Subject: Wiki tech request: add a gender field to agent and staff infoboxes?
Author:
Posted on: 2024-02-18 03:04:07 UTC
I think gender is a quite important information to include in the infoboxes, but I wanna see comm consensus.
It's rather late to post a New Year story at this point, but I had my reasons. Either way, here's a piece of Kaguya & Momoka backstory.
Nice to see Kaguya’s parents welcomed Momoka into the household so warmly and fully! Too bad she was so embarrassed to hang out with Kaguya in public, though.
. . . she lived in same house as the Vermilion Bird . . .
A missing “the” before “same” there.
. . . penning Japan's first diary novel and lauching the female diary genre . . .
—doctorlit, drinking grape juice
She's not so much embarrassed as she's protecting his reputation. That's all I'm saying about it in this post; further explanation will be saved for a future story.
I think gender is a quite important information to include in the infoboxes, but I wanna see comm consensus.
So, one thing I've noticed about the wiki is that we have (or at least had) a good number of unused files, so one thing I've been going on a wiki-editing spree with is adding unused agent files to their pages, that is; giving agent pages duplicate images from different sources (say, one from Tektek and one from Recolor.me). I do hope that I've not stepped on any toes by doing so; I was assuming that most people don't know or care about the fancy gallery code, and of course, you need admin privileges to delete files.
If you want to check to see if I've edited your agent pages, a look through my edit history might help.
If I have added images in error and want me to revert, or you want to see something deleted, please reply here, email me, or tell me so on Discord.
--Ls
For example, in that list I can see the old SubetaHQ versions of Sergio, Nikki and Corolla's images - they're still there only because I had no ability to delete them when I uploaded their replacement ones. They're not forgotten, just obsoleted - in fact, you can delete them.
If there are relevant Agent pages to the unused images, we can assume that situations like mine are actually more likely than the author uploading the image and then forgetting to add it to the page - especially if the page itself features more recent ones, on in the page history the iimage was unlinkedb by the agent's author themselves. While it can count as an "archive" of sorts, I believe that adding the old ones as a gallery would actually go against the wishes of the original author in most cases.
I have contacted some other authors via Discord, but for you specifically, the only way to communicate is through Board post; you don't have a clickable email. (I also just wanted to make it so anyone could see it.)
I'll be happy to delete the older images of yours, and anyone else who wants me to do so.
I'm not sure I want to automatically assume that deleting images is the answer; some of the authors I've talked to over Discord very much did not want their older agent images deleted, and I think deleting images without asking would be much worse than simply adding them to pages. At the very least, one doesn't need to be an admin to remove an image from a page.
--Ls
It was just that adding them to relevant pages "automatically" doesn't feel right either, so good on you for checking with authors directly when you could!
Also, thank you for the cleanup on my old ones!
And I'd rather give an unused file a use than just have it sitting around if the author isn't here to ask.
--Ls
You could spot that Sergio, or for example me, was still around, and either leave those pics alone or ask about it. The Board is suitable for that if.
In my case, I've spotted that you've put the TekTeks back on Dafydd and Constance - fine, I think I took them off before we had gallery code. But I've no idea what else you've done. Do you know of any non-TekTek pictures you've put on any of my agents, off the top of your head?
hS
Though I'll admit I should have started it before going and editing people's pages rather than afterward. Not my best move.
I know that some of the pictures I've done have involved non-Tektek photos--Trojie's page, for example, had only one image.
I think I added to some of Nemo's agent pages as well as Lily's, Delta's, and yours, hS. I think all the other ones I've either specifically talked to the writer of the agents already, or they are long gone. I think I'll go ahead and contact the authors who are still around.
Oh, and Nesh has also done some gallery adding with her own agents on the FicPsych page.
--Ls
Also for Nursery Children and PPC Enemies, because why not.
~Neshomeh
Though I should note that I've been so low-activity for so long that you should probably disregard my comments on this in either direction.
hS
so of course I'm all for it ;)
But if everyone disagrees with me on that, then sure, go ahead. It's not going to hurt anything. I might even help out, if needed.
--Ls
I only need to do that once per template in order for it to apply to every infobox that uses the template. Since I intend to make the field hidden unless it contains data, it won't even show up on existing infoboxes. All effort to edit individual pages will be completely optional.
~Neshomeh
Count me on board, then, I guess. Just as long as you're the one editing the infoboxes.
--Ls
Just to quickly respond to Linstar's comment, most of the details in the infobox are also covered in the article; the point is that the most basic facts are collected in a simple format one can take in at a glance, so it's redundant by nature.
My only slight qualm is the headache of backfilling the new row in all existing infoboxes, but that can at least be visually solved by making the row only appear if it has data in it.
New categories would definitely be a headache, but plenty of wikis categorize characters by gender, and I think it would be neat. Categories would have the advantage of capturing characters who only exist as redirects to the Glossary, and then we'd have a way to see at a glance about how many of each have existed. I'd propose three, for "Male Agents," "Female Agents," and "Non-binary Agents."
~Neshomeh actually enjoys grindy projects like this, anyway.
I would argue for Male/Female/Non-Binary/Gender Unknown or something, but for me personally I'd rather not. Like Ls said, pronouns in the articles themselves tend to be a better marker than a hard category.
Alex Orange and Sam Apple - who have their own spinoff which I've almost forgotten about - have genders; they've just never told me what they are. It wouldn't be correct to put them in "Non-binary".
There's also Laduquac of DAS, who is male but will eventually mature into a Drosk matriarch. "Will change gender" would seem to be non-binary, but he's definitely male for now.
Tiiiiiiiime Lords. I'm pretty sure Ave, at least, has a gender-switch while in the PPC - while not being "non-binary" at most points, since the character is fixed at either he or she until death.
And any agents for whom we just don't know, because they're a background mention on a glossary.
That's just off the top of my head when I've just woken up. :) Which, if you're happy with the categories not covering everyone, fine. But an info box field would mean "male, but will eventually mature into a female" would be just one more piece of text entry.
(Also, categories are great for searching up, eg, a DOGA character or an elf - but is anyone going to want to go "right, I need a page about a lady - apart from that I'm not fussed"?)
hS
Just wanted to poke my nose in to add that Agent Dax (D&D changeling) changes gender as quickly as bodies and switches pronouns mid-sentence. I use male pronouns for him as default because that's his preferred body, but she was born female and her natural body is just as much Dax as his elven form is just as much Dax as any other body he slips into. Genuinely I don't know what I would put for his gender because "fluid" feels like a gross understatement. :P
I have a friend who describes their gender as "two scoops," some of each. Maybe Dax got a swirl cone, possibly with sprinkles. ^_^
~Neshomeh
I'd put Laduquac and Ave in both Male and Female. Because there's no law that says we can't. {= )
For Sam and Alex, you could go wild and put them in all three; they are Schrodinger's Gender, each and all and none at once.
Most of the Glossary lot have associated pronouns, I think. I'm sure some don't, but I would be fine failing to capture 100% of all named characters. Not like the wiki captures 100% of everything else anyway, but we try. Sometimes. (♪ And if you try sometimes, you might find~~ ♪)
But nah, this is purely academic; I'm not mad about not going ahead with it. Just felt it worth pointing out that solutions exist if we wanted them. {= )
~Neshomeh
And one thing I may add: any transgender characters, or such would be easy to find linked in that very article on the subject. Not sure we need a separate category for it.
Other than that, I'm really not sure there'd be any particular benefit to having a category for male and female agents. Sure, other wikis do it, but it's not as though we're obligated to use any particular categories simply because other wikis have them, and as hS said, it just doesn't seem all that likely to be useful, at least in comparison to the workload it would give us. Consider the number of pages this would require an edit of: we've got around 900 Agent pages, 200 Staff pages, and 100 Flower pages--editing all that just to add redundant information (whether via infobox or category) easily obtainable already seems entirely unnecessary to me.
Oh, and speaking of unnecessary categories, I don't even like the "agents of color" category, because it rather implies (at least to me?) that agents are by default white (and human!), which is... not great. I also think we should axe the "inactive agents" category because it's not consistently applied, and I think the "retired agents" category works better in-universe. Of course, these are just my opinions, so take them as they are.
So, yeah, don't think it's worth it.
--Ls, having a bit more to say now that it's not really late at night
I really thought hS at least might be interested in the data, though. >.>
I strongly disagree with getting rid of any category that highlights minorities that are historically underrepresented in Western media. You can read it as "everyone else defaults to [insert assumption]" if you choose to, but a) you can choose to read unspecified as unspecified instead (plenty of people do this to add diversity to their fanfic [hi Lily]), and b) how else are you gonna find the characters explicitly written as not white, straight, human, whatever? And yes, for the record, I am rather in favor of adding more categories for non-straight, non-cis, non-human, and other minority agents so you don't have to hunt through all the unspecifieds to find them. {= )
Definitely agree with getting rid of the "Inactive Agents" category, though. It's not serving a useful purpose.
~Neshomeh
... and the results were kind of depressing. I think I did better on gender breakdown than most other diversity-and-inclusion numbers, too.
The most interesting data would be how the gender balance has shifted over time, and I don't think categories would help with that.
hS
(PS: Alex and Sam object to your efforts to put them in multiple gender categories. You should just put them in the right one. Obviously.)
But I don't have nearly as many characters to my name.
Re. numbers over time, I definitely remember thinking I was balancing the scales by adding male nurses to FicPsych c. 2008-2010. (And then I promptly killed two of them off, sooo, I accomplished precisely nothing there. ^_^; )
Re. Alex and Sam, I'll be happy to do so as soon as they feel like disclosing what the right category is. Until then, they're Schrodinger's Gender. ^_~
~Neshomeh
Hmm. Frankly, I am not a fan of specifically singling out individuals by inalienable characteristics in media, because I just.. don't think it really adds a significant amount of value to the character and derails more important points of story in order to pursue identitarian box-ticking. Personally, I don't think it's really necessary, and choosing to highlight only certain characteristics does imply that one values those characteristics, especially given that in our setting can easily have with characters any imaginable quality.
That said, I suspect most others won't necessarily agree with me here, given that this amounts to a political opinion, and I'm getting a bit off-topic from wiki categories, which is the main point anyway.
As far as adding more categories... why limit ourselves to only historically underrepresented identities? We can add categories for nonhuman agents (with subcategories for dragons, or elves), include more specifics than just "of color" (maybe a category for Asian agents? Middle Eastern agents?), or have one for, say, Welsh agents. If we're organizing characters by identity, might as well go for as many as possible, in my opinion. Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy with something like that.
--Ls
PS. I would be interested in looking through the agents category to see what they tally up to.
PPS. I can help with the Inactive category.
(I had to keep editing this because I messed up the strikethrough code. *facepalm* )
> choosing to highlight only certain characteristics does imply that one values those characteristics
Sorry, can't let this bit pass. {= )
The point to highlighting the underrepresented is to make people who are often excluded feel seen. The value is in letting real people who have those characteristics know we proudly include them in our world where we can imagine anything. Those of us who are white, straight, and cis don't need help with that; you can't swing a cat without hitting one of us in media. (Not that you should be swinging a cat at all.)
I guess the Welsh might want help with that, IDK. And now I'm wondering if Dafydd Illian counts. And what about the Sato kids who (I think) are technically from Cardiff in the Torchwood continuum? And what about people from alternate–World One Wales-es? Pretty sure there's at least one of those. ... I think national origin might be even harder to capture accurately than gender. {X D
Re. Asian, Middle-eastern, etc., the advantage to "of Color" is that it captures ethnic minorities across continua. "Asian" doesn't apply in universes where there is no continent of Asia. Also, from a purely structural perspective, there are only 50 pages in "Agents of Color" at the moment; it's not exactly such a sprawling mess that it needs to be further broken down. If that changes in the future, though, awesome!
As for fantasy identities, yeah, there are some interesting cohorts there. We could definitely do elves, Time Lords, maybe dragons, maybe Vulcans... But we might want to leave the three Andalites, for example, to be covered by "Non-human Agents" (plus the Animorphs article, where there's also the one Yeerk nothlit and jeez, look, he's biologically 100% human, but culturally Yeerk, and if you asked him he'd still say Yeerk, so even the fantasy stuff gets complex!)
TL;DR, nothing is going to be perfect, so we should prioritize what we find most interesting and/or worthwhile for the benefit of real people.
~Neshomeh even hesitates to file Jenni under "non-human" because she spends so much time living as one.
The point to highlighting the underrepresented is to make people who are often excluded feel seen. The value is in letting real people who have those characteristics know we proudly include them in our world where we can imagine anything. Those of us who are white, straight, and cis don't need help with that; you can't swing a cat without hitting one of us in media.
Well... yeah! I do not think this is in any way a bad thing! I happen to believe that people can and do relate to fictional characters, and "feel seen" (so to speak) for a wide variety of reasons, some of which may be related to intrinsic attributes. Being of a religious minority, I do think I can personally attest to the value that such a characteristic can have in helping one relate to a character and perhaps feel better about oneself. I don't think it's exclusive to the characteristics that you list, though I would say that it is due to people valuing those traits, insofar as it helps someone feel better about themselves. I personally feel no obligation to meet any specific quotas in my writing, mostly because I don't think it's possible to have an ideal representation of reality in fiction. That said, I certainly don't try to limit myself to characters that only match myself, because I am boring and that would be boring. [= )
I feel that "of Color" is rather more of an out-of-universe classification than going by a more specific categorization would be. And it would also be a bit more helpful if one wanted to find someone they would relate to personally, but I guess only 50 agents isn't much to work through, so... eh.
Wait, would Mina count as non-human? I... genuinely am not sure. Gah! This is certainly tricky.
--Ls does not throw cats, he pets them