Forum:CT Archive/Era on Character Profile Box

It's been an irritant to me (and many others, I'm sure) since it's inception, and it still sticks out like a sore thumb right now.

What am I talking about? Why, the Era row on the Profile. The problem with it is, as I see, two fold.


 * 1) It duplicates information we depict elsewhere much more easily (the tags at the top of the article) and, far more importantly....
 * 2) We are mixing OOU and IU information which makes our character (and other) boxes needlessly confusing.

What can be done?

Well, it could be simply removed, but how about this alternative:

'''We replace the eras we are using with the IU eras. Thanks to the Essential Atlas, we pretty much have IU era names for all eras from Pre-Republic era to the Skywalker epoch.'''

To give an example of what this change would mean I've put a before-and-after-infobox at the side.

IMO, the IU era names are far more meaningful, particularly since "Old Republic era" covers...24,000 years!

The only downside I can really see is that the transition involves a lot of work and cannot be done by bots, but IMO this is a change we should have done long ago.

And just to be clear - the publishing eras would remain at the top of the article.

Despite the heading, consider this to apply to all profile boxes (characters, vehicles, worlds, etc). QuentinGeorge 04:22, May 1, 2010 (UTC)

For

 * 1) - QuentinGeorge 04:22, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep OOU out of articles except BtS. This is really a no-brainer. Thanks for putting forth what dozens have told me irked them in the past, QG. Graestan ( Talk ) 04:32, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) *I suppose I'd rather just see the OOU stuff go, for now. This is a means to an end and I'd rather go with the simplest means. Graestan ( Talk ) 04:48, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) OH GOD YES. Thefourdotelipsis 04:37, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) This has been bugging me for a while. I was actually thinking of making this CT. Read my mind, Quentin. Darth Trayus ( Trayus Academy ) 08:20, May 1, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

 * If we are to do this, we need to come up with a set list of IU eras to use. There's so much overlap between them, and listing them all would be redundant. --Imperialles 04:29, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll need to see a pretty comprehensive and organized layout of exactly which eras we'll be using before considering supporting this. There are more IU time periods than I care to even think about trying to learn and understand, and many do evidently overlap and blur the lines of distinction. The benefit of the OOU eras is that they're few in number and clearly marked as to where and when they begin, so there's little or no confusion. Maybe at worst we should just consider removing them from the infoboxes in lieu of replacing them with what is right now an even more disorganized system. Toprawa and Ralltiir 04:46, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Tope. Given the inherent confusion in dealing with overlapping IU time periods, I'd prefer just deleting the field outright. &mdash;Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 05:27, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Why are Characters so uniquely special to deserve this? We use the eras field for other infoboxes as well (Starships, Structures, Organizations, off the top of my head). If you change one, you might as well change all of them. Toprawa and Ralltiir 04:34, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I assumed this would be sweeping. I agree. Make it all IU articles. Graestan ( Talk ) 04:34, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * That was actually my intention. I'd forgotten about the others. QuentinGeorge 04:35, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * The other thing that people are going to complain about is that we would no longer be providing a source for the era icons. I argue that we do pretty much provide sources for those throughout the article, albeit indirectly, but CFS should really apply here. For consistency's sake, however, we should have been having IU eras in the infoboxes for ages and ages and ages. I recall this getting shot down a while back, though. Thefourdotelipsis 04:37, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of going to IU eras (or at the very least getting rid of the OOU ones in the infobox), I just don't know about the practicality; whether we have a full set of eras to cover all dates, and whether the eras we have are canonically accurate (take Sidereal Period, for example). I think a sourced timeline of the eras would be absolutely necessary if we go this way. - Lord Hydronium 04:48, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've compiled what I could find here User:QuentinGeorge/List_of_IU_eras. Apart from one conjectural "fill in the gaps" period, all the rest are covered. (Assuming the Skywalker epoch is "ongoing".) QuentinGeorge 07:43, May 1, 2010 (UTC)