Forum:Sidebars in Starfleet character articles

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

To make sure I don't speculate on characters, I always put the same sidebar for each characters on the 275 characters from MA-fr, even the small characters : Name, genre, Species, rank,... because even "unknown" is an information. I realized this when I was making an expanded table for Voyager personnel (see fr:Personnel de l'USS Voyager) and was lacking several time this information : Is this character a women or a man, a human or an alien ? More than 50 characters are lacking such information (see or empty squares on the table) About this Voyager personnel table, I asked if it could be adapted on MA-en (see Talk:USS Voyager personnel#Article to rework) but no one ever responded. - Philoust123 19:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

one thing i dont like is sidebars with no information -- its unnecessary. if you have a sidebar that says

• Name:Joe Schmoe
• Gender: Unknown
• Birthdate: Unknown
• Rank: Unknown

Then, you shouldn't have the sidebar at all. its a very bad style in my opinion. -- Captain M.K.B. 22:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

This is the template I put before creating a character's article : (example : fr:Jonathan Archer
{| class="wiki-sidebar"
|-
| align="center" colspan="2" | Image
|-
| class="odd" | Name:
| class="even" |
|-
| class="odd" | Genre:
| class="even" | Male / Female / Undetermined
|-
| class="odd" | Species:
| class="even" | [[]]
|-
| class="odd" | Birth:
| class="even" | [[YEAR]] - [[PLANET]] ([[]])
|-
| class="odd" | Death:
| class="even" | [[]] - [[]] ([[]])
|-
| class="odd" | Situation:
| class="even" | [[Starfleet]] officer / scientist...
|-
| class="odd" | Rank:
| class="even" |
|-
| class="odd" | Affectation:
| class="even" | USS
|-
| class="odd" | Family:
| class="even" |
|-
| class="odd" | ''Actor:''
| class="even" | ''[[]]''
|}
[[category:People|]]
[[Category:"USS personnel"|]]
[[Category:"Species"|]]
[[Category:"Starfleet personnel"|]]
[[de:]]
[[en:]]
[[nl:]]
[[sv:]]
After having completed it, some informations are removed : rank and affectation for non starfleet officers ; and others are hidden with <!-- --> : birth / death and family (if "unknown"). By doing so, I automatically check every information and every cat ("" can't be used for cat so I see when I forget to set the cats). - Philoust123 21:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, I think a website looks "a little off" if you have a sidebar that says:

• Name: R. Berman
• Rank: ????
• Gender: ????
• Birthdate: ????
• Shirt size: ?????

To preface my comments to you, i was communicating on an admin level -- the style choice of not adding empty sidebars is a style policy point decided by previous consensuses, and needs discussion and probably an addition to the manual of style should you object and petition the change.

What we really need is the contribution of other archivists: Is anyone aware of a previous decision or policy how many lines a Starfleet character should have, minimunm? I know someone once asked and a number was stated that one or two line sidebars shouldn't exist. -- Captain M.K.B. 01:13, 23 June 2006 (UTC)