Forum:What should be in the monobook sidebar?

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It has come to my attention that the side bar hasn't been edited in along time. The problem I find with it is the like's of it neatness with capital letters and I find that there are people and creatures on the list that are irrelevant to be on the list because they haven't made enough appearances etc etc. I think that the enemy and companion tab should be edited. I think the Companion tab should feature the first 10 companions of the televised series and then the more button for readers to look at the rest. For the enemy tab I think it should only show enemies that are the most notable in order. What does everyone else think??? -- Michael Downey 16:20, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

For the enemies list there is an enemy that roughly corresponds to each Doctor, ones that were relatively major and have articles that are significant jumping off points for new users. All the enemies in the list have appeared at least 3 times.
The companions list like wise is a companion for each Doctor (more or less). If it went first 10 that would be: Susan, Barbara, Ian, Vicki, Steven, Dodo, Ben, Polly, Victoria, Zoe, and that only just covers the black and white era.
However, the first tier could be go to the companions by media categories (Audio, Book, Comic, TV) and then the second tier could be a list of companions, take a look at the Harry Potter Wiki they do this on their quick links section of their sidebar, first tier is 'students' 'professors' etc and the second tier is a selection of the major ones.
I would note that if we went with this method the lists would probably need to be shorter than ten, just as as you go further across each menu takes up room on the screen, which leaves less visible room and makes it harder to navigate. --Tangerineduel 14:17, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
As discussed your user page, the thing sorely missing is any linkage whatsoever to behind the scenes material or merchandise. You asked me to think of things to put up there, but I've had a rethink, and realized it's not just that which is under-represented. It's the fact that the sidebar only covers one of the four major categories of information on this wiki. There should be at least a token nod to them all. So I'm gonna post in two parts here. First up, changes that should be made to what's there now.
  • The Companions is probably the most contentious. Everyone has their favorites, right? But I'd at least try to impose a criterion of "long-serving" here — with the caveat that BBC Wales companions are naturally highlighted because of their currency. Going backwards, Amy Pond clearly needs to be on the list. You might think of dropping Donna, as she's had the fewest appearances of any of the modern companions. So switch one redhead for another. Moving back to the Eighth Doctor, I wouldn't have his sole representative to be Sam Jones. I'd surely switch her out for Lucie Miller. And I'd make room additionally for Charley Pollard, as she's also a Sixth Doctor companion, and the longest-serving companion ever in any medium, in terms of number of stories and number of years active in the part. I know you're kinda trying to do a multi-media thing there with Sam, but she's positively minor. I might even throw Izzy Sinclair up there as the longest-serving comics companion of all time. I think the list is also horribly skewed towards the Seventh Doctor, who gets three companions on the list. Leave it at Bernice Summerfield, as she's far and away the longest-serving of his companions (by narrative admission), and because she's her own franchise. Ace should go, but Chris Cwej should stay, as the second-most-long-lived character of the novel range. Evelyn Smythe is the longest-serving of the Sixth Doctor companions, in any medium, discounting Charley as a mostly-Eighth Doctor companion. Much as it personally pains me to say this, Tegan should be on the list. She does hold the record for most time between first and last consecutive televised episodes. Romana (not a particular version) needs to be included, because she's as significant as SJS, in that she had 2+ years on TV, has a reasonable number of other media appearances, and headlines her own series. Using that logic, I'd also include K9. Yeah, sure, this'd make things Fourth Doctor-heavy, but that's just the reality of the Whoniverse. His companions have gone on to have their own series, and therefore greater coverage on this wiki. It's just the natural consequence of the greater popularity the show enjoyed during the Baker years. Moving back to Pertwee, it's a bit cheeky to represent him only with the "crossover" SJS. Stop applying the hoary old "is he really a companion?" arrgument" to this list, and include the Brigadier. C'mon, he's got more episodes under his belt than all but the first four Doctors and Jamie. He's surely a companion by the 2009 Specials definition. Finally, If I were choosing only one companion for Hartnell, it wouldn't have been Susan, I don't think, cause she's only there for one year. I mean, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton are the longest-serving First Doctor companions. In terms of episodes, they're behind Jamie and the Brig, but they're tied with SJS, if you discount SJS' turn in The Five Doctors. (Well, technically, they're ahead of SJS, but their contracts didn't allow for them to be credited when they went on holiday.) If I had room, I'd include all three of the original companions. If I didn't, I'd drop Susan first. If I had room for only one, it'd be Barbara, cause she technically was in more episodes than Ian.
In summary, then, my Companions would look like this:
Susan (optional)
Barbara
Ian (optional)
Jamie
The Brigadier
Sarah Jane Smith
K9
Romana
Nyssa 
Tegan
Peri
Evelyn Smythe
Chris Cwej
Benny
Izzy
Charley
Lucie
Rose
Martha
Amy
  • The Enemies list needs to consider the other programmes as well. If the criterion is multiple appearances (3, is it?), then you need to have the Trickster, the Weeping Angels (well, okay, by the end of the year, when S4 of SJA airs), Weevils, and surely the 456 and the Time Lords. I know, too, that there's some overriding enemy of the K9 series, but I can't think what their names are. They should definitely be on the list, as well.
  • The Stories thingie needs to be renamed to Series or Ranges, because that's what it currently contains. Oddly, there's no reference to any particular comic series, which needs to be corrected. If you're gonna list the highly obscure decalog and short trips stuff, surely the DWM comic strip series deserves a shout-out. Especially since this wiki has fairly good coverage of some ranges of comic stories. More people working on comics here than Short Trip or Decalog stories, that's for sure. If it's possible to "nest" folders, I'd nest by medium, then put each range into each subfolder, excluding nothing. So, TV stories, Audio stories, Novels, Short stories (yeah, I'd not go just "prose stories"), Comic stories, Stage plays and Non-canonical stories would be your major folders, into which you'd place Doctor Who TV stories, Torchwood TV stories, DWBIT stories, Decalog stories, The Companion Chronicles, and all the various ranges. In other words, for Stories only, I think you should be able to get to just about everywhere in Category:Stories.
  • I'd probably add a Technology category, and throw in the Doctor's TARDIS, sonic screwdriver, and psychic paper — the big three. Then I'd link to Category:The Doctor's items, category:Torchwood Three's items, Category:Sarah Jane Smith's items, category:Cyber-technology, Category:Dalek technology, and Category:Gallifreyan technology. (I know what you're thinking: link to a bare category page??? Well, don't worry, if ya do go this route, I'll make those pages look more like articles, as with category:Floor 500
  • Community, as discussed above, should have Tardis:list of prefixes removed. Beyond the current fora, it should include Tardis:Current events, Tardis:Current Projects, Tardis:Nominations for featured articles, and Quote of the Week nominations.
Okay, that's a lot of typing. Be back later with behind-the-scenes and merchandising stuff. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:34, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
I haven't forgotten about this topic, but obviously the new wales crew template is eating up a lot of my "behind-the-scenes" editing time. Actually working so closely with BTS credits is pointing out a lot of organizational problems with behind-the-scenes cats, so I kinda want to have the categories settled down before recommending what BTS info should be included in the sidebar. (Heh, I should've made suggestions before I looked so closely at it all. We'd have been done with this by now.) CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 14:22, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
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