Talk:List of Arrowverse cast members

Zari

I noticed that Zari is missing from the Legends table despite being a main character. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NTC TNT (talk • contribs) 23:02, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Freedom Fighters is not set in the Arrowverse

Freedom Fighters is not set in the Arrowverse it's on Earth-X (a different universe), so it should not be included. Unless Arrowverse refers to the multiverse, in which case Supergirl characters such as Mon-El should not be treated as "introduced outside the Arrowverse". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lobstersalad (talk • contribs) 10:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Arrowverse refers to all these characters i believe... its never been said to only include earth 1. Spanneraol (talk) 15:33, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

But it's partly treated that way in this article and in the Arrowverse article by some users. Supergirl out, but FF in? Not right. Why are so many Doppelgangers listed in them (Wells'es, Black Siren etc.) but Supergirl is "outside"? I suggest every series to be acknowledged in the same way (including Constantine, especially considering the animated series which is slated for 2018). --H8149 (talk) 19:50, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Supergirl and Ray yes... the Constantine animated series yes.. the NBC series no cause that show itself has never really been added to the "Arrowverse", just the character. Spanneraol (talk) 21:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to change the table layouts

I don't believe the current table layout style is working for the Arrowverse. While I understand the reasoning of splitting up each series into its own table, what we end up with is a hard to follow flow with duplicated information. If we treat the Arrowverse as a single entity, then a character can be "introduced" only once. This is both better for content flow and also removes duplication, which allows for a more reader-friendly experience.

Problems:

• The sections of "Introduced in other series" have no value at all. It's basically a "go search the article if you want to know where from", as no information is provided.
• Hard to follow flow. The current table aims to show a timeline of when a character was introduced to the Arrowverse, but it does so in hard to follow flow. A reader will first read the Arrow table, reaching the 2018 season, then read The Flash table, starting at 2012, etc. A reader ends up having to jump between sections to try and get an understand of who appeared when and where. Since the aim of the table is to show a timeline, a more correct table would be to list the seasons, regardless of the show, by their year of broadcast.
• Even harder to follow. Main characters such as Barry Allen, appear at the bottom of their series table, instead of at the top, where a casual reader would expect to find it.
• Duplication - Looking at the Arrow table, it seems that 7 columns is the max size, going by that number, we'll reduce the current number of tables from 6 down to 3. It will also remove 5 identical list indicator sections.
• Other MOS fixes - it will also remove the need for the row of "Introduced in season #" which fails Accessibility guidelines.
• Other issues - seems some characters listed aren't even valid entries, such as Roy Harper what doesn't appear in any other table (even-though the requirement is "This table includes main cast members, as well as notable guest stars that appear across two different series"). These mistakes are harder to catch if the character appearance is split between many other tables.

Here is an example of how I think the table should look like:

Character	Arrow Season 1 (2012–13)	Arrow Season 2 (2013–14)	Arrow Season 3 (2014–15)	The Flash Season 1 (2014–15)	Arrow Season 4 (2015–16)	The Flash Season 2 (2015–16)	Vixen Season 1 (2015)
John Diggle Spartan	David Ramsey
Laurel Lance Black Canary	Katie Cassidy
Quentin Lance	Paul Blackthorne
Sara Lance Canary / White Canary	Jacqueline MacInnes Wood	Caity Lotz
Barry Allen Flash		Grant Gustin		Grant Gustin Logan Williams	Grant Gustin	Grant Gustin Logan Williams	Grant Gustin
Cisco Ramon Vibe		Carlos Valdes
Caitlin Snow Killer Frost		Danielle Panabaker

This table-example solves all the above issues making it easier to follow the timeline of the characters and their appearances. --Gonnym (talk) 15:11, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe that is actually how it was originally and then it was changed to the current format.. i believe because it was getting too long... however I agree that the current format is almost unusable for the reasons stated above so i would agree with changing it back. Spanneraol (talk) 15:27, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

The current format might not be completely perfect, but I disagree that we should change back to the old format. Here's how it would look with the proposed format. Not only is it more confusing but since most of the series are no where near done, we will likely reach or even surpass the number of tables we currently have.

I kinda like that version better actually as it's easier to follow. I would think we could do away with the "introduced in season x" designations in that format as it should be obvious from the table when someone was introduced. Spanneraol (talk) 15:13, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

@Spanneraol and Brojam: I've been testing out some options, each with its own pros and cons, see User:Gonnym/sandbox/arrowverse. I personally prefer either options 2 or 3 as they seem easy to understand, read friendly and also editor friendly. Note on option 3, the empty cels should be filled with references. What do you think? --Gonnym (talk) 12:00, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Option 2 doesn't provide enough information.. we really do need the seasons. You don't need to include Constantine season 1 as it's not actually part of the Arrowverse.. just the character is not the show... Option 1 is most detailed but probably takes up too much space... I could go for option 3... i'm assuming the organization for it is alphabetical and the color coding will be used to specify if someone is a series regular, recurring, guest star, etc.? Spanneraol (talk) 16:42, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, order and color can be anything we decide. Currently, the option 1 order is alphabetical by season they appeared on by the order of the shows and continues with the same order in each table. In options 2 and 3 it's just alphabetical. The color in option 3 currently represents regular appearance and first appearance in the Arrowverse (no distinction between main/guest/recurring). We could add more but just beware that too many colors doesn't look good (see any reality TV season article). --Gonnym (talk) 17:01, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

@Brojam: any comments/input? --Gonnym (talk) 15:40, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Still don't see these as improvement. Option 2 is pretty much what we have at Arrowverse#Recurring cast and characters; it's just a summary. Option 3 fails WP:ACCESSIBILITY and becomes completely useless as you go down since you can't see the column headers. And still don't see the advantage of moving to Option 1. - Brojam (talk) 16:06, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I personally don't think that there needs to be two tables, one here and one at Arrowverse#Recurring cast and characters, but one table which is transcluded (or if there isn't enough to warrant a stand-alone article, which seems this article really does't, then just one table). Option #3 does not fail accessibility, which the current table does in many ways, so at least be correct about that, and I personally do need to think it becomes "completely useless", but I guess that is subjective. However, seeing as three editors are involved in this discussion, with two thinking there is a problem with the current one, it would be nice if you were more engaging in finding a solution. --Gonnym (talk) 17:01, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Another option for options #2 and #3, which would reduce the "uselessness" of them being long, is to split the tables into two tables. Main actors one and recurring/guest one (or main/recurring and guest split). That way both tables won't be that long and will be easier to read the column headers. --Gonnym (talk) 17:08, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi guys, I haven't been following this discussion but since I advocated/headed the initial change I feel like I should add my thoughts. I am not concerned if you guys want to change this to a system that is easier to follow, but I don't think changing it back to how it was is a good idea. The reason for the initial change was that one big table is just too unwieldy, with users on a slightly smaller screen (and probably many on regular sized screens) needing to scroll both vertically and horizontally to see it all. I also think that not listing the individual seasons defeats the purpose of this page all together. However, I don't have strong feelings on this at the moment, so I'm happy for this discussion just to go where it will without me. - adamstom97 (talk) 20:50, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Basically we have a problem with the number of characters that have crossed-over, but that is part of the show and something we need to work with. We can create smaller tables by separating main and recurring/guest, though those are still a bit longer. While I understand the idea of making smaller lists so people don't need to scroll a lot, the splitting of the information across 6 tables with 25 sub-headers doesn't really do that. I'm open to hear other suggestions other than those I gave to how we can better handle this, making reading and editing more easier. --Gonnym (talk) 10:14, 13 January 2019 (UTC)