's text, it's a flashback. For both of them, the character isn't actually physically present in any way.
 * Superscripts: Currently they are first introduction (1), new member (2) (rarely used) and first appearance (3).
 * To be honest, I don't really see new member as particularly necessary. The information could be put in the chapter notes instead.
 * First appearance is straightforward.
 * First introduction is a bit ambiguous, as to whether it refers to the first time a character is named, or their first infobox. If it was first infobox it would be pretty straightforward, but not all characters get an infobox.
 * If we had both first introduction and first infobox, there may be too much overlap.
 * Minor OCD issue: whether or not to put a space between the character name and the superscript.
 * Lines: Horizontal lines should go between all sub-categories.
 * Hidden names: If a character's name is revealed a few chapters after their first appearance, we often write the link so that it is displayed as a description of the character, e.g. Samurai from Wano or Mysterious Man.
 * If the character's name is first revealed in a source outside of the manga (SBS, Databook) then the link is not disguised (e.g. Benn Beckman in Chapter 1)
 * Characters' names are written as they are primarily known at the time of the chapter (e.g. Mr. 3's name is only written as Galdino once it has been revealed in the story).
 * Question: Is disguising links necessary? The wiki is filled with spoilers as it is, so it may not be.
 * Groups: There's a bit of an inconsistency in some cases as to whether groups should be in the table.
 * If it's a small group with defined members, this can go in the table (e.g. Yeti Cool Brothers, Acrobatic Fuwas, Super Spot-Billed Duck Squad)
 * If the group is less defined, such as the Pacifista, or the Soldier Zombies in general, they probably shouldn't be included.
 * Animals: Only named animals should be included (in the same way that only named humans are included).

Anyway, that's the way I see things. I'll put in other things if I think of them. 11:12, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Zodiaque on everything but minor details. In particular, I don't think there should be "rules" about "categories". For 677 chapters we just chose the repartition that fitted the best (i.e. no categories too empty or too full, not too many columns, etc.) and there was no problem.