User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-7302713-20130519181606/@comment-188432-20130520014505

Anoted wrote: Maybe to add something, like Madame Vastra over Vastra, but for the most part pipe tricking names like this removes information, and I don't know why we'd want to do that. How many cases are there where pipe tricking isn't a matter of information removal?

Um, 100%. In no way is it information removal. All you have to do is mouseover and the info is there. Using the power of a wiki on a wiki isn't a bad thing. This isn't a print encyclopaedia — we can pipe trick without making things difficult for our readers. This isn't 1999; getting information from a mouseover is something we all know how to on the interwebz now.

Besides, it's nice to be able to look at a template and see that X doctor had so many one-named companions, or so many companions who were frequently referred to with a title or other things like this.

Is it? I can't honestly think why anyone would ever want to know the percentage of companions who only went by one name. Especially since there's no indication that, for example, Adric didn't have a surname. We just never knew it.

The purpose of this navbox is to give a snapshot of the Doctor's companions. Why crop it unnecessarily? That's a bad metaphor but the only one I can find right now.

Exactly. Snapshot. Reducing the number of words would give a snapshot.