Talk:List of Alien vs. Predator characters

Stop fixing what ain't broken

This article was originally formatted semantically, giving it a table of contents, linkable subsections for each character, and giving the document a valid semantic structure with proper HTML usage. However, someone decided it would look better if they stripped all of that out and, instead, abuse formatting tags and bullet lists. If you want to use bullet or numerical lists, fine, but the proper way to do so is to use a contiguous list with multiple items. Instead, what was done was that the editor created 30 different separate bullet lists, each with a single bullet point. These bullet lists were separated by the character descriptions, which were not structurally tied to any particular bullet:

Wrong

<ul>
    <li>'''Character 1'''</li>
</ul>
<p>Character 1's description</p>
<ul>
    <li>'''Character 2'''</li>
</ul>
<p>Character 2's description</p>

Right

<ul>
    <li>
        '''Character 1'''
       <p>Character 1's description</p>
    </li>
    <li>
        '''Character 2'''
        <p>Character 2's description</p>
    </li>
</ul>

But if you're having to create the appearance of a section heading by putting every character's name on its own line in bold, then that should be a sign that what you really want are headings, not a bullet list.

Secondly, if you're going to delete someone else's hardwork, you better be sure that your reasoning is sound. Comparing the Predator and Alien characters in the AVP series to the velociraptors in Jurassic Park just because they're both non-humans is inane. This article isn't called "List of humans in Alien vs. Predator". There is no rule that a fictional character must be human, and there are endless examples of films and stories where the main protagonists/antagonists are non-human. Is Mickey Mouse not a character? Is the Terminator not a character? At the very least, Scar and Wolf are more central characters to the plot of the AVP films than half of the human side characters listed.

You could argue that most of the Aliens and even the Alien Queen are generic (to the franchise) monsters. But the fact of the matter is, Scar and Wolf were given names and unique personalities, and are central to the plot development of the movies. So why would you delete the sections on the primary anti-heroes in both films while leaving in stock characters like the cook or some kid or teenager that gets killed 15 minutes into the movie? That's like excluding Worf from the List of Star Trek characters because he's not human while including random redshirts just because they're human.--Subversive Sound (talk) 19:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand the formatting bit and don't particularly care. I don't like that the table of contents is a mile long and that we have fourth-level subheaders for each character, creating separate sections for descriptions that are all of a couple sentences long. As for the second part, my removal of the Aliens and Predators was not because they are non-human, but because they are creatures, not characters. You can make a case for some of the Predators being characters, due to their role in the plot and their characterization, but the Aliens? Like I said, that's like creating separate character entries for every 'raptor in Jurassic Park (and to extend the analogy, having a character entry for the queen is like having a character entry for the T-Rex). The individual Aliens in these films are generic and interchangeable for one another. As for the stock characters, I'd cull them out too as, again, they are generic and interchangeable and not given any particular characterization. Quite frankly I'd prefer to delete this entire article, as it is just character-specific plot regurgitation. There's maybe a sentence's worth of real-world description here. This article (along with List of Alien characters and List of Predator characters) have always just been dumping-grounds for fanboys to add more and more plot descriptions that have been cut from the main film articles. That's not what character list articles are for. They're supposed to have real-world descriptions of the creation, characterization, casting, and significance, not just be "Plot Summary: The Character-Specific Version". Sorry, but I don't view trimming excessive plot detail as "deleting someone else's hard work"...more like taking out the trash. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)