Talk:Wiki of Westeros

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Welcome to the Game of Thrones Wiki for the HBO television series of the same name. This Wiki is intended to act as a guide to the television series, not as a general resource for the novels. Those looking for a guide to the book series are referred to the Wiki of Ice and Fire maintained by the Westeros.org team, or the considerably less-developed Song of Ice and Fire Wikia.

This Wiki is based on the premise that the Game of Thrones television series, despite apparently being a faithful adaptation of the books, will likely diverge from the novels in key areas, and indeed already has done so through the addition of new scenes and dialogue in the pilot, the removal of some minor characters and actors varying from the detail of the descriptions in the novels. For this reason pages should only be started about subjects once it is known they will be in the TV series. For example, whilst it is highly probable that the castle of Storm's End will appear in the TV series, we have not heard anything about it so far in relation to the TV series, so starting a page about it at this time would not be appropriate. On the other hand, we know that Winterfell appears as filming has already taken place there. However, the appearance, layout and history of the TV version of Winterfell will likely be different to that established in the books, and information from the books should not be used to describe the TV version of Winterfell.

That said, the presence of a 'How the TV series differs from the books' section in the relevant articles is appopriate, but only if spoilers are avoided.

As the television series will not debut until early 2011, this means that current articles will largely be broad articles about the series itself, background information on actors and behind the scenes personnel, and notes on filming locations and dates.--Werthead 14:16, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

To clarify article and link-creation policy, we still don't know that everything in the books will be in the TV series. In fact, we know that Castle Darry has already been removed from the series (all the action that takes place there has been moved to either the Crossroads Inn or to Tywin's war camp), so there's no guarantee that places like Seagard, Stone Hedge etc will be mentioned in the show (and thus shouldn't be linked or covered on the wiki). At the same time, mentioning a unique place name and leaving it unlinked may be confusing. One possible answer would be to link those articles to the respective entry on the Wiki of Ice and Fire instead, but this would involve putting a spoiler warning after every such link, which could be tedious and messy. Thoughts?--Werthead 11:33, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

Fourth slider slot

Xean added a link to the book wiki in the fourth slot in the slider. I don't think we should be linking to that (not that much content and possible *major* spoilers), but I do agree that the slider looks wierd with the fourth slot empty.

Any ideas on what else we could fill it with? TOR 18:13, February 7, 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. And the book Wikia is pretty dead now, if they're going to link to a book one, it should be to the Wiki of Ice and Fire hosted by the Westeros.org crew. My rec would be to a map of Westeros and a link on geography, exploring the Seven Kingdoms, that sort of thing :-) Great work from all the newcomers, by the way, it was getting lonely in here :-) Nice to have a new logo (from the Cyanide computer game, right?) as well, although we should replace it with the TV series logo as soon as HBO settle on a final version --Werthead 13:37, February 9, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe make the fourth slide about the Cyanide game? I think it's worth covering on this wiki as well (not strictly connected to the show, but it's also out of AWoIaF's scope, and it will likely be heavily targeted at the show's viewers). Ausir^(talk) 16:37, February 16, 2011 (UTC)

My idea behind the TV wiki was that we'd cover only things directly related to the TV series, such as merchandise bearing the TV GoT and HBO logos. The computer game is not based on the HBO series, something I expect will be made clearer as we get closer to the game coming out (a bit like the time when there was LORD OF THE RINGS games coming out based separately on the books and the movies). In fact, if the TV series is a hit I suspect HBO will look at licensing out their own computer game based on the TV show. AWoIaF would be the correct venue for info on it, but they haven't done much in the way of creating pages based on merchandising yet. We could possibly mention it on a subsection of the book page, mentioning merchandising of various kinds, but I don't think it should get its own page as it is not affiliated directly with HBO (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if people at HBO were debating asking them to change the name).--Werthead 19:29, February 16, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think it would make sense to expand this wiki's scope also to other licensed properties, not just the show or HBO-affiliated ones. I doubt that the AWoIaF community will have much interest in giving much of a focus to anything but the books themselves. But if you think it's a bad idea, I suppose we could set up a separate wiki for them. And I don't really see how HBO could force them to change the name - Martin holds the rights to that, and I doubt any of the non-HBO licensed products, like the board game, the computer game, the card game, etc. will be renamed (and they can be distinguished by "A Game of Thrones" vs. "Game of Thrones"). Ausir^(talk) 22:38, February 16, 2011 (UTC)

I'll check with Ran to see what they want to do about pages on merchandising. If they're not keen on it, maybe we could do something here then ;-) --Werthead 15:25, February 19, 2011 (UTC)

According to Ran, the WoIaF is going to be handling merchandising, they just haven't gotten round to it yet. --Werthead 11:33, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of repurposing the Ice and Fire wiki at Wikia as a wiki focused mainly on merchandising, video games, etc. since it clearly has no chance at competing with AWoIaF as a wiki focused on the books. By the way, would AWoIaF be open to a deeper partnership with this wiki, with e.g. links to each other on the main page, and on each character page etc. ("read more about Ned Stark in the TV series/in the books" links at the end of each article)? Ausir^(talk) 22:16, February 21, 2011 (UTC)

That is an excellent suggestion. We could keep the book pages (which already have info on different editions) but most of the character/house ones could go, or alternatively we could keep them with notes on how they are depicted in different media. I've already spoken to Ran about partnering AWoIaF and the GoT one and that's something in the works. Even better, I've been contacted by HBO directly and they may be interested in involving us in the marketing for the TV series in some manner. It also means we have a direct line to check up on issues. For example, I'm going to ask if we can use the screencaps that various fansites have taken from the trailers and teasers, as they would radically expand the number of photos on the wiki.--Werthead 09:48, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Spellchecker testing works

You might have noticed already that we now have spellchecker functionality in the visual editor. This is an exclusive test, run on only a few wikis. Hope you like it! This is still in beta, so if you encounter any problems or issues with it, please let me know. Safe typing! TOR 13:03, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

You need to use proper grammar:

War of the Five Kings– Season 2 is underway and war ravages the Seven Kingdoms! Who are the five kings involved? What do we know about their forces? Read our article to find out more about the conflict.Glassonion0

Thank you for pointing out my error, I have corrected it.--Opark 77 14:01, May 15, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for not being a Jack Ass about it, the Star Trek Wiki people are rude.Glassonion0

Screencaps

I have received permission via telephone call from HBO Marketing to use screencaps from the trailers, teasers and other released media to illustrate articles on the wiki. Screencaps can be used under the following restrictions: we don't go overboard with them (i.e. one per article, more only if necessary to illustrate different facets of the article), we don't use ones that are major spoilers for events later in the series (i.e. we don't use the screencaps of the Three-Eyed Crow until it's appeared on-screen) and we emphasise on the upload pages that all screencaps are HBO copyright. Also, whilst Marketing are okay with us using them, HBO Legal may have a different opinion and we must be willing to remove any or all screencaps at any time (but since HBO Legal are okay with the screencaps on the numerous other HBO Wikis, this is a highly unlikely eventuality). Ran at Westeros.org has also given us permission to use the screencaps that they take and put up on their GoT page, and we should acknowledge that as well. Beyond that we should be good to go :-) --Werthead 15:02, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

Awesome! Great job, Werthead! --TOR 01:11, March 3, 2011 (UTC)

Waiting for Westeros's screencaps of the latest video. We can add images of the Wall, but I doubt the very brief image of the Other will be usable (plus it's kind of spoilery). Any thoughts on the logo? Our current one is good, but I was thinking of using the TV show's one. However, I note that other HBO Wikis don't use them (TRUE BLOOD deliberately uses another one), whilst other TV show wikis (like Memory Alpha for STAR TREK) do. Any preference?--Werthead 21:37, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

Video Edits

Replaced the 'First Full Trailer' with the official HBO version, which is higher in quality. Also put it on the front page, thought the YouTube still of Catelyn isn't great. :-) --Werthead 21:37, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

RSS Feed

What's wrong with the RSS feed on the front page? The page keep says it can't load it, but the feed is valid. I don't know the syntax of the RSS feed, if there is a bug there. --Starhop 22:13, May 5, 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be working fine now, don't know if someone else fixed it. I am thinking we need to change the RSS feed, maybe to a dedicated news reel with posts from Westeros.org's TV page and maybe Winter is Coming's entries. We're picking up a lot of tangential stories on the front page feed which don't have much to do with the TV show. Unfortunately, I don't know anything at all about changing RSS feeds to do that.--Werthead 14:57, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

New logo needed

We've been using the Game of Thrones: Genesis logo for a while now, which was okay as a placeholder whilst HBO had not revealed the final logo for the TV series. However, using this logo now risks confusion between the TV series and the computer game, and of course the computer game logo is copyrighted by Cyanide and we do not have permission to use it. On the other hand, we do have permission from HBO to use screencaps and promo images, so using the TV logo should also be fine. I'll see if I can find a good version of it.--Werthead 15:01, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

Right, I have a possible good new logo uploaded at Wiki.png, but I can't update the current logo which is set to Wiki-wordmark.png, not sure what the issue is there. Any ideas?--Werthead 15:36, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

We have already found a new logo. So new people reading this should disregard what is being written. Cheers LordofOnions (Talk) 22:50, August 6, 2011 (UTC)

House Greyjoy in the slider

With Season 3 upon us I believe we should replace House Greyjoy, which had a bigger role in Season 2, with Mance Rayder, who will have a huge role after two seasons of being just mentioned.--Gonzalo84 (talk) 16:21, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

Sure! :) Just put Mance in the Greyjoy's spot. QueenBuffy 16:25, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

I concur: they're going to take a backseat until season 4-ish, when they introduce Theon and Yara's uncles.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 19:49, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

Spoiler!

Some admin please speedy-delete the recently uploaded named image of a certain STILL UNNAMED character! -- SaganamiFan (talk) 21:07, June 4, 2013 (UTC)

Update front page character boxes

I think we need to update the front page character boxes: the four by four, sixteen characters presented as front page portals. We must remember that while we regular editors know where everything is, casual new readers often access most things on the wiki by randomly clicking on shiny things on the front page about major characters.

Out of the sixteen, there are a few locks:

• Ned Stark's surviving children - 4 boxes (Sansa, Arya, Jon, Bran (Rickon doesn't get a slot))
• The core Lannisters - 5 boxes (Tywin, Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion, Joffrey)
• Daenerys Targaryen - carrying the entire Essos storyline

So those are 10 out of 16 which right away I don't think anyone will disagree with.

Next, while not a complete lock, I'm fairly certain that we should include Stannis (standing in for his associated characters and subplot too), as well as Littlefinger and Varys.

These 13 characters are already on the front page.

What's at issue is the next three spots, which are currently:

• Theon
• Melisandre
• Sandor "The Hound" Clegane

I've seen other news sites trying to rank characters based on the raw number of episodes they appear in: this is utterly absurd, given that certain important characters may appear in few yet pivotal scenes, while others may only appear as accessories of other characters (Bronn technically appears in most episodes Tyrion does). Moreover I thought that statistical study was really interesting in which someone figured out what percentage of characters each character spoke in Season 3 - Bronn actually had a line or two more than Catelyn Stark.

So the choice should be based on "who is important in the storyline", which will be in part based on what the spoiled know will be happening this season based on the books (as it always is).

We should probably pick from people actually listed as "main cast" in Season 4, not "recurring".

Well, this was a mouthful. Now we come to The Point:

Sandor Clegane is an important character, but in terms of "geo-politics" in a continent spanning war, he isn't Tywin or Stannis. Then again Balon Greyjoy shouldn't get a slot either due to his rare appearance. But Sandor is so closely tied to other storylines (Joffrey before, Arya now) that I really don't think he needs his own slot.

I'm not sure about Melisandre - she *is* important, but also a bit redundant with Stannis.

I'm not really sure what to do with Theon - he *is* important, even more than Melisandre (given that he doesn't overlap with someone, as she does Stannis). But we don't know how much screentime he'll have. Part of this decision should be based on screentime.

So my suggestion is that at the very least, we should replace The Hound with Margaery Tyrell, due to her importance in the storyline, significant scenes, and representation of an entire political faction (House Tyrell) in the wider war. Does anyone think Melisandre or Theon should be replaced with someone else?--The Dragon Demands (talk) 05:02, February 2, 2014 (UTC)

Okay I've had time to think on this:

Theon should stay on the front page, Margaery Tyrell should replace Sandor Clegane as I said, but also, I think Brienne of Tarth should replace Melisandre.

Theon should stay on the front page -- He is a major character and remains a major character. The only reason we *might* want to leave him out is if he doesn't have a lot of screentime - similar to how Jaime Lannister was back-burnered in book/season 2. He disappears for books 3 and 4, presumed dead, but then book 5 reveals that he was kept prisoner by Ramsay and horrifically tortured (the TV show chose to present this in the chronological order that it happened). However, judging from the trailers they might be moving up some of Theon's material from Book 5 - or if nothing else will apparently show more of his torture at the hands of Ramsay (Theon is *literally unrecognizable* by the end, even people who knew him well). But if Theon will have prominent screentime he should stay.

The best way to define the major characters is generally those who were POV narrators in the books. Sandor was never a POV narrator (Melisandre did later narrate a chapter or two but not that much). The different POV narrations show the different story threads from different angles (i.e. Sansa shows what's happening in King's Landing, Theon shows what's happening in Winterfell, etc.). So it serves as a starting point for readers to branch off from.

Keeping this in mind, I still think that Margaery Tyrell should replace Sandor Clegane. Margaery actually isn't a POV narrator but she is much more important in the story, shows entirely different and major plot threads - while Sandor is either in Sansa or Arya's POV narrations.

Melisandre is fairly important, but her storyline will mostly overlap with Stannis's, which he already covers on the front page.

Meanwhile, Brienne of Tarth became a POV narrator starting at this point in the books, and her storyline goes in entirely separate directions (she reached King's Landing as promised but the Starks are dead including Catelyn so her prisoner exchange is a moot point, and her native Stormlands have mostly bent the knee to the Lannisters post-Blackwater).

Interestingly, trailers suggest that they'll *invent* some scenes for Brienne with the Tyrells - I assume having them argue about what all of the Renly supporters are doing now that he has died - and why the Tyrells are supporting the Lannisters now. Pointing out that, like Brienne, they'd never support Stannis (he'd never forgive them for supporting Renly) so they're kind of stuck - but the Tyrells don't exactly *like* the Lannisters either. Good politics stuff - too soon they forget that Brienne is actually the heir to a noble House from the Stormlands (though I don't think the Tarths are that powerful). It also helps that Brienne of Tarth is a fairly popular character, whome TV viewers will want to search for first.

So the other 13 were mostly locks, Theon I only hesitated on because I thought he might have reduced screentime but apparently he doesn't. Meanwhile, I think Sandor Clegane and Melisandre are fairly redundant, while Margaery Tyrell and Brienne of Tarth are more important and should be given their spots on the front page portal.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 18:13, February 3, 2014 (UTC)

Season 4 Wiki skin

We will soon have to choose a new skin for the wiki in Season 4. In Season 2 we used the promotional image of someone grasping the crown (I miss that one). In Season 3 we used the promotional images of everyone's faces - which were fun but now look like heads staring at me - well, characters I like, but it looks weird for people looking over my shoulder (haha).

So what should the Season 4 skin be? Some may argue for that dragon shadow poster thing but I don't think it's distinct enough.

I think it might be good to use images from the Red Wedding - specifically, repeating that image of the burning Stark banner: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mhysa_burning_stark_banner.png (not necessarily this exact screenshot of it). I really liked the color palette in Season 2 of the hand reaching for a crown on a burning field. And I guess the thing I didn't like about the Season 3 ones is how blue they are - a very cold color palette. Yes, I know "Ice and Fire". But I think a burning Stark banner will emphasize how much chaos and destruction is going on.

Well, that's my opinion.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 05:08, February 2, 2014 (UTC)

Bran

Er... some genius managed to destroy the Bran Stark article by turning it into a redirect on itself... -- SaganamiFan (talk) 13:13, April 7, 2014 (UTC)

It's been fixed.-- 13:18, April 7, 2014 (UTC)

Redesign

I'm making an overhaul of the front page; before the Season 4 premiere I moved things around a bit on the front page for ease of access.

Now, I have set up collapsible menus for major topics like "Noble Houses" or "Organizations".

I've had some library studies training, and the big point you have to remember is "casual fans don't even know what they're looking for" and know less than we do.

So we know where the "Kingsguard" page is, but unless they new the proper name and put it in a search engine, they wouldn't know how to find it through general browsing.

Also we need to support new fans who just come on here to browse, without even a specific topic to look up.

Basically they're called "access points" -- the names which TV-first viewers will try to look up to find information. So far we've been mostly using the Episode Guide as the main access point: people come on here, read an episode guide, and clink on the internal links. Also on the front page our main access points have been the Character pages (people look up "Arya Stark", "Tyrion Lannister", "Jon Snow", etc.) - We needed more "access points" on the front page itself, i.e. a menu for "Culture and Society" so people will know we even have a page on "Heraldry" or "Knighthood".

I've also increased the number of characters on the front page menu from 16 to 25.

Given that the season has already started I didn't have time to make images customed to fit the menu screen, so some of them are a bit oddly shaped. The Boy Who Cried Direwolf was already helping out with the Bolton character images. But the important thing was to have the menus made; we can tweak and refine the images as we go.

I'll continue to refine the new front page menus.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:43, April 16, 2014 (UTC)

It looks fantastic. I can always help out with reconfiguring the portal images.-- 16:07, April 16, 2014 (UTC)

Slider images

The Tommen and the Mace Tyrell image should be replaced.--Gonzalo84 (talk) 22:58, April 21, 2014 (UTC)

I know, I just shoved them in at the last minute, but I've been too busy IRL.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 23:08, April 21, 2014 (UTC)