Talk:List of Star Trek characters

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[edit] Split apart proposal

It has been proposed that this page be split apart, such as per series and movies.

  • Partially oppose. On the one hand it's nice to have one place that lists all the characters, and even as knowledgeable about Trek as I am, I do occasionally get characters from different series mixed up, and some of the characters have appeared in more than one series (most notably O'Brien and later Worf, but don't forget about Lwaxana Troi, Kang, etc.) On the other hand, this article has gotten very big and is starting to become unmanageable. What I propose is that we make sure all the information here is duplicated at the appropriate list of TOS chars, list of TNG chars, etc., then we whittle this list down to just name, series and (for recurring characters only) episodes appeared in. ShutterBugTrekker 23:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support as the article is large, but I agree with ShutterBugTrekker that splitting by series would not be a good idea for the reasons he mentioned. It would probably be better split alphabetically. Marky1981 20:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per above. A 102-kilobyte list is far too large. An alphabetical split, with several letters per subarticle, would work. JIP | Talk 17:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remarks to copy to talk archive

Anton Mravcek did slightly more than copy the list of secondary and tertiary characters I had on my user page, but I don't know if he's aware that my list is incomplete. It lacks all the important recurring characters from Star Trek: Enterprise, and it's still missing characters from the previous series.

I don't know about the TOC, maybe this page should have the TOC hidden by default. ShutterBugTrekker 20:33, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] To link or not to link secondary characters?

I think we should only link main characters, important recurring characters and memorable one-episode principal guest stars (such as Edith Keeler in "City on the Edge of Forever", TOS). Minor characters that still get billing in the opening or ending credits should be listed here, but not linked. And characters cast by extras or only mentioned but not shown need not be listed here.

Also, some characters may need disambiguation, such as Sela, an important figure in the Holy Bible, and in Star Trek the daughter of Tasha Yar is at Sela (Star Trek). On the other hand. On the other hand, we need not append "(Star Trek)" to the title of every article on Star Trek characters, especially in the case of characters with fairly unique names, such as Lwaxana Troi. I for one would rather err on the side of not appending "(Star Trek)", and if there is an entity or concept with a stronger claim to the name then the Star Trek article can be moved. ShutterBugTrekker 20:33, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we should make articles for characters who only appeared in one episode. Robert Happelberg 22:00, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
I think we should decide which characters get their own pages based on how much important content we could write about them, not solely based on the number of episode they appear in. Take for example Edith Keeler as mentioned above: despite only appearing in one episode, she is an important character in that episode. Conversely, some 'background' characters that appear in many episodes may not warrant a separate article. I think a good overall guide would be to ask oneself "Can I write any more than 2-3 sentences about this character?" If the answer is no, a separate article is not worth it. Marky1981 15:34, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the 2-3 sentences criteria. As it stands, some valuable content has been deleted to make way for redirects to the list, where little information is to be found. Commander 16:23, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
I have reverted the redirects for the characters with sufficient information to warrant keeping the page, and the rest I have left alone.
Duras doesn't warrant a separate article for the character, but this page already had links to two other Duras'. This should probably be cleaned up into a proper disambiguation page.
Also Ardra (Star Trek) doesn't need an article, however it contains good information to transfer to the one TNG episode in which this character appeared, "Devil's Due." It should be merged there. Commander 21:17, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
Redirects were made to this page from those minor articles because of an ongoing process at VfD. Minor Star Trek related articles kept getting put up for deletion, and although the deletion nominations were invariably defeated, consensus was almost always reached to merge the article in question with this page and redirect. So, to save VfD from being flooded, and since it was pretty clear what everyone thought should happen to these articles, i was bold and redirected them myself. I think the problem these articles face to general opinion is being "trek-cruft", showing systemic bias towards "young male entertainment", and the fact that Wikipedia isnt supposed to be just a list of all facts ever. Its true that some biographical information was lost when the redirects were made, but only biographical information that was considered "non-notable" by the majority. It was also mentioned at VfD that "we must remember Star Trek is a fictional universe" and some were unimpressed that it seemed as though there was a lower bar of notability in the fictional star trek universe than the real world.Jdcooper 17:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tabulating characters

Hi

Just a thought: how about tabulating the list of characters to make it a bit like the List of Star Trek: TNG episodes? Here's one possible way of doing it...

Pic Character Actor Description Episodes
Brunt Jeffrey Combs Ferengi male; liquidator from the Ferengi Commerce Authority Family Business (DS9)


Bar Association (DS9)
Body Parts (DS9)
Ferengi Love Songs (DS9)
The Magnificient Ferengi (DS9)
Profit and Lace (DS9)
The Emperor's New Cloak (DS9)
Vreenak Stephen McHattie Romulan male; key member of the Romulan Senate from 2360 to 2374; vice-chairman of the Tal Shiar; secretary of the War Plans Council; one of Proconsul Neral's most trusted advisors In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)

Let me know what you think! Marky1981 21:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Too many columns. How about
Pic Character (Actor) / Description Episodes
Brunt (Jeffrey Combs)

Ferengi male;
liquidator from the Ferengi Commerce Authority

Family Business (DS9)
Bar Association (DS9)
Body Parts (DS9)
Ferengi Love Songs (DS9)
The Magnificient Ferengi (DS9)
Profit and Lace (DS9)
The Emperor's New Cloak (DS9)
Vreenak (Stephen McHattie)

Romulan male;
key member of the Romulan Senate from 2360 to 2374; vice-chairman of the Tal Shiar; secretary of the War Plans Council; one of Proconsul Neral's most trusted advisors

 In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)
—wwoods 22:27, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think these kind of tables are the way to go for a lot of this stuff. I just added the nowrap as a bug since right now browsers wrap, like above, after spaces when it's not desired. Cburnett 22:08, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

I threw in my 2 cents worth on the trial table under A. Mine is the trial #1. I like it because it removes more of the white space between names and description. Cburnett 22:16, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)
Not had any protests so we might as well go with the trial #1 - only thing that concerns me is that it does take up a lot of vertical space! Marky1981 12:50, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'll opt for more organization of tabular data for more vertical space. Cburnett 16:35, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's about time we got on with converting the lists to tables! Anyone sparing a few minutes, let's try to get them done! Randomly pick a letter and work on those characters - if there are a lot for that letter, it might be worth mentioning here which one(s) you are doing so no-one else starts the same letter! Other notes - stick to canon sources; if we don't have a pic of the character, put No pic, meaning we don't have a pic yet. Put Not seen on-screen if they have never been seen on-screen, so no-one tries to look for a screenshot! I will do a letter some point later on - let's go for it! Marky1981 17:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I was just looking at this article aftert going through WikiPoject Star Trek and thought that the no pic written where others have pictures is quite ugly. There must be a better way..perhaps no text at all..maybe some sort of Star Trek logo (ie: for Ardra use the picture [Image:Star Trek TNG title credit.jpg|50px] (not sure if that many fair-use images would be appropriate though)). See example below. In any case, I believe that there should either be a pic or nothing, no text.
Pic Character Actor Episodes
Description
100px Ardra (Memory Alpha article) Marta Dubois Devil's Due (TNG)
Devil of Ventrax II, impersonated by a conwoman, only to be revealed as a hoax by Captain Picard.

Chuck 10:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Found an orphaned ST character page

"Random paging" and found Sonak. I don't know enough about Star Trek to know what to do with this. This article is very lonely and could use some TLC. Thank you. Soundguy99 02:58, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Not sure he deserves his own article, but I did a little formatting and added it to the list anyway. Robert Happelberg 23:50, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of Starfleet officers

There is a new article called "List of Starfleet officers" which should probably be incorporated with this page somehow. I suggested a merge, but the creator got rather upset and reverted the merge notice. Perhaps link the two together somehow. -Husnock 23:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps these two articles should just cross-reference each other for now. ShutterBugTrekker 8 July 2005 21:45 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. Loews's mutants

The DS9 episode "Statistical Probabilities" introduces four genetically engineered individuals who unlike Bashir don't lead normal lives. They are Jack, Lauren, Patrick and Sarina. Is there a canon source establishing their last names? ShutterBugTrekker 8 July 2005 21:47 (UTC)

No, they were only listed by their first names, even production notes don't give a "trustable canon" name, except for Sarina, who is given the full name of Sarina Douglas in their second appearence. But any other last names found would be fanmade. - AJHalliwell 04:33, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll add Sarina Douglas to the list if she's not already there. ShutterBugTrekker 20:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Riker and Laforge Bios

I have noticed in all of the character bios for both Laforge and Riker they both attended and graduated from Starfleet Academy at the same time 2353-2357, yet their characters never seem to refer to the fact that they knew each other or even of each other at the Academy. In the episode The Tin Man Riker is talking to Laforge about an incident where some of his classmates were killed which seems to denote that they where not at the Academy at the same time. I saw for the first time that in some Star Trek novels there is mention that Riker and Laforge were freinds at the academy. I know this is a very small and trivial part of the Star Trek cannon.

There are 100s or 1000s of students at Starfleet Academy so they wouldn't likely know every other student in the same year. Did you know everyone at your school/college/university? I certainly didn't :) Marky1981 00:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rank insignias.

It might be nicer to display characters rank insignia with caption. --Cat out 23:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TOS minor characters

I noticed that there is no section on minor/recurring characters in TOS, and as far as I could tell, no list of such characters on wikipedia at all. I think that a section here or a stand alone list would be usefull; especially as a merge target for characters that are not notable enough on there own but should be mentioned somewhere like Vincent DeSalle. I've thrown together a quick table in my userspace at User:Eluchil404/Test or permalink [1] and would link comments before adding it to the page. Eluchil404 08:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vincent DeSalle

Please merge relevant information from Vincent DeSalle, per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vincent DeSalle. Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-28 10:48Z

[edit] Lo-fi images

If no one objects I shall add missing TNG character images. They are pretty lo-fi, tho, i have TNG in 512x384 video. It shouldn't be hard to update them with better, when such happen to apper. EdwardHades 20:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why clean up?

I removed the clean up message because no reason was given here. The page looks neat as of today. If anything, clean up has already occurred and probably gone too far. As I remember this page, it was pretty close to being a fairly comprehensive and enlightening list. Robert Happelberg 15:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted list of characters

Is there a particular reason why the alphabetical list of characters was deleted on 28 November 2006? Has it been moved elsewhere? Marky1981 20:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alphabetical_List_of_Star_Trek_Characters --EEMeltonIV 21:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't mean the separate "Alphabetical List of Star Trek Characters", but the list that was deleted from this article. Marky1981 21:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images do not comply with fair use

I only checked a couple of these images but I suspect most or all of these images violate fair use because their image description page does not specify the rationale for their use on this page. Remember, EACH USE must have rationale — see Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline. RedWolf 16:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I will continue removing images from this article unless someone provides the required rationale. RedWolf 22:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Ishka.jpg

Image:Ishka.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 07:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too bloody big

Folks,

  • You may wish to split the article up by series / movie, or some other division.
  • You may wish to cut down severely on some of the fictional biography for minor characters. Almost all of it is redundant with the episode articles in which they appear; because they only appear in a few episodes (maybe only one), there is not really much "coherent thread" worth preserving that is separate from the episodes.

My motivating example is Tomalak - this is what it looked like before AfD. Perhaps this is not representative, in which case never mind.

Regards, --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 13:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge of Sela

For the record, I oppose the merger of Sela. Any other thoughts? Robert Happelberg 23:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Nothing really to add beyond what I said in the previous section. Like the other article, this one describes a minor character by means of a collection of a few episode summaries. I felt it was reasonable to merge it as well, but it's not a strong feeling. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 15:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • This is a crappy list already and I oppose adding anything other that citations and clean-up to it. However, I'd endorse the creation of a separate List of Star Trek: The Next Generation characters article akin to the decent List of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters. --EEMeltonIV 16:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • As it happens, I already did the merge, and Robert only reverted the redirect, which means I've already included here all the information that I intended to. The rest I felt was redundant. As for a separation, I've affixed a {{split-apart}}. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 16:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I oppose the merge but at this time express no opinion on crappiness or not of the list. ShutterBugTrekker 18:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)