With the upcoming series The Winchesters, Supernatural Wiki has some decisions to make regarding page setup and style. Following from the discussion here, this blog post raises some proposed ideas on how to proceed and requests community feedback and consensus.
Proposal: Subpages for returning Supernatural characters[]
One of the questions is how to handle documenting The Winchesters characters that also have content about them from the original Supernatural series. One proposal is that their roles in The Winchesters can be documented on subpages, like so:
Pros:
- Distinguished content between what's revealed in Supernatural and in The Winchesters. Appealing to new and existing fans who only want to check out a character's involvement in one or the other series.
- The subpage keeps it clear that the character is part of the same canon/continuity as the main page. This is distinct from pages that use qualifiers, such as John Winchester (Anime Series), which is part of a different canon/continuity.
- Keeps pages at manageable sizes, so they don't become overly long. This is the same premise of having subpages for other things, such as Sam Winchester/Abilities and Weaknesses and Sam Winchester/Synopsis.
- Clarity with regards to seasons section - see discussion section below.
Cons:
- Separating a single character's content between two pages.
- With regards to the not-yet-married Mary Campbell, her page name doesn't have "Campbell" in the URL. (The title does appear as "Mary Campbell" at the top of the page though.)
Also consider:
- Should all characters that have a presence in both series have a separate subpage, or just certain characters? If a character is only mentioned once in one series or the other, does that need a completely separate page? If not, where should the distinction be on when to split the pages?
Proposals: Series/season fields in infoboxes[]
Another question is how to handle infoboxes.
Prior to our preparation for The Winchesters, there was no reason to note that the series the character appeared in was Supernatural or make any distinction on which series the "Seasons" section applied to. So, for instance, Castiel's page just has "Seasons: 4-15" in the infobox; that's obviously his appearance in Supernatural. For characters appearing in both series, or just the new series, that means that this should be clarified in the infobox.
Infoboxes now have a "Series" field that can clarify when information is relevant to The Winchesters. So John Winchester/The Winchesters's infobox currently has "Series: The Winchesters" and then "Seasons: Season 1", so it's clear which series' season that applies to.
| Series | The Winchesters |
| Seasons | 1-2 |
| Series | Supernatural The Winchesters |
| Seasons | 1-5, 8, 11, 14 1-2 |
Alternatively, the series and seasons could be combined into the one Seasons field.
| Seasons | Supernatural 1-5, 8, 11, 14 The Winchesters 1-2 |
Feedback[]
How do you feel about these proposed page/style designs? Would you prefer an alternative? Do you have a different solution to propose? Let us know!
Consensus results[]
[ section added September 24, 2022 ]
These proposals have been up for over a week and visitors were invited to the discussion. Here are the results of community feedback.
This tally is intended to accurately reflect members' feedback; if I have misrepresented your stance on a proposal, please let me know and I will get it corrected!
Consensus on the subpage proposal[]
Community consensus supports the subpage proposal.
In favor of the subpage proposal:
Not in favor of the subpage proposal:
- Daughters of Coldharbour - would prefer the pages be kept combined
Consensus on the infobox proposals[]
I'm not sure if there's enough feedback to establish a clear consensus at this time. Two members are in favor of proposal 1, one in favor of proposal 2.
Series/season fields, in support of proposal 1:
Series/season fields, in support of proposal 2: