WikiCharacter

Wikicharacter will be a database of every character in every published work of fiction, ever. The database will contain pages for each character, with links to related characters. The page for each character will be in the form of a biography, consisting of a "history" gleaned completely from the published materials in which the character appeared. The database will cover books, films, television, video games, advertising, movies and theater.

Villains

ChaosLoveSmash 50 Disney Villains as

Jafar (Aladdin)
Hades (Hercules)
Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Shan-Yu (Mulan)
Scar (The Lion King)
Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Hopper (A Bug's Life)
Horned King (The Black Cauldron)
Clayton (Tarzan)
Shere Khan (The Jungle Book)
Oogie Boogie (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Jadis (Chronicles of Narnia)
Captain Barbossa (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Anton Ego (Ratatouille)
Ratcliffe (Pocahontas)
Chernabog (Fantasia)
Evil Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
Rourke (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmatians)
Syndrome (The Incredibles)
Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
Ramsley (The Haunted Mansion)
Kazar (The Wild)
Queen Narissa (Enchanted)
Si & Am (Lady and the Tramp)
Shenzi Banzai and Ed (The Lion King)
Yzma (The Emperor's New Groove)
Lady Tremaine (Cinderella)
Auto (WALL-E)
Sabor (Tarzan)
Captain Gantu (Lilo & Stitch)
Vidia (Tinker Bell)
Randall Boggs (Monsters Inc)
Bruce (Finding Nemo)
Carnotaur (Dinosaur)
Al McWhiggin (Toy Story 2)
Underminer (The Incredibles)
GO-4 (WALL-E)
Prince John (Robin Hood)
Capt John Sliver (Treasure Planet)
Skinner (Ratatouille)
Anglerfish (Finding Nemo)
Sid Phillips (Toy Story)
Zurg (Toy Story 2)
Darla (Finding Nemo)
Bowler Hat Guy (Meet the Robinsons)
Test (Test)

Form

The format of each character's page would be something like:

Character Name, including aliases
Vital Stats (age, sex, species, DOB, height, eye color, hair color, etc.)
Biography - A well-organized, chronological history of the character; where they lived, what they did, etc.
List of Appearances - works in which the character is present.
Related characters - Relatives, spouses, friends of the character.

Since the idea is in its formative stages, an example may be instructive.

James Bond would likely have an extensive page on wikicharacter. The page would start by listing his vital stats, and then provide a biography of his character. The biography would be developed from all works in which James Bond appeared: all movies containing the character James Bond, and all the books. The biography would treat Bond not as a fictional character but as a real person. Thus, it would NOT say something like, "James Bond made his first theatrical appearance in the film Dr. No, in which Bond (played by Sean Connery) travels to Jamaica to confront a villain intent on destroying the U.S. Space Program." Instead, the information would be portrayed as fact: "In 1962, on one of his first missions for MI6, James Bond traveled to Jamaica to confront Dr. No, a villain intent on destroying the U.S. Space Program." The above line, of course, would link to a separate page for the character Dr. No. Bond's page would then list the films and books in which he appeared, and their date. It would end with a categorized list of related characters: Relatives (he had a son, James Bond Jr., who appeared in a saturday morning cartoon in the early 90s), Friends (Q, Moneypenney, Honey Rider), and Enemies (Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger, Jaws).

Other characters would have larger or smaller pages, depending on the amount of information available about them. So while James Bond would have an extensive listing in Wikicharacter, you could bet on Luke Skywalker having an even more in-depth page, while a character like Toucan Sam would certainly have a smaller page.

This project would be an especially useful resource for collecting the large amount of of information on recurring characters, such practically any character on a television series, in which the character's life is not presented in one package but is spread over a number of works.

Problems?

Some possible issues:

Fictional characters based on non-fictional entities. In works of fiction based on real-life events, characters are often based on real-life people. For example, the film All the President's Men is a fictionalized telling of the Watergate scandal, with the main characters being real-life reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstien. In such a case, I would propose that these characters be included in Wikicharacter, but that only information gleaned from the film (or other fictionalized accounts of the Watergate scandal) could be used in creating their character bios. So while Wikipedia's page on Woodward notes that he has recently written two books, called Bush at War (2002) and Plan of Attack (2004), Wikicharacter's page for Woodward would have no mention of these facts. Another example of a non-fictional character would be Richard Nixon, who was surely portrayed in many fictionalized accounts of Watergate. His Wikicharacter page would state any information about him gleaned from these accounts, but would also note that his head ran for President in the year 3000 on the basis of the argument that no body be elected for more than two terms (as seen on the television show, Futurama).

Contradicting Information. Some characters will undoubtedly have a wealth of contradictory information about them, arising from different adaptations of the same story or anachronistic presentations of a story. Such contradictions should be addressed in a separate section on that character's page.

Please feel free to add details or make comments on this idea. To be honest, I am somewhat new to wiki. I'd like to hear what you think.

Additionally, I have a demo page at Wikispaces. [1] Please feel free to add to that page as well, and perhaps a working demo of WikiCharacter can begin there.

Comments

Character information can already be added to Wikipedia. For non-encyclopedic information on charatcers, and for working out concordances between them, there is the already popular Concordances and Characters wiki. Angela 22:20, 3

November 2005 (UTC)

Conceptually, I feel that Wikicharacter would be different than both Wikipedia and the Concordances and Characters Wiki. Both of the above refer to the characters only secondarily to the source books or authors; the characters are not the primary focus. Wikicharacter would be more like a biographical database of the world of fiction in it's entirety. Wikicharacter would be written from the perspective of the fictional world, so that references to the "real" world of authors and places would be presented only secondarily as a practical interest. The idea isn't to constrict the amount of information about the characters or works but to present the information in a totally different fashion. I feel that this difference is fundamental and is what would make WikiCharacter unique. --151.204.138.189 08:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know, but could there be some issues of characters being copyrighted and so use of them in a first-person sense (as we would, in essence, be creating a 'new' work of fiction based on what has already been written)? Odd bloke 00:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]