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)

We're going to leave the character portal as it is until Season 5 starts to gear up.

Looking ahead, out of 25 available slots, we'll be removing the dead characters Tywin and Joffrey, and also Sandor Clegane (whose status is unconfirmed, but who hasn't reappeared in the books since).

I anticipate no major changeups. The five remaining Stark children (including Jon, but minus Rickon) plus Samwell Tarly make six. Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion make nine. Margaery, Stannis, Daenerys, and Brienne will also remain (due to being viewpoint characters for their respective subplots/factions). This brings us up to 13. Also keep Roose/Ramsay/Reek to make 16.

Joffrey's slot will be replaced by Tommen, that seems obvious. Leaving us with TWO free slots.

Also I think Littlefinger should stay (he'll probably appear in Sansa scenes at the Eyrie)....but I don't know if Varys will be reappearing in Season 5 or not (not much spoilers to say that he's not present "on page" for much of the next book, but people get letters or messages from him so his "presence" is felt, and the TV series might just decide to actually show what he was doing "offscreen", just as it gave Loras and Renly stuff which was "off screen" in the books)....tell you what: Varys is important enough as a "faction" unto himself that we'll leave him in his front page slot, but if it turns out that he doesn't appear in the first couple of Season 5 episodes we'll shuffle him out (possibly to be shuffled back later).

So two clearly free slots...

The reason I don't want to put Davos or Melisandre in is because they're basically redundant with Stannis. They're part of the Stannis subplot (similarly, Bran Stark's companions are redundant with Bran).

Ah! I know. If the books are any guide, the next book shifts a lot of focus on the internal politics of Dorne and the Iron Islands (and the Greyjoys REALLY got shorted in Season 4). So we'll update it to have Yara Greyjoy take one slot.

Meanwhile, for our "viewpoint Dorne" character I'd like to put Myrcella...tying in with the fact that the character portal loosely focuses on "Stark vs Lannister" as the core dynamic (or "Lannisters vs their clear enemies, Stark/Baratheon). And they said they're going to give a lot of screentime to Myrcella next season (again, much like Renly/Loras, it's stated that she's doing a lot of stuff "off screen" in the Dorne chapters, which are told from Arianne Martell's perspective). But they want to focus on the Myrcella/Trystane romance, which is good.

So the plan is, we keep the character portal as it is, until Februaryish when the first trailer for Season 5 comes out. Then we:

• Swap out Joffrey for Tommen.
• Swap out Tywin for Myrcella.
• Swap out the Hound for Yara Greyjoy.

And we'll leave Varys in until the first episode or two of Season 5, and see if he's actually in it that much.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:31, July 2, 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)

I just read this, and I support adding a burning Stark banner to the wiki skin, which is an brilliant idea The Dragon. If I may ask, have you progressed anywhere with this future skin for the wiki? Just curious! :) – The Snow Prince (talk) 20:31, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

...I have no experience with changing wiki skins. That's why I was asking.

But we were discussing making a new skin for a new season before Season 4 began...now Season 4 is over and we're still stuck with the damned fish-heads staring at me from Season 3. What progress is being made on this?--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:06, June 30, 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)

My two cents: maybe instead of changing out the background each new season, we could decide on a permanent background image? Maybe the Iron Throne itself, as the series is "Game of Thrones". DRAEVAN13 16:16, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I tried loading a placeholder new background I made up...and it instantly reverts back to the default, within a few seconds. When you're in "Theme designer" mode, the history of the past 10 revisions says an IP address automatically reverted my new upload seconds after I made it. Why?

This update should have happened at the beginning of Season 4 but we're still using the skin from Season 3. I'm not the best with design, but I tried to load up SOME form of a background just to get away from the crappy fish-eyed posters staring dead at us.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:30, August 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)

Navigation bar redesign

The Navigation Bar hasn't been significantly updated in two years, since inactive Admin KarinS put in a basic setup.

I have redesigned the navigation bar from scratch.

The old setup had this layout for the "Characters" navigation tab:

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation?oldid=12950

Category:Characters | Characters Category:Characters | All characters Category:Status: Alive | Characters, alive Category:Status: Dead | Characters, dead Category:Status: Unsure | Characters, status uncertain Category:Actor | Actors Category:Actor | All actors Category:Status: Active | Actors, active Category:Status: Not hired | Actors, not hired Category:Status: Role ended | Actors, role ended

This was absurd.

Who would come onto this wiki and attempt to navigate through the characters on the basis of who is dead and who is alive? Or "uncertain"? Making the actor navigation copy this, based on "role ended" or "active", only compounded the problem.

The thought just occurred to me that I've been staring at this bizarre navigation system for two years and never thought to ask about it.

I have completely rebuilt this into a new setup based on House affiliation: Stark-Tully, Lannister, Tyrell, Targaryen, etc. There was limited space so I couldn't fit in more than seven groups....but I think this is far superior to what we've had until now.

Meanwhile, I completely renamed the "Actors" tab as "Production", and gutted it. It is impossible with limited nav bar space to list all actors in a meaningful way, and it was silly to list them based on "active" or "Role ended". Now, "actors" is only one link in the production tab, the others being changed to things like "Writers" and "Directors", plus direct links to major ones like "Gemma Jackson"/"Deborah Riley", and Michele Clapton.

Moreover, I think many of you have seen the complaints about the navigation setup for episodes. They used to be based simply on "Category - Season 1" ...which presents a random shuffle of the episodes.

I think you've all seen complaints about this.

Anyway the thought struck me that there's no...reason, to use a random shuffle "category" link when there are only ten episodes in a season. So I redesigned it as a numbered list with redirects to the correct episodes pages. Hopefully this will help things run smoother.

These are just the nav bar on the top of every page, though; I've also been fine tuning the new expandable nav box system on the front page. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 04:15, May 4, 2014 (UTC)

Should we change pictures of characters in portal? New poll could also be useful, like something like Who will win Tyrion's trial, Oberyn Martell or ser Gregor Clegane. --Gladiatus (talk) 08:24, May 25, 2014 (UTC)

Jaime's picture

Jaime Lannister isn't rocking the beard or dirty hair anymore. Is it time that his picture be changed on here?

--Iron Bank (talk) 17:05, June 19, 2014 (UTC)

"Episodes" drop-down menu

Because it is the "Episodes" drop-down menu, shouldn't Second Sons, The Bear and the Maiden Fare, and The Rains of Castamere be linked directly to their respective Episode page rather than the disambiguation page?  --Iron Bank (talk) 19:35, June 27, 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. Sorry, I forgot about disambiguation pages when I redesigned the navigation bar during Season 4.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:10, June 27, 2014 (UTC)

You can only put 10 items in a list, so for the "characters" dropdown lists, I tried to fill them in. It's by faction, not family, so it includes "Baratheon and Baratheon retainers" you see. "Stark" is actually "Stark-Tully" (whole names don't always fit in the navbar itself). The Starks and Tullys were pretty obvious (Eddard and Catelyn, plus six children = 8, plus Edmure and Brynden = 10). Lannister was also obvious (Tywin, Tywin's three children, Cersei's three children = 7. Plus Kevan and Lancel, the only other blood Lannisters seen on the show, gives us 9. Used to just cut off at "Martyn" before I realized I only had room for one more...so I figured, "might as well put Ser Pounce" (he's popular and people would look for his page). Baratheon included the three brothers Robert, Stannis, Renly. Plus Gendry gives 4. Brienne is a major character from the Stormlands and served Renly so she's in there to make 5. Plus Selyse and Shireen to round out the living ones, core remaining family with Stannis, gives us seven. So then I added Davos, Salladhor, and Melisandre to round out Stannis's retainers. Targaryen also mostly obvious: Daenerys, Viserys, Mad King Aerys II, Maester Aemon, Khal Drogo = 5. Rhaegar was important enough to also put in there to make 6. Round it out with Daenerys's major retainers: Jorah, Bartistan, Missandei, Grey Worm. Didn't have enough room for Daario, but he's the most recent one, and I kind of think Missandei and Grey Worm need more attention. I added the currently known Greyjoys, Martells, and Tyrells, but they each fell short of 10, but that's what we have.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:54, June 28, 2014 (UTC)

"Actors" menu

As I've said the old navigation bar was bizarre, using up space on nav icons for "actors, current", "actors, role ended", "actors, uncertain" etc.

I shorted this to just one icon for "All actors" which takes you to the category page. But the way it works is that it includes a dropdown menu...of what I thought would be a random collection of actors every time, but in fact were always the same ones. I've now realized this was also bizarre because it kept showing "Tamzin Merchant" which isn't really relevant at this point.

The problem is that if it's not showing random actors each time (and that wasn't very useful either), the dropdown menus can only list a maximum of ten entries.

So I decided to list the actor pages people are most likely to be looking for, coming here to read (most of our actor articles aren't very substantive, except for a few key cast members anyway).

So the short list I made up is this:

• Peter Dinklage
• Kit Harington
• Emilia Clarke
• Maisie Williams
• Sophie Turner
• Lena Headey
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
• Natalie Dormer

I think these are the major ones most people want to look up, and fairly obvious. Problem is that it was only easy for these eight, but we've got ten spaces to fill:

What are two more actor articles that people would be searching for, which are substantive, and/or which are very popular?

....I don't know if we should put Rose Leslie or not. People will be looking for her but her character just died. But there's also Liam Cunningham, Carice van Houten, Isaac Hempstead-Wright....oh of course, GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE!

Tell you what, I'll put up Gwen and Rose for now, and we'll eventually remove Rose during the lead-up to Season 5. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:25, July 3, 2014 (UTC)

Production menu

I've redesigned the "Production" part of the "Production" menu to be two dropdown lists: one is "Production by department" listing "Deborah Riley- Set designer", "Michele Clapton - Costume designer", etc. The other is "Production topics": things like "Production timeline", "Title sequence", "Game of Thrones (TV series)", and "Differences Between books and TV series".--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:03, July 5, 2014 (UTC)

Characters on Main Page

I think it's time to change the character images on the main page. For starters Tywin, Joffrey and the Hound are dead or presumed dead in the Hound's case, and Roose isn't played by one of the starring cast. Also I think the images themselves could do with updating. Brienne's in particular looks quite bad. I'm not good with images so I'm more asking for help on this one. Possible new order could be...

Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon, Samwell,
Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion, Bronn, Margaery,
Stannis, Melisandre, Davos, Petyr, Varys,
Dany, Jorah, Brienne, Ramsay, Reek.

What do you guys think? Rachel P 03:16, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

I wrote about that at length a bit further up this page, but thanks for being on top of this.

Basically, we're still in "post Season 4 mode" but not yet "pre Season 5 mode". As soon as the first teaser trailer for Season 5 comes out, we start redesigning for Season 5 (Some point in late January at the latest).

MANY people are still catching up on Season 4, through Netflix, HBO Go, etc.

Most of the 20 characters in the front page box are "locks" that we wouldn't remove (the core Starks and the core Lannisters).

By a process of elimination, my general idea for how we'd eventually change it when gearing up for Season 5 is:

• Swap out Joffrey for Tommen.
• Swap out Tywin for Myrcella.
• Swap out the Hound for Yara Greyjoy.

We've got 4 main Starks on the first row (including Jon Snow; Robb is dead and Rickon is off-screen), plus Samwell Tarly (he's a POV narrator at this point, and stuff like him escaping Craster's Keep with Gilly is "told" entirely from his perspective even within the TV series).

We have to keep the three core Lannisters: Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion. We're eventually going to swap out Tywin for Myrcella (advanced reports say they've going to invent new scenes for Myrcella, which plausibly happened "off screen" in the books -- which is great, she's one of my favorite characters), plus Tommen replacing Joffrey because he's king now (he doesn't do that much due to being so young, but the plots at court center around him).

So the first half of the boxes are fairly obvious. The second half gets more tricky:

At the very least, we need Daenerys, Stannis, and Margaery, given that they are "faction leaders" (Targaryen, Baratheon of Dragonstone, and...Margaery is more the "face" of Tyrell political intrigue in the show than Loras or Mace ever were, while I don't know if Olenna will reappear...if we have only one Tyrell slot I'd use Margaery over Olenna, whether to have Olenna replace one of the others is a separate issue...)

Yara Greyjoy will replace the Hound because he's presumed dead, and because after the ironborn were shoved completely to the side in Season 4, I can only hope that they will follow the ironborn-heavy subplots of Book 4 which happen after Tywin dies (well, unless we count the Moat Cailin stuff; but as a "political viewpoint", Season 2 showed us Balon and Yara planning....now there's been no Balon and Yara is in only 3 minutes of screentime). Littlefinger remains the "faction leader" of the Vale I guess and by the books should have more to do next season, he's a major player. I'm...not sure, if Varys will be in Season 5 that much so that's up in the air (after he flees King's Landing he isn't "on the page" in the book, then later they give an infodump retroactively explaining what he was doing in that time (similar to how Stannis would be "off screen" for chapters at a time in book 2, but the TV series decided to just show what he did chronologically). If Varys isn't in the first two episodes of Season 5 we might want to swap it out for Olenna Tyrell...but what if she doesn't reappear in Season 5 either? (And of course, if Dianna Rigg wins an Emmy Award next month, all previous arguments fall by the wayside and we put her on the front page!)

The final line of the character boxes is the most random. As I said Yara will get the Hound's spot, and Brienne of Tarth needs her spot. This leaves the "Bolton" perspective of Roose, Ramsay, and Reek. Theon/Reek is a "Viewpoint" character so I think he should be in there. Ramsay is one of the major villains.

Fundamentally, though, I didn't put together the character boxes according to arbitrary TV definitions of "main cast member" or "credited as a guest actor". This is based on the book/story mythos, how relatively important they are (technically Bronn appears more than Catelyn, but he isn't as important within the overall plot; Tywin doesn't relatively have that much screentime in Season 1, but he's very important). Roose is one of the main villains in the story (he's ruling the North now for the Lannisters and personally killed Robb Stark). He didn't appear that much in Season 4 but his presence was large (everything Ramsay is doing is to impress him) and going by the books, now that he's back in the North he'll have even more to do in Season 5 (securing Bolton rule over the other beaten Northern houses).

....wait let's see now...

You're suggesting we include Bronn, Melisandre, Davos, and Jorah.

....well my argument for that is that they're basically "access points". The infoboxes are how people who don't know how to navigate a wiki access different sub-plots. Why have a box for Rickon in Season 2, when Bran is always with him? Etc. The problem is that Bronn isn't very independent of Tyrion in the TV series/books, and Davos and Melisandre are also pretty much always with Stannis. There's just too much overlap. Similarly, all of Jorah's scenes involve Daenerys.

...but then we've got the whole "musical chairs" effect: the design you suggested leaves out Tommen...and he's kind of more important than Bronn, what with being the king on the Iron Throne. Choosing between the two I'd put Tommen over Bronn. The Hound was such a major character in Season 4 that I don't think we should replace him with Melisandre (particularly because the Hound won't be appearing after this, so let him have his time in the limelight).

Brienne's image is indeed bad, it's just what I had available at the time. Yes it needs updating. It would drastically be sped up if anyone loads a properly cropped and sized Brienne image (though then we have to choose a nice angle of her, that's always subjective...).

Oh crud this went on really long. At any rate the major points are:

1 - So many people are still catching up on Season 4 that I am consciously putting off a redesign until we gear up for Season 5, around Christmas/January. The Hound may be dead "now", but taking "Season 4" as a whole unit, he's present throughout it. People looking for information about the Hound after they just watched an episode he's in would need him on the front page.

2 - Due to a process of elimination, I already figured out that the best choices would be to replace Joffrey with Tommen, Tywin with Myrcella, and the Hound with Yara Greyjoy. If Varys isn't in Sesaon 5 that much we'd swap him out for someone else.

3 - The bad quality of the Brienne image has indeed been gnawing at me, if you post up variant cropped Brienne images we can pick a better one.

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:53, July 19, 2014 (UT

Makes sense if we look at it from a point of view of faction leaders instead of main cast. I hadn't thought of that to be honest with Roose being the only non main cast up there, though if we throw in Tommen, Myrcella and Yara in that'll be less obvious. So I'm okay with it not being just main cast as long as it's not just one guy who doesn't fit. I still disagree about Roose though. The Bolton storyline is much smaller than say Dany's in the show and yet she is only represented by herself and they have Roose, Ramsay and Reek (the 3 Rs). Jorah is also a viewpoint character like Reek and any of his new stuff will not be in Dany's presence so I think he's a much better fit. As for faction leaders he is more a subordinate than say Mance who is one of the many Kings. Also there are more than one new characters coming (though exactly who survives the cut is yet to be seen) who would easily be better as representative to story lines than him. I won't name any for spoiler reasons but I think you can guess who I mean.

As for your idea of holding off a while before going to season 5 mode I can accept this. I would suggest however that the Tommen/Joffrey swap is far back enough in the season to happen now. I mean you had Joffrey's face up much higher on the page and larger when he died the moment it happened so it's hardly worth keeping that a secret anymore. Giving Tywin and the Hound some more time in the limelight now is perfectly understandable as it's still fresh for people.

Also yes I understand the issue with not knowing how much we'll see Varys or Olenna (and whether or not she recieves the Emmy she deserves). Personally I expect to see more Varys than Olenna in the show, even though this is opposite to the books, but who knows at this stage.

And sorry like I said. I'm bad with images so I really won't be much actual help here. Rachel P 12:48, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

I have a selection of already made portal pictures that I have made, you can use them for the main page if you want? http://gyazo.com/79d0a088b1d9ce8fd63429d3b19b35cb That is just an example of the ones that I have, there are more for the rest of the main characters but I couldn't fit them all into the screenshot. If you're interested just let me know who you want pictures for. :) CoyoteDork (talk) 17:24, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

Also if you choose to use some characters that actors aren't billed as starring, I also have some photos for a few more, such as - http://gyazo.com/6ccae2c7b7cecb3208f857936f9e8c38 Again if you're interested in using these, just let me know who you want the photos for. And if there's someone I don't have a picture for at the moment, I would be more than happy to make one. :) CoyoteDork (talk) 17:28, July 19, 2014 (UTC)

So what do you thinnk? CoyoteDork (talk) 14:07, July 25, 2014 (UTC)

I prefer some of these to the current images (assuming the red/green borders can be removed) though personally think images from the latest season would be best to keep it feeling up to date. The template is protected from non-admin edits though so its really up to The Dragon Demands. I'm just throwing in ideas. Thanks for the suggestion. Rachel P 04:18, July 28, 2014 (UTC)

Let me stress this again: there can only be about 25 character images on the front page portal because that's as many as will fit. If we made ones for all cast members billed as "starring" they wouldn't fit.

Second, crediting as "starring" is absolutely meaningless in a book adaptation. Shae was billed as starring in Season 4 for pay reasons, but in terms of overall impact on the storyline, Roose Bolton is a far more important character. We shouldn't blindly fit it into a TV-first mentality; we know how important Roose is, and even within the TV show ignoring the books he's more important.

Third...this is confusing: http://gyazo.com/6ccae2c7b7cecb3208f857936f9e8c38 Why bother to make character portal images for...Irri, Ros, or Maester Luwin, at this point?

There are only 25 slots, more would be far too large, we're discussing priorities among these slots.

As I have explained, going by the major families, few of these slots seem particularly up for grabs.

The current plan is:

• Swap out Joffrey for Tommen.
• Swap out Tywin for Myrcella.
• Swap out the Hound for Yara Greyjoy.

Varys is also sort of "on the fence" at this point. I dread if they don't use Yara prominently next season (going by the books they should, she's a major character in book 4).

The next most prominent ones we might want to swap in are Olenna Tyrell or....I'm toying with the idea of making a group-shot image linking to "Sand Snakes", given that they seem to be prominent next season.

And I'd bump out Varys for Olenna automatically if Diana Rigg wins an Emmy in a few weeks :)

....you're right, enough time has passed that I'm going to swap out Joffrey for Tommen immediately.

(I'm worried I sound like I'm shouting, I'm not)

Well what we're discussing now is "who should the 25 front page characters be" - I hope everyone is sympathetic that this is a huge cast of characters.

A second, separate question is "should we add more than 25 to the front page, or would this make the front page look far too complicated?" (if we didn't, there can't be any more vertical columns because five across is as many as will fit; we might be able to add one, possibly two more lines....but I'm very hesitant because it might make it difficult to read...--The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:57, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we should add more rows, but if we did, these are at the top of the list in terms of who we might want on the front page:

(First, we've got Tommen replacing Joffrey, Myrcella replacing Tywin, and Yara Greyjoy replacing the Hound)

...hmmm...

If Varys doesn't appear prominently in Season 5, we might replace him with a combined "Sand Snakes" icon. I don't know if we also need a Doran Martell one or if we'll do what we did with Oberyn and just make him the featured article.

Davos and Melisandre are good, but plausibly they can be redundant with Stannis.

I don't know how much Bronn will appear in Season 5. He has one really important point he takes part in but otherwise is "off screen" for much of the next book (i.e. I see him as dominating one full episode)...oh crap but there are rumors that he's going to become Jaime's new aide-de-camp in the TV version.

In the grand scheme of things, Missandei and Grey Worm aren't too important, Ser Barristan somewhat moreso, but all three are redundant with Daenerys, just as Davos is redundant with Stannis. We might want to put Missandei up there just so we get some representating for a black woman of color in what is otherwise mostly white men. I don't know.

Pycelle is nice but unlike Littlefinger or Varys he isn't his own "faction"; he's part of Team Lannister.

Loras gets more to do in the books at this point, just as Yara Greyjoy does....

Edmure and Brynden if they reappear Kevan and Lancel if they reappear

The five characters who rank behind the proposed 25 (if they die, etc.) would be....

• Olenna Tyrell (for now, but we'd remove her if she is confirmed to not return in Season 5 at all)
• "Sand Snakes" - that way we can refer to many characters with one slot.
• Doran Martell (or Oberyn if we do this before we get a set photo of Doran in costume)
• Loras Tyrell
• Bronn

If we added yet another row, for thirty-five characters....

• Davos
• Melisandre
• Missandei
• Grey Worm
• Ser Barristan

...though we might replace one of these with Brynden or Edmure, or perhaps replace two with Brynden AND Edmure.

(if Varys doesn't reappear in early Season 5 we'll replace him with Kevan Lannister...if, dear god, Kevan returns in Season 5 because he becomes more prominent after his older brother Tywin dies in the books).

But at the moment I am against adding more rows, I think it would be "unwieldy" to have a character table that large.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:16, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

Tommen but not Melisandre or Davos?--Gonzalo84 (talk) 05:54, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

Well Tommen is the "King on the Iron Throne" at the moment.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 16:03, August 9, 2014 (UTC)

I was agreeing more with CoyoteDork's choice of images rather than choice of characters. I never said anything about extra rows and agree we don't need any more. Also yes, I agree Tommen deserves a spot if we are using the faction leaders criteria as the current king on the throne . I do still feel however that under that rationale that Mance is a much better fit than Roose. The wildlings/freefolk are not represented at all otherwise and he is one of the kings, whereas the argument you've for Davos etc being redundant with other characters definitely applies to Roose/Ramsay (more so than Davos or Melisandre in my opinion) and while he may represent one part of the Lannister forces, Mance represents an entire society/army. Also personally I think that Doran as opposed to Myrcella and possibly the sand snakes works better as a representative of both the ongoing story and a faction leader. I don't care as much about about that one as I do about swapping Roose for Mance though.Rachel P 04:50, August 11, 2014 (UTC)