This page lists items that were changed in the overhaul. If members of the community disagree with these changes, see the Resolution to problems blog for what solutions must be prepared to address long-standing problems.
Items removed from Infoboxes[]
Several fields were removed from Infoboxes reduce the amount of bloat and to encourage people to put the information on the main part of the page. Later on, once there is substantial information available, the fields may be reinstated. This is not a promise, however.
- Inspiration: This is supposed to be for documented cases where people involved in making the movie, TV show or book specifically stated that their character was based on or inspired by another character. Most cases of "inspiration" are actually "they're similar to" other characters.
- Animators, performance model, designer, awards: All of this information can go into the "Background information" section on the main part of the page.
- Appearance: A picture of the character that shows what they most commonly look like is better than trying to describe them. If it is necessary to provide more information, it can go into the "Physical appearance" section on the main part of the page.
- Alignment: This tends to be a classification like what is found in real-world role-playing games. Leads to fluctuations like "They're lawful neutral most of the time but chaotic evil during these specific situations."
- Personality: Moved to a "Personality and behavior" section in the page. Information about the character's personality tends to become a long list of every tiny aspect of the character's behavior, causing the Infobox to become bloated.
- Goal: Was to be a short list of objectives specifically pointed out in the story. Instead, became a list of minor things they happened to do. Example: Slapped a guard for getting in his way.
- Likes and Dislikes: Instead of being things specifically pointed out in the story as a plot point, it became a list of everything that happened to them. Compare the following:
- In the second and third Back to the Future movies, Marty McFly does not like being called "chicken". This leads him to risky behavior because he feels he needs to prove he isn't. Later, he learns the consequences of what would have happened if he continued to be perturbed by it.
- A woman wrecks her car, so that is listed as a "Dislike". It isn't unique to the character as most people would dislike having their car wrecked.
- Friends: Replaced by the "Friends" sub-section in the "Relationships" section. Tends to bloat the Infobox as the list grows. Many times, people the character happens to meet are listed as a friend when they may not actually be friends.
- When the character is an antagonist or a villain, people they work with are sometimes listed as friends, whereas the reality is the other people are likely to be their competition and they are only temporarily working with them.
- Also gets abused by assuming because they were created by a specific company, they are friends will all other characters. Example: Lightning McQueen is friends will all other Pixar characters.
- Allies and minions: Replaced by the "Associates" sub-section in the "Relationships" area. Infobox bloats as this grows. Like with friends, people the character meets are sometimes listed as an ally or a minion without it being an actual alliance to deal with a situation.
- Any affiliations and organizations the character belongs to should also be listed in the "Associates" section.
- Enemies: Replaced by the "Opponents" sub-section in the "Relationships" area to account for people they may cross paths with without those other people specifically being their enemies. This also bloats the Infobox as the list grows. A character like Thanos from the Marvel movies killed untold trillions of people, making it impossible to list them individually.
- Fate: To be listed now in the "Role in the story" section since many times, a final outcome for the character isn't actually final.
- Powers, abilities, weapons. To be listed now in this section in the main part of the page. Also bloats the Infobox as the list grows.
- Quotes/typical saying: Instead of being something they are most likely to say during the entire course of the story, several sayings are listed, bloating the Infobox. Replaced by the opening quote at the top of the page (only one quote that best represents the character), and the "Memorable quotes" section, for quotes that are memorable and not just common things they say.
Modifications to Infobox[]
- The Family field is for listing only their immediate family (parents and children). For characters with large families, add the
{{Family}}template to provide a link to the "Family" sub-section on the main part of the page. - Appearances section (films, TV programs, video games, novels, other sources): List only a few, add the
{{Appear}}template to provide a link to the "Story Appearances" section so a fuller list can be provided.
Existing categories removed[]
124 categories with only 8 actual pieces of information
Existing categories were removed from pages to clear out the TV Tropes style of classifying pages and to return categories to the purpose of organizing the page. As stated above, categories have also been used as an excuse not to write anything about the character, leading to many pages having only one or two sentences and dozens of categories.
Some pages have had over 100 categories on them while saying nothing about the character. The example to the right has only eight pieces of information about the characters but has 124 categories plus the Stub category from the template.
By clearing out all existing categories, relevant categories can be added that will actually help organize the page instead of being an an excuse not to say anything about the character.
The maximum number of categories allowed on a page is 12 to prevent categories from becoming useless and to help them remain objective.
See the Categories section of the new Standard Article Format help page for what categories to use.
Tangent information[]
- "Similar to" characters. Due to how many millions of books, TV shows and movies have been written in total, there will always be characters that are "similar to" other characters. This has been removed due to many cases where it's a long comparison of how they are similar but with exceptions given on how they are not similar. Example: character A and character B both died fighting the hero, but character A was shot by the hero and character B died by slipping during the fight and falling down stairs.