I understand that CK entries are generally not to be outright deleted, but the list of characters on Charlotte Bronte's Villette is fairly unreasonable, and I'm not understanding what use character entries like "1 servant", "Girls" and "Waiter 3" are to anybody. I'm a noob and I don't want to make a big no-no, but it makes me twitch to have my data full of garbage. Is it ok to delete entries this far beyond what could reasonably be called a character, or is deleting verboten?

Message edited by its author, Oct 23, 2009, 11:21pm.

I don't see why it's a problem. You have to click to show all the characters, so it's not like it's creating clutter. Someone put a lot of work into that list, for whatever reason.

It creates clutter on the list of characters on my statistics page (particularly because most of them start with numbers)--I wouldn't have noticed it if it didn't.

I've deleted wrong information before, particularly in the Publisher's Editor field when those entries listed the publishing company, not the editor.

The Villette case is more borderline. I'd be inclined to delete unnamed characters like that. But I'm a little more hardcore on usefulness in CK fields than most.

Yeah, it's not actually wrong (I mean I assume there really are Girls and an Infant in it somewhere) so I think I will just twitch about it quietly to myself...

I've deleted wrong information before. This is more borderline but yes, I would delete some of them. I think it is clutter and the character fields become pretty useless if every single character in the book is in there. But again, I too am fairly hardcore about usefulness.

While I agree to the basic rule of not deleting CK, there have been exceptions. People entering publishers series for example - "no, my Dutch copy of Don Quichote is not a Penguin classic"...

Your example is indeed more borderline. Accepting for the moment that there are indeed "girls" in that work, it's still disinformation. The main point of these characters in CK is after all that you can go to the common page and see in what other works they figure as well. So now we go and mark all works with more than one girl as such? The Bible, the complete works of William Shakespeare, etc. - it would be ridiculous.

Cataloging crime novels with more than 1 butler would be tempting, but... No. Generic roles are not "characters", and they do clutter up the data. I vote for deletion.

Put me down as one who would delete things such as "girl" from character lists. Unnamed characters can be listed in my view, but they have to have a more distinctive (and unique) description than just "girl".

I would also vote to delete generic roles instead of actual characters as well.

The only way I would give a pass is if you're talking major characters who are really only ever identified by their roles - like The Invisible Man in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man or Big Brother in 1984.

If those characters are major in their anonymity, let them fly, but otherwise, I was remiss in not finding a way to list every soldier that trained with Saleem in Midnight's Children...

And let me say - I'm okay if people track down character names - heck, the listings in Absolute Sandman and Lord of the Rings are amazing things - but they're names.

#10

Well mostly - "Warden Of The House Of Healing", "Mayor Of The Shire", "Silent Watchers". I have problems with some of the others listed for Lord Of The Rings however. Many of the listed people aren't characters (at least not as I know them). Many of the names are just names mentioned in passing and they don't function as characters in the book. Unfortunately I seem to be in the minority in this.

> 11: You're not alone in this. And I get the impression that it's as bad for The Silmarillion. It does seem excessive, at times, but I wouldn't go around deleting that info.

As to it being amazing - hm, most likely somebody just used an edition with an index.

#44, no, you are not alone. I agree.

#44?

You see the canny little #4 just sits above the impudent little #1 .... *mutter mutter*

//Slaps forehead// I've been using a laptop both at home and at work for so long that I actually thought "I'm sure she meant '11', but that's three whole keys away"!

You think my proof-reading's bad here? You should see some of the unintelligible predictive text messages I've sent ;-) Now, if only I could get electronics equipment to work at the same speed as my brain ....

Honey! (in the keyboard, not a newly coined pet name for you).

Shucks sweetheart ;)

I think there are days when my fingers are just fatter than normal ....