Special:Badtitle/NS90:Forum:Wiki Talk/Links to character sheets

This is just a little topic for people interested in certain aspects of work page standardization and usability. My points are:


 * 1) Not all work pages have a Characters subpage.
 * 2) For the work pages that do, the subpage is very important -- I would even say that it is always the most important, assuming half-way rational editors. Essentially, the Characters subpage is a spill-over area that gets created when the main page gets unwieldy.
 * 3) The top of the page gets cluttered with all sorts of subpages, most of which are honestly pretty ignorable, especially when someone is new to a work.
 * 4) When someone is new to a work, the expected reading process goes like this:
 * 5) Ignore the subpage links at the top without thought.
 * 6) Look briefly at the picture.
 * 7) Read or browse through the description text
 * 8) (Notice the link to the Characters subpage if it's at the end of the description text.)
 * 9) Browse through the main trope listing.
 * 10) If still interested, continue to the Characters subpage... at which point in the reading flow issues arise. It is inconvenient to scroll all the way up just to see if maybe there is a Characters page and get potentially disappointed. It is also easy to forget about the subpage entirely. However, if the existence of the subpage was non-stealthily announced the equivalent of a short time ago, the reader would be expected to remember that and be more likely to make the effort to continue to the subpage, knowing that the effort won't be in vain.

Therefore I think explicit links to the character sheets should be allowed on the main work page and not removed.