Talk:List of Pratchett characters

Character lists/categories on thediscworld.de

I tried to create such a page half a year ago, dividing the list into main and minor characters but it was a stupid idea. If characters are added to categories, refer to the categorie which will create an automatic alphabetical list. (see: [1] listing some of the main characters on the main page (bottom left) with a link labeled more which leads to the categorie characters, listing them all) --Death 08:59, 8 Jul 2005 (CEST)

I like to have both cats and lists. Cats have their points, but lists are more flexible. For instance you can easily refactor a list to re-order it, you can put in headings and subheadings (Discworld, Ankh-Morpork, Ramtops, etc) and still have them all on the same page (unlike subcategories) and each item on a list can have a bullet point with a brief description, beside the name.

Don't misunderstand me, categories are far-and-away the best tool for organizing Wiki articles. It's just that they are limited because by definition you can only view either one item in any category or one category at a time, and if you're looking in the category all you see is the names of articles (and--this is my pet hate--redirects can't be in cats). Lists have a higher maintenance overhead but they can contain whatever you want. You can have a list of Wizards on the same page as a list of Eric characters. You can list Perdita X Dream as a separate character without writing two articles for Agnes/Perdita. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:39, 8 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Refering to You can list Perdita X Dream as a separate character without writing two articles for Agnes/Perdita: Try redirects ;-) Write one article called Agnes and make redirects from Perdita, Agnes Nitt, Perdita X Dream etc. So it's not important that everybody who writes articles in this wiki knows how it's called but can use whatever name he likes. --Death 11:29, 9 Jul 2005 (CEST)

My point is that, while of course you would probably want to use redirects for Perdita, you cannot put a redirected article into a category. Only articles can be put into categories. You would probably have to write a placeholder article "Perdita is an alter ego of Agnes Nitt" so that you could put the placeholder into a category, which is a bit messy in my opinion, if you really want to write about Agnes and Perdita in one single article. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:57, 9 Jul 2005 (CEST)

I see what you mean. --Death 13:28, 9 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Dialogue in three or more books?

I added The Luggage as a major character, although, of course, it does not talk. However, it has very special appearances in all the Rincewind books. So hopefully the list headers can be bend a little. That is actually one of the problems. Which categorisation makes sense? It is all in the eye of the beholder. Consider the books, one could devide them into the series (Rincewind, witches, watch,...) or the style (adult, child,...) or by cover artists or or. While all these lists sound great it is really a lot of work to keep them all up to date.

But that's what categories are for, surely? You can add all sorts of categories, and add a book to wherever it belongs. So for example the Tiffany Aching books can both be "Witches" and "Children". I don't see that as a problem - it's not all black and white.

As for the dialogue, that is a bit of a problem. Perhaps "Appearing in 3 or more books"? There are also characters who rarely speak, but appear or are mentioned in several books (Amazing Maurice, Mrs. Cosmopolite, Mrs. Cake, to mention but a few) --Sanity 12:09, 5 Aug 2005 (CEST)

If we do something similar to "lead character" and "support character" and also distinguish between serial characters and one-book characters? Then for example Pteppic will be one-book lead character; The UU Dean, Senior Wrangler, Bursar, and company will be serial support characters; Mistress Weatherwax, Missus Ogg, and Magrat Garlick will be serial lead characters? Of course this may be more trouble because, as it has been said, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I for one can't make up my mind whether Perdita is a one-book lead character (for Maskerade) or Agnes Nitt is a serial support character. Also it depends on whether you really wish to have all characters of any level of significance at all listed, because that will make an extremely long page. If you think this idea is worth trying, maybe I can start a new page layout without changing the current characters page, and people can use both, and we'll see after a while which one people like better, and then we can re-link all the stuff? I know it'll be a lot of work... --Vsl 25 Sept 2005

It is no problem for a character to be in two or more categories. This happened already to some books. E.g. the Tiffany books are in the Tiffany-category, the Witches-category and in the Discworld-category. The different character-categories should be a subcategory of the existing category "Pratchett characters". --Jogibaer 16:25, 26 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I agree. We should really use categories, that saves a lot of work and is more flexible than pages full of links. --Sanity 19:04, 26 Sep 2005 (CEST)

One mroe perosn agrees here. We should start categorizing the pages. In stuff and locations there has been almsot not catogization at all. In the German Discoworld wiki they use quite many categories per page maybe a little too many but we definatly use too few. Jeltz 21:58, 26 Sep 2005 (CEST)

The start has been made (Death,Death of Rats). The new categories have been made subcategories of Category:Pratchett characters. Please remember that an article should not be in a subcategory and its category. As you can see Death and Death of rats are both serial characters, but Death is a leading character and DoR a supporting character. --Jogibaer 09:16, 27 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Looks good! I am glad that a bit of my idea was usable. --Vsl

Someone added quite a number of names in the section for "Major Discworld characters". I am pretty sure that Cutangle, Skarmer Billias and others have only appeared in one or two books. However, I am not certain. Does someone know? --Jogibaer 11:12, 26 February 2006 (CET)

They do, but they also belong in the UU/Watch/etc list. Does it make sense to have two lists, one for major and one for minor characters, sorted by category? --Sanity 13:01, 26 February 2006 (CET)

This list is getting messy again. Can we abandon this list and link the Pratchett Characters category directly to the main page? Then we add new subcategories, such as Death Series characters, Rincewind Series characters, Watch Series characters, Ankh-Morpork Series characters, Witches Series characters, and so on? This also makes characters easier to search than having to search for book names in the articles. By the way, if we're going to do this, I think Rincewind should have his own subcategory, while characters in books like Moving Pictures, although it involves UU wizards, ought to go into Ankh-Morpork series characters. I think the confusion about Cohen being in UU list stemmed from this. In similar manner, William de Worde goes into Ankh-Morpork Series characters instead of Watch Series characters. This will also take care of alphabetizing the list.--Vsl 02:43, 22 March 2006 (CET)

And I made new subcategories, one for Good Omens, and one I named "Supernatural entities" where I think we can put gods, demons, anthropomorphic personifications, and all the stranger people like sandman, verruca gnome, and so on.

I'm still slightly confused about the character categories. I originally placed Moist von Lipwig in the Ankh-Morpork and The Watch category, but found that an entry for him was already existing in Other Discworld Characters. Considering that he was the protagonist of Going Postal, and most of the action in the book took place in Ankh-Morpork, should he be in the first or second category? --Neddy 16:40, 9 April 2006 (CEST)

Historical Figures

I added historical figures. Or should they be on the "Stuff" page in History section? -- Vsl

Here is fine. --Sanity 13:26, 10 January 2006 (CET)

why is Cohen the Barbarian on the UU list instead of the Other discworld characters list?

Don't know, moved him to Other. --Sanity 13:26, 10 January 2006 (CET)

Categories

Looking into Yiftachs's recent character switches, I realized a problem, or two. The list of "other characters" is becoming large and messy, while "major DW characters" is an editable group, but it's unused (looking like a heading only.) How about putting the truly major characters in it and sorting minor characters into the groups below? ..Old Dickens 10:45 EST 10 Sep 2006

Databases in Wiki?

Is it possible to have a database for the characters in the Wiki environment? With one page holding every Pratchett character we would lose any confusion over character entry (catagories would be attached to each character on this page). When a template page is created i.e. Watch Series, Bromeliad series, etc. The appropriate characters would be included automatically. Simple enough to do under regular DB apps but I'm not sure with the Wiki.

Who's where list

It would be really interesting with a list showing (at least for the major characters) who is in what book. Is there anyone that appears in every single book? I suspect that would have to be Death.

Size isn't everything

It's what we do with it. And I think this page is getting rather too big to be of much use. My solution would be:

1) reduce the lists to the major characters (dialogue in multiple books), 2) suffice with a link to the appropriate category for all characters.

Other opinions? --Sanity 16:52, 29 August 2007 (CEST)

No other opinions, but an ACK. Quality is better than Quantity. It's better to have a good list with major characters than a bad list with all characters. And a overfull list is bad. Categories do a better job and are more easily maintained. --Trublu 10:10, 30 August 2007 (CEST)