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Human capitalized?[]

I'm sure you're aware that the word human isn't normally capitalized, since it refers to a species, not a nation. In most alien cultures of Star Trek, though, one species does usually constitute one nation, and then there's also the relationship to proper names such as Vulcan or Romulus that tends to suggest capitalization.

However, there's no need to think about this a lot. All MA should do is follow the conventions established in user-facing sources such as books or DVD/Blu-ray subtitles, otherwise the readers will wonder at yet another idiosyncrasy of this wiki. The writers themselves clearly prefer human, it is spelled like that in the Star Trek Encyclopedia, so why should MA be any different? 80.95.102.234 12:31, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

We capitalize "Human" because it is a species name, and we treat it in the same manner as "Vulcan", "Romulan", and so forth. If you wish to dispute this and suggest otherwise, the talk page for the MA:STYLE would be the appropriate place to do so. -- sulfur (talk) 13:40, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to discuss this formally because I don't need to; Memory Alpha is the entity going against the spelling laid down by those responsible for the Star Trek canon and official sources. It is a totally inappropriate fan intervention in something that fans have no business deciding. Where do we get our spelling from, for names such as Romulan, Klingon, Cardassian? Scripts, subtitles, licensed novels, the Encyclopedia. If those responsible (usually scriptwriters) had decided to capitalize Human, say in order to emphasize the nation-like unity of humans in the 24th century, we would have to go along with that. They haven't though, and instead of merely following the established convention, you or somebody else are going to argue for some customized spelling rule, until the discussion reaches pages and pages or simply stops with no decision. What you're supposed to do instead is Google the available scripts and books (Google Books is a good resource), see for yourself and intervene with no discussion. If you don't accept that kind of evidence, then I won't be able to convince you. --80.95.102.234 15:01, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation placement[]

I haven't seen this addressed anywhere yet; I think we should follow Wikipedia in putting disambiguation links above the infobox. I think they belong there because they're "wiki function" links and not part of the article proper, and because it looks better since when you put them beside the infobox the disambig lines get scrunched up and take up even more space. -- UncertainError (talk) 01:11, February 3, 2019 (UTC)

I'm absolutely opposed to this. They are as part of the article as the page title is, and disambiguations don't happen for reasons that aren't related to the page title. If there is a problem with the amount of width wikia "allows" us, that is a problem with wikia, not out articles. I also think all the wasted white space with disambiguations above the sidebar looks amateurish and unprofessional, as if you're on the page to read all the great "wiki functions" we have available instead of the article we're pushing further down because you may be at the article for the wrong USS Yournamehere. - Archduk3 08:49, February 3, 2019 (UTC)

The disambig links are no more part of the article than the categories or the alt language links. I don't think it appealing to have actual article content pushed down as excessively as it is on James T. Kirk, for example. In any case, the "wasted white space" would be minimal if the disambig links were formatted to be more compact (i.e. smaller font, putting all the links in a single line). -- UncertainError (talk) 23:27, February 4, 2019 (UTC)

  1. You're just wrong there about disambiguations and categories. The lack of care put into those by some of you really does show that you think it doesn't matter, and it's good to have confirmation of that, or at least some rationale other than you're all just lazy.
  2. All the links in one chuck looks like crap and opens the article with a "wiki feature paragraph apparently not part of what you are most likely looking for". See your cited examples.
  3. Smaller text or less links is just less helpful. 3 links is the limit because of the TOS characters, but I'm sure people like clicking more links to get what they want. There must be a metic somewhere that supports that.
  4. We could just get rid of disambiguations and force people to be better at linking and searching.
  5. The text at Kirk is push down a bit, so how is a better solution to push everything down always like people don't automatically scroll down while reading the sidebar first anyway. Let's optimize to the worse case so all the common cases look worse too.
  6. None of this addresses the multiple skin issue, and that the sidebar should be first in all the formats.
We can keep going, but there is no version of this where I change my mind, and your side is going to need a whole bunch of people on at least it to overcome the one old discussion I can still find on this, located at the second place you would look. I know there is at least one other one out there too. - Archduk3 03:06, February 5, 2019 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree with Archduk3 on this. -- Renegade54 (talk) 03:33, February 5, 2019 (UTC)
So do I. -- Capricorn (talk) 18:54, February 5, 2019 (UTC)

"Previously on Star Trek: Discovery"[]

What is MA's policy on counting appearances in the "Previously on Star Trek: Discovery?" e.g. Amanda appears in "Point of Light" (DIS, 2x03), and then appears in the "Previously" section of the next episode, "An Obol for Charon" (DIS, 2x04), but not in the actual episode. It seems like there's been no clear policy for this so I just wanted some clarification. Hurrah123456 (talk) 07:27, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

"Previously on" segments are not (usually) part of the actual show. Occasionally there is new footage used in these segments, and if so, that should be noted in the episode's background section, and that's where those appearances should be mentioned/noted. -- sulfur (talk) 10:09, July 7, 2020 (UTC)
I presume a similar policy applies to the "On the Next Star Trek: Discovery" at the end of each episode, as well as that one instance when footage from Short Treks is used. Hurrah123456 (talk) 22:50, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

Definite articles before ship names with prefixes[]

Proposal to change the Manual of Style to require, that definite articles not be used before any ship names that have prefixes (HMS, USS, IKS, etc.) Reason is, that the prefix is part of a proper name, and proper names are definite in an of themselves.

Such as:

USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is a Constitution-class ship.

Once it's been established, that we're talking about only this Enterprise, the ship would then be referred to as "the Enterprise", where the definite article indicates that we're talking about the NCC-1701 vessel.

Enterprises with characters would be referred to without the definite article, too, as the character is an ordinal, making the whole construct a proper name, and so, definite:

Enterprise-D is newer than Enterprise-C.

My arguments are supported by the Wikipedia Manual of Style about ship names. -Mardus (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. The definitive article is used all the time in episodes and films, and readability is more important that adherence to some "rule" that was literally just changed at Wikipedia. - Archduk3 19:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Character and Actor sidebars[]

I'd like to suggest an update to character and actor sidebars after I've seen some really silly and overly-complex information added to some of these sidebars.

  • Character sidebars
    • The "Played by" segment should ONLY list primary actors in the role. Not instances where a character was in the body of another character, etc. Just the primary actors.
    • This segment should also only simply list the actors. And that's it. No separation of the data. Not which episodes/series/etc. Not ages. Just the names.
  • Actor sidebars
    • The "Character(s)" segment should ONLY list their primary character.
    • If there are other characters, these should be listed on a separate line as "Additional appearances" with that being a link to the relevant section of the article.
    • If there are multiple primary characters (ie Jeffrey Combs), this should be simply listed as "Multiple characters" with that being a link to the relevant section of the article.
  • Actor sidebars (part 2)
    • The "Roles" segment needs to be normalized. We have far too much stuff like "Featured Actor" vs "Guest Actor", with no explanation of the difference. This needs to be simplified and clearly explained. Especially when we do NOT have access to their contracts.

Thoughts? -- Sulfur (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Followup to the sidebars (part 2).

As noted, this needs to be simplified and I think that this is a decent schema to do so:

  • Actor (has lines on screen)
  • Background actor (has no lines, but appears on screen)
  • Stunt performer
  • Stand-in --should be different topic
  • Double (hand, foot, body, stunt, photo)

That way, there's no confusing between "Guest", "Featured", and otherwise. It is instantly clear as to whether they had lines or not. -- Sulfur (talk) 16:58, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I kind of think there is too much refinement in how we've come to interpret the last two options listed above to really make this as simple as you suggest.
Regarding "stand-in", it is rather confusing how we treat it, because a stand-in at Wikipedia doesn't appear on screen, but then it tends to get even more confusing (or we've made it that way ourselves) when you start talking about "hand double", "body double" and "photo double", who do appear on screen, but whose aforementioned blue links all redirect to our "stand-in" page (and are identifiers in several performers sidebars). See the problem? Does someone who helps prep a scene and someone who appears on-screen really one in the same?
Moving on, even "stunt performer" vs "stunt double" are really two different things, but you've/we've kind of lumped them into one, because in some cases a stunt performer is just an actor who is there as a character involved in a stunt, but a stunt double is more "meta"-ish, i.e. a "stand-in"-- if you will, for the main actor to perform a dangerous stunt on their behalf, like more intense versions of hand doubles, body doubles or photo doubles.
Maybe I'm just over complicating it, but there has to be something to say about when you look at an actor's page and have to dissect whether their role was considered a stunt or not, and as such, identifying actors as stunt performers seems to involve a lot of grey area, inside information or guessing, unless of course, it is actually a case where they are being credited as such in a film or something. It also seems to get extra sticky when you consider various Tom Cruise-type main actors who decide to do their own stunts (like Nana Visitor occasionally did). Are they stunt performers too? –Gvsualan (talk) 18:05, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

OK, so maybe I oversimplified. I still think that "Actor" and "Background Actor" cover off the majority of the big issues we have now. Maybe we simply have a hierarchical order of these... if someone's an Actor and also a stunt performer, then we classify them as an actor in our sidebar. Add the stunt performers category at the bottom.

We clearly need to better define stand-ins vs doubles, etc.

Also, these shouldn't be linked to categories. That's what actual categories are for. -- Sulfur (talk) 18:24, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I meant to bring that up too.
Also, we might just actually consider oversimplifying a little, just a little differently, and use "Double" (see: Double (occupation) at Wikipedia) to cover anyone who was a stunt double, hand double, photo double, dance double, and anything else I may have missed (heh, butt double?, going by what redirects to wikipedia's double page). That eliminates the misdirected use of stand-in, and just do as you say, add "stunt performer" category (not the sidebar) to those "Actors" or "Doubles" who perform stunts. Eh? –Gvsualan (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
One other thing regarding:
  • Actor (has lines on screen)
  • Background actor (has no lines, but appears on screen)
Are we considering there to be a difference between credited and uncredited? –Gvsualan (talk) 20:34, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I like the idea of the "Double" option, that works well...

I don't think we should worry about credited vs not... That can be covered in the text I'd think. -- Sulfur (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

All one has to do is look at the SAG Contract. There is a major pay difference from an Actor/Stuntperson to an Extra/Background Performer. Stuntpeople are paid at the Actors rate, even though we may not speak. The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stuntrek43 (talk • contribs).
So without access to someone's SAG contract this can only be speculated on our side. We need something more concrete than this to be accurate one way or another. –Gvsualan (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
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