Board Thread:Suggestion Box/@comment-3058106-20140708175204

I know it's been brought up a few times before, but there are still character pages with insufficient character information. They have barely any information on the character's personality or history. In the policies, it says that if a page is created and after three days doesn't have sufficient information, the page will be deleted. As far as I know, this has never actually been put into effect.

I was thinking we need to really start cracking down on character pages like this. It's annoying to be trying to figure something out about a character, only to see that there's only a sentence about their personality and history. You don't really know what they're like then, do you?

Anyway, I was messing around for a little while after thinking about pages like that when I came up with the idea of a template - yes, another one of those things. Jeez, this place is like obsessed with them. The template is basically just a stub template and I took the basics of it and just changed around a few things to make it fit with the character articles. It would include a link to edit the article and a place to put how many days the roleplayer has to complete the page before it gets deleted. The template would say: This page does not have sufficient information and needs to be expanded. Please complete the page by. If the page isn't finished by this time, then it will be deleted and the roleplayer will have to wait one month to recreate the character.

Now, if everyone likes this idea, then we can put it to use.

However, before we do anything, we have to discuss what is and isn't sufficient information. Some people will have different opinions about this. After glancing through a few different character pages, I've decided on my own personal viewpoint. So that this doesn't become unfair, we need to decide on some standards on what is and isn't sufficient.

First off, appearance. It's kind of hard to write about a person's appearance, but I know that I've started including information like eye color, hair color, and height just to make the little section a bit longer. Then I add a sentence or two about clothing choice. Personally, I think that is sufficient. Two sentences for appearance is good enough for that section, in my opinion.

Now personality is one of the big problems we have on pages. Many people write just two little sentences about their character and move on. I know I've been one of those people and I'm trying to fix some of those pages. I think for the personality section four or more sentences is sufficient. I don't mean four little short sentences like "I'm just me. No one can change who I am. I live my own life and do my own things. I am who I am." That is not sufficient information at all. I know nothing about this person. Good information in four sentences would be along the lines of "I'm an independent person and no one can change that. I may be a bit reckless and spontaneous, but I still don't regret anything I've done. It's all a part of my life to live as I do. I may shove people away and keep myself closed off, yet I still feel so at peace with myself." With those four sentences, you get a better idea of the character. It's the same person as the first example, but I expanded it a little bit to explain more abou themselves. Personally, I still think more information should be added - perhaps five sentences,  but I think four will be okay for now.

History is another big problematic section on character pages. Some pages just say things like "why do you want to know" or something like that. Or they just have four little sentences about useless information in the person's past. In my opinion, I think one paragraph is sufficient information in the history section. I don't mean one paragraph with four little sentences, I mean a paragraph that really tells you about the character's past. For example, "When I was little, I lived in Blackwood. My parents got divorced when I was five. I lived mostly with my dad after the divorce. Now here I am in Barfield." That tells me nothing. Okay, well, something, but basically nothing. I know this is going to make it seem like I'm tooting my own horn, but here is an example of a one paragraph history from one of my characters.

Honestly that's really lets you know about the character's past and even more about their personality. However, if you're doing this in the third person, you probably need to add more information about their past since you can't really throw in their writing style and personality into it. Something like this could work for one paragraph: Personally, I feel like a well written paragraph is good enough for a character history and not really the four sentences thing. Sure, four sentences are a paragraph, but I feel like extending more about the character's past will really let people get a fel for them. I'm not saying they need to be as long written as mine, but maybe at least 3/4's that length could work.
 * "I was born into a rich, wealthy family which has always been a rather good thing for me. My parents spoiled me all the time when I was growing up. Some people say that's why I have a snobby personality, but whatever to them. Originally my family lived in Lebeaux, but when I was ten, my parents decided to move to Barfield so my dad could be closer to his company. My mom opened her own psychology place in Barfield since she's a psychologist. She mainly did this because she hated her old job where she worked because they were doing some things there or something. Anyways, I've always attended schools in Barfield so I already had friends when I moved here. I started doing cheerleading when I first started high school and then I started volleyball in ninth grade. I'm a senior now and life seems to be going great for me. I feel like a fucking Disney princess."
 * "Brooke grew up with her mother in Miduna Beach. She had actually been an accident child since her mother was only eighteen when she got pregnant. Brooke's father immediately left town and pretended that Brooke didn't even exist. It didn't bother her that he was never around because all she cared about was her mother. Brooke grew up in a nice little home with her mother and life was simple. She ended up agreeing with many of her mother's ideals and almost became exactly like her mother. However, when she was old enough, Brooke decided to attend Shoreside College. She's currently working on graduating and getting a job as a guidance counselor at a high school. For a job, she works as a substitute teacher at local schools in Barfield, Miduna, and Lebeaux. She also recently moved to Blackwood Mountain in the middle of nowhere to live with her best friend who is planning on becoming a teacher one day."

The family section is also sometimes hard to write about. Some people just list the parent's and sibling's names and then their relation. I feel like that's fine, but maybe include a bit more information about their relationship with their parent.

There's also the friends section which is hard to include when a character hasn't been rped yet. I also feel like this section shouldn't weigh down whether the page is sufficient or not.

Trivia also shouldn't be a factor either since it's just trivia.

Now, what makes a page insufficient to where it needs the template? Personally, I feel like the major factors in this are the personality and history sections. If either or both of those look bad, then the template needs to be added. For the appearance, family, and friends sections, I feel like they don't really weigh in much on anything too important. However, if two or all of them are really terrible, then the template needs to be added.

Also, since there are already so many character pages like this, if everyone agrees with what I've written above, then we can slowly start using it for already created characters that have been roleplayed for a while now. Like some insufficient pages have been around since August, and I don't want to see them get deleted. If we all like this idea, I believe that on articles that have been around for over two months, we'll add the little template but give the roleplayer a month to fix the page since some roleplayers may have three or more pages to fix and three days may not be enough time. Also, if a roleplayer is on hiatus, we'll look at the template to see when they get back, and give them a month after that to fix the page. So, let's say a roleplayer will be back on July 10. Then they would have until August 10 to fix their character pages.

I'm sorry if like this is mostly just me rambling or whatever, but hopefully it makes sense. If there's any questions or anything, just put them down there. Also, don't be afraid to state your own opinion on what is and isn't sufficient.  