Creation and Upkeep of a Character Page
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While the UPDS is a great organizing tool for our group, it's difficult to really create an in depth look at your character using that area. Using the wiki, you can create a very rich and detailed character page with information about your character, an archive of SIMs, and much more. The tutorial below will teach you more about this.
Character Page vs. User Page
First things first. As you may already be aware, you automatically have a user page when you register on the wiki. If you look to the top of the page you're on right now, you'll see a small list of links, at the left of which is a link to a page called "User:Username" (with your username in place, obviously). Just as with the UPDS, we need to create a distinction between the "User" or "Writer" and the "Character". There's only one of you, the user, while you can have many characters. As such, it's not very efficient to use your user page as your character page, because you may have more than one character. And creating more than one username is also not very efficient.
So, use your user page to give information about you, or at the very least, to create a LIST of characters you write for, and then link to them from there. But you will want to actually create a specific page for each character.
Creating the Page
There are two good, important pages about creating, and naming pages. Please read these first:
Character pages
We have created a number of example character pages that you can use.
Keep in mind: You are free to add and edit as much as you wish. The following examples of character pages are just "starting points" to work from.
Basic Character Pages
This is a vary basic starting character page with just a short description of your character. This is an excellent page to start with as it is simple to fill out and allows for simple alterations to fit your needs.
Advanced Character Pages
After you have played for a while you will probally want to add some more information to your character. This is a more advance character form that you could use. It can also be adapted to fit your characters requirements.
Complex Character Pages
The final example we have supplied is an extremely indepth approach to makeing a character page. This one will involve makeing addition pages that will be linked to your first page. This will allow for the addition of a great more detail and information as well as history and any other extra information or pictures that you might want to add.
Adding Categories
Once you have selected the type of character page you will use you will need to add the following information to the bottom of the page. Read the next section carefully to make sure you do not miss anything.
All pages on the wiki should be categorized. The category tag(s) should be the last text on the page, one to a line.
The first tag you should add is as follows: [[Category:Characters]]
Occupation
Is your character StarFleet or Civilian?:
- If your character is a StarFleet officer, add: [[Category:Starfleet personnel]]
- If your character is a Civilian of some type, add: [[Category:Civilians]]
Next, what does your character do?:
- S/he is an Engineering officer: [[Category:Engineers]]
- S/he is a Doctor, Nurse, or Medic: [[Category:Healers and doctors]]
- S/he is a Counselor: [[Category:Mental Health experts]]
- S/he is a Security officer: [[Category:Security personnel]]
- S/he is a Helm, Com, or Ops officer: [[Category:Helm/Comm/Ops Officers]]
- S/he is a Science officer: [[Category:Scientists]]
- S/he is a StarFleet Captain: [[Category:Starfleet Captains]]
- S/he is a Marine of some type: [[Category:Starfleet Marines]]
- S/he is an Intelligence officer of some type: [[Category:Intelligence members]]
More occupations found in the Individuals by occupation category.
Species
Many races already have categories available. Simply head to the Individuals by species category and find yours. Add that category, like so: [[Category:Vulcans]].
If yours is not represented, seek assistance from an Admin.
Traits
Does your character fit one of the following traits?:
- S/he is a Reader: [[Category:Reader Characters]]
- S/he is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgendered: [[Category:GLBT Characters]]
- S/he holds a noble title: [[Category:Nobility]]
- S/he is a Secondary Character for you: [[Category:Secondary Characters]]
Current simming installation
You'll need to add yourself as a member of the current crew you are on. Head to the Ship Histories page and find your current ship. Now scroll down to the bottom of your ship's page and click on your ship's category name. This should bring you to a list of sub-categories, and pages in your ship's category. Usually there is a category like "Enterprise PCs" or "Enterprise Crew" or "Enterprise Characters." Add that category to your character page.
If you have changed ship, your old ship might have a category for former PCs (e.g. Category:Independence-A Alumni). If so, add this to the bottom of your characters page at the same time as adding it to the PC's category for your new ship.
Advanced Categorization
If you have "filled out" your character page, and are including a SIM archive, in depth personal and professional histories all on their own pages, etc., then you will need a more complex category set-up to make it easier to navigate. Please do not use this method if you only have your one character page and less than two sub-pages.
As mentioned, it is best to do this only if you have a number of pages. Your first task is to create a sub-category for your character. To do this, you would put the following category tag at the bottom of your main page: [[Category:Wolf, Tristan|*]] -- using your own character's name, of course. This creates a separate category for your character. The "|*" within the tag is used to put this page in the * section of the category, which is always displayed first. So the first article the user sees upon entering your category is the main character page.
Now, once the page is saved, click on the category link, which should be red. This will take you to a page where you can edit the introductory text for the category. Add something like this:
- "For information pertaining to [[Wolf, Tristan|Tristan Wolf]]."
Then, put this tag at the bottom of the page: [[Category:Characters]] and save the page. This category now becomes a sub-category of the main character category.
Now it's time to categorize each of your sub-pages. This is similar to categorizing your main page, but you need to change the section each page is organized in. With the main page, we added "|*" to the end of the category page so that it would be organized into the * section of the category. With category pages, they're going to be named something like this: "Wolf, Tristan/Personal History". So, we'll want to make sure that each page is organized into a section according to what the page's name is. For the example above, we'd use the following category tag: [[Category:Wolf, Tristan|Personal]]. Now it'll be categorized in the "P" section of the category, and will be properly alphabetized if there are other pages in that section.
Finally, if your vessel has a category for active characters (do not put your character into your vessel's NPC listing category), you can include your character's sub-category into your vessel's active characters category. To do so, go to your character's sub-category. Click on the "edit" link, and include the category tag for your vessel's active characters category there. This creates a new sub-category in your vessel's active characters category with your character sub-category in it. Confusing, huh?
Examples
Below are hand-picked examples of well written, in-depth bios. This collection is a fine example of the various creative ways in which you can portray and record your characters history.