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Talk:Game of Thrones Wiki/Pre-Season 5 Archive

Time to go mobile
Time to go mobile

Wikia made a Mobile App for the Wiki, starting in Season 5: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:The_Dragon_Demands/New_Free_Mobile_App_for_Game_of_Thrones_Wiki!

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 19:22, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

New Wiki-Skin for Season 5
As those of you returning may have noticed, the Admins got together with the Wikia staff a few months back to make a new Wiki-Skin for Season 5 - the skin should have been updated for Season 4 but was not, meaning that we got stuck for two years with those stupid character-head posters...with their dead fish-eyes staring out at us (they weren't good posters, why did we make them the wiki-skin?)

At any rate, for the first time since the beginning of Season 3, we have a new Wiki-skin (I also rebuilt the top navigation bar some months ago).

Up until a few weeks ago we were busy so unfortunately the templates were still grey-blue for white text, but now we have black text, making them illegible - I finally got around to fixing that though, it should be fine now.

However, I wonder if there are any minor tweaks we need to make to it, given that it doesn't display with the same proportions on every computer screen.

We may need to post screenshots of this. What does the wiki-skin look like to everyone else?

On my current computer it is decent...but the last half an inch or so of the wallpaper sidebars is just black, under the map images.

I've seen other computers (at work, library) which are square - unlike my laptop - and don't display it well at all.

So how is the wiki-skin showing up for everyone?

We need to make sure it displays properly and is fitted well with the sides, flush with the sides. Not sure how to do that but we might need to flag down the Wikia Tech team to help us make minor refinements to that.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:20, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

Front Page redesign for Season 5
The front page consists of a main section on the left, and a sidebar on the right.

Currently, going down in the main left column, we have:


 * Front page slider
 * Welcome to Game of Thrones Wiki message
 * Side-by-side first and last episode links

Obviously these stay where they are.

Then we have a series of collapsable navigation templates I made. Those take up some space but they greatly aid navigation and make it spiffy (actual content in the boxes, such as characters, is a separate matter).

Below that we have two large sections that didn't fit earlier, but which aren't near the top. Random visitors to the front page who scroll down an inch or two will see the top of the blue navboxes and scroll down some more, but these are down there.

First, we've got slots for two featured videos - use a lot of space, but generally important to have.

Then we have a Poll (going to make a new one after the premiere) which takes up a lot of space, but is at the bottom of the page so anyone going down that far would be taking the time to read it -- I mean what's the other option? Make the poll "more visible" by putting it at the top? Displacing "most recent episode?" Silly.

In the right hand column we have:


 * An advertisement video square we cannot control, next to the slider (roughly)
 * Featured article (currently the Sand Snakes) - Good.

Then we have:


 * About Game of Thrones
 * Spoiler Policy
 * Latest News
 * Recent edits
 * Contributing info

The right hand column only extends to the bottom of the video section, the poll is below that (and thus uneven).

We can't just make the poll wider (even if we could, with coding) because it's not as if the text is wrapped around multiple lines - that's just how much space one line questions take).

It makes sense to put the "Contributing" disclaimer stuff at the bottom, good.

I think "About Game of Thrones" and "Spoilers" go together, in that order, because they're explaining "we cover through the current aired episodes but not book spoilers".

Now on the one hand, this is kind of a disclaimer, meaning it doesn't need to be up top....but on the other hand, don't we want random new visitors to see it? Or would they bother reading it at all, instead of just charging into what they came to read about Jon Snow?

As for the "Live NewsFeed" and "Recent Changes"...some would say they're not necessary, but the right-hand column is so much shorter than the main left column (the poll sticks out at the bottom) that it actually needs to be longer, not shorter.

And then there's the contributing info tab, which kind of makes more sense next to the other disclaimers...

...okay, screw it, we need things that catch people's eye on the top computer-screen's worth of material, and news works better at that. Anyone reading the front page carefully would read all of it, scrolling down to read the disclaimers.

Therefore I'm going to put "News" and "Recent Changes" at the top, but under "Featured Article".

We might be able to even out the two sides a bit more if I could somehow add more than 5 entries each to News and Recent Changes -- though the current poll is also unusually long, later polls shouldn't be more than, I don't know, 3-5 options, that isn't as bad. We'll play around with the proportions, but moving them anywhere else is inadvisable. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:15, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

Btw I've finally replaced those long outdated front page navigation images - which were in a weird italicized font of uncertain origin - which new images which actually use a "Game of Thrones" style font. This should match up with the other navigation tables.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:32, April 26, 2015 (UTC)

Character nav box update
We've explanded from a four by four grid of 16 characters in the front page to 20, but now it's agreed to expand it to a five by five grid of 25 (anything wider wouldn't display properly).

So we have five new slots to fill.

The basic idea for these is that they're "viewpoint characters" who "carry" major portions of the storyline. In the novels they'd be POV characters, and often they are the same people, such as Arya Stark. A few storylines in the TV series are now shown from their own POV, i.e. the Tyrells.

The other thing to keep in mind is what I call the redundancy principle: if two main cast members are always together, their storylines overlap -- with a limited number of slots and a great need to prioritize, those that overlap aren't as vital. Example: we never see Rickon or Hodor without Bran, so Bran would stand for all of them (though even then those two aren't big enough, the scenes are structured around Bran). Thus one person who "carries" a storyline not seen by any other character might merit their own slot, i.e. when the camera spends a lot of time with Ygritte that doesn't involve Jon Snow during Season 4.

Most of these are kind of obvious, though. So right now, we've got:


 * Top row: "House Stark and close allies, who appear in Season 5" - Jon Snow, Samwell Tarly, Arya, Sansa, and Brienne of Tarth. Bran isn't in Season 5 so he's not in this.
 * Second row: "House Lannister" - Tywin and Joffrey are out, Cersei's younger two children are stepping up in the story, so it's: Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion, Tommen, Myrcella. Tommen might overlap a bit but he's important because he's the king, and Myrcella will have a bigger role in Season 5 which several subplots revolve around.
 * Third row: Stannis, Margaery, Littlefinger, Varys, Daenerys - each carries their own subplot, or represents a distinct faction (in fact, both, for all of them). A problem with Daenerys's storyline is that really, almost all of the characters she interacts with technically don't pass the "redundancy" test - we hardly ever saw her supporting cast when they weren't with her - though at least that was starting to change in Season 4. Anyway, no denying that these five on this row are worth inclusion.
 * Fourth row: Roose, Ramsay, Reek, Doran, the Sand Snakes - Roose and Ramsay are major villains, Reek is a viewpoint character of sorts (plus the only ironborn on here, given how much their subplots have been ignored since Season 2). Meanwhile, Doran the head of House Martell is the big new cast member in Season 5. The Sand Snakes were great because, apart from being important new characters, they have a group name, so they're a three-for-one: one box for three characters.

So who should be in the fifth row:

...thinking on it, Olenna and Loras, as they're fairly important this season and major characters people would be looking for.

I wouldn't put Ellaria or Trystane in because they're redundant with Doran or the Sand Snakes.

...we put Melisandre in because she's big this season and not always just doing stuff with Stannis in every scene. Davos, for the moment, seems to just be in every scene with Stannis, so unfortunately while important, he overlaps (in the novels, Stannis isn't a POV narrator, all of his scenes are told from Davos's POV narration). Again, the idea being that people randomly browsing who have no idea how to navigate the wiki beyond what they click on the front page would be able to use this character as an "access point": read the Stannis article, click on links in his article, branching out to all other articles in his storyline that he touches.

We'll put Tormund in because now that Ygritte is dead we need a wildling viewpoint, and he seems to be fairly prominent this season.

Lastly...there were not obvious choices beyond that (other than using Davos, who again I think is redundant)....so I decided, why not use Shireen? Apart from people liking her, reports say that Shireen is more prominent this season (understandably so; she's not just locked away in Dragonstone anymore, but interacting with everyone at Castle Black). --The Dragon Demands (talk) 19:37, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

Oh...thank you for the photos. Well if enough other people want Ellaria instead of Olenna, fine (by which I mean Gonzalo84 and QueenBuffy wanted it, so that votes me down two to one). The one thing though is you mixed up the photos to try to space them out, but I was trying to group them together (more or less) by faction/relation (not to say I was entirely successful). I'll take another stab at reshuffling them...--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:05, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Revisions following the mid-point of Season 5
Well episode 5 of 10 just aired, and I've been asked for some revisions to the character boxes:

Keeping to the "redundancy principle"...Tormund only really appears on-screen with Jon, and there are other more diverse subplots which could be better suited by other characters.

Conversely, Bronn was always with Tyrion then with Jaime, but he's such a well-developed and interesting character in his own right - increasing in importance now that he's joining the minor nobility - that I think a lot of people would be looking for him.

We didn't want to give away that Jorah would return back in the early episodes, but now he is being focused on quite a bit.

Barristan is out and Daario etc. only really appear in context of Daenerys, but Missandei has appeared prominently enough and in storylines separate from Daenerys to make her worth listing (for more than one person in the Daenerys storyline).

So Davos and Melisandre overlapped too much with Stannis - and it turns out that Melisandre will be going WITH Stannis instead of staying at the Wall with her own storyline. I do think Shireen merits her own slot given how much more focus she's had in the first half of Season 5.

So we'd switch out Melisandre for Jorah, and I think Ellaria Sand for Missandei -- Ellaria is too redundant with "Sand Snakes" story-wise.

And while we're at it, might as well replace Tormund with Bronn. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:59, May 11, 2015 (UTC)

Front page News feed
The front page news feed is terrible.

It's just a Google News list of sorts of the top "trending" news, not actual news.

And the mainstream media attempts to discuss the series have earned my disgust and contempt.

Do we really need to know what Buzzfeed has to say in its review? Reviews are not news. Even insightful reviews from major and reputable sources such as io9.com or AintItCool.com, Entertainment Weekly or the New York Times. They have to go.

Then we have the problem that larger news sites like Entertainment Weekly often repeat badly sourced rumors as fact, causing a sensation, which ends up in our news feed.

For example, last November the news was very slow, so when the mainstream news heard that Charles Dance was returning in Season 5 to "play" Tywin, they exploded in speculation that he was coming back from the dead...

...when any idiot who read the books could have easily squashed that rumor by pointing out "his funeral is a major scene at the beginning of the next novel, he'll probably be playing his corpse".

I mean, even TV-only viewers - the attentive ones - mostly must have assumed "he's coming back to play his corpse"....I mean, outside chance some TV-viewers might have pondered "will be be back for flashbacks?" -- but so do book-readers....and, as we've seen, the show hates using flashbacks, so unlikely.

But seriously; they jumped onto "Tywin will come back as a wight" or something, and this went on for weeks - god-damned weeks - rather than bothering to fact-check the obvious?

I half-think they knew, but without any other "news", just needed something to sensationalize.

Well, It's time to put them on a shorter leash.

On top of this...a lot of "news" just reports on what the actors are doing...things that have utterly nothing to do with the TV show.

Paraphrasing Jaime's famous line from the novel, when Meryn says he did what Joffrey told him without question, because he can't just "decide" what orders to follow immediately and what others he should ask a superior to double-check (the blind thinking that got Ned executed), Jaime says in frustration: "If Tommen asks you to saddle his horse, you should probably do that without hesitation. If he tells you to kill his horse, you should probably confirm it with me first." Ugh.

Thus "Emilia Clarke cast as the new Sarah Connor in huge Terminator franchise film" -- is probably news. "Emilia Clarke does cover shoot with Esquire that has no new information about Game of Thrones"...is NOT "news".

Wait...ack, the news is actually an RSS feed; I never use those.

My new solution is to delete the auto-generated news ticker, and just have the Administrators update it by hand.

Some simple guidelines for what is "not news", and should appear on the front page:


 * Reviews that pop up in Google Search are not "news".
 * Unless they said something significant about the TV show, not just "yeah it's great working on it, and my character has a dark season ahead", actor interviews or photo shoots with magazines are not "news" either. Conversely, a 5 page long magazine interview in which Lena Headey discusses her entire acting career might be news, but a two paragraph red carpet interview is probably not. Only if it's significant or substantive. This extends beyond magazines to media appearances: if Lena Headey makes a guest appearance on Seth Meyers or Jimmy Kimmel and verbally gives an interview, the same rules apply: if it was in-depth and contained significant information, it is "news". It can even be "significant" if she makes a very unique joke - i.e. "Lena pretends to be drunken Cersei doing improv insults" -- might be newsworth.
 * Above all, such print or video interviews, with no significantly new information but with fun bits from the actors, aren't "prioritized" but not necessarily excluded: if it's a slow news day in August, yes, we'd probably run that news. During the middle of an actively airing TV season? Other things would probably come up which take priority given the limited number of spots on the front page.
 * References in popular culture to Game of Thrones are not "news" unless they are particularly significant: "local politician cracks a Game of Thornes joke" probably isn't news, "South Park does a Game of Thrones episode" probably is news.
 * Most statements made by George R.R. Martin or staff writers on the TV series are usually news (Benioff, Weiss, Cogman, Hill, Taylor). Even then, sometimes they're just appearing at a red carpet and repeating a generic line about the show, but not saying anything "significantly new" - which is what would make it "news" - information that does not appear elsewhere.
 * Similarly, major interviews with the design team or production crew are at times important enough to put on the front page, i.e. "massive 5 page interview with David Peterson about creating Valyrian" or "massive 5 page interview with Michele Clapton about costume design".
 * Anything stupid enough to post a spoiler that we wouldn't post here isn't news we'd want to link to -- particularly some that even put the spoilers IN THEIR HEADLINES. Dear god, I've seen headlines on the auto-generated RSS feeds that...are the equivalent of saying "Robb Stark dies this week!" before the Red Wedding actually aired. Because it's based on viewcount popularity, not any screening. That was another reason for gutting this out of the wiki, to avoid spoilers posted in headlines.

For example, this "Life Lessons We Learned from Game of Thrones" by People magazine appeared in our front page news ticker today: http://www.people.com/article/game-of-thrones-life-lessons

This is not "news". It is an insult to consider this "news".

What, then, are trusted news sources? Apart from, as explained before, "significant" interviews with Martin and the scriptwriters?


 * Westeros.org - home of the A Wiki of Ice and Fire that we interlink with, Martin's go-to fansite, run by Elio and Linda who serve as fact checkers for Martin and co-wrote A World of Ice and Fire with him. They focus more on in-depth books to TV comparisons, slow but very measured responses to "news".
 * WatchersOnTheWall.com - biggest and most reliable news site for day-by-day news. They do half the work for us of filtering out the "actual news" from the "not real news".
 * For both Westeros.org and WatchersonTheWall.com, also rely on them as news aggregators. That is, sometimes they have "original news" based on spy reports they get from the set. Other times, they might just repost a link to a long interview Martin did with Vulture.com -- in which case, you don't need to link to WatchersOnTheWall.com directly, but post the direct link to the actual article they're talking about.
 * A few other sites have reliable news - I've noticed Den Of Geek for example - and also a few others such as AintItCool.com, io9.com, TheMarySue.com, etc. -- though usually anything they'd post on Westeros.org or WOTW.com got too first.

Between the two of them, Westeros.org and WatchersOnTheWall.com aggregate most news we'd need - as would their forums and comments sections. These are the main hubs. Otherwise we shouldn't really be wasting that much time searching for news, just reposting links to news they already reported on which seems "informationally significant".

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 23:08, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

Navigation: Noble Houses
I'm updating the Noble Houses navigation pane.

They come in rows of five, and I think it obvious to include the 13 major "Great Houses" - 7 Kingdoms plus the Riverlands and Crownlands, then the Boltons and Freys usurping in the North and Riverlands (for eleven), and then two sub-branches of House Baratheon, yields 13. What I was doing up to now was listing Karstark and Florent: Karstark because they were important at the time in Season 3, and Florent because - while not mentioned prominently - they are the main rivals to the Tyrells in the Reach and claim they have more right to Highgarden (plus Selyse is a Florent, they remain one of Stannis's few main supporters, and Shireen and Samwell are half-Florent). It kind of gave the Florents "near-Great House" status. I needed to fill out the row.

Anyway I just added another row. The selection process was based on "who is important as a faction in the TV show", which is very simplified from the novels. By this criterion, "House Tarth" and "House Baelish" don't really count: House Tarth as a political entity has not appeared, only the individual Brienne of Tarth - who is already represented in the character boxes anyway. Littlefinger, meanwhile, is the only living member of House Baelish, and he acts much more as an individual than as a member of "a House", with his own retinue and servants from the Fingers. Again, redundant with him being in the character boxes.

So the five extra ones I picked for now are: Mormont, Umber, Reed, Stokeworth, Forrester. I put "Forrester" in there to throw a bone to the video game stuff. Umber and Mormont...haven't been mentioned as prominently recently, they're not as big as they were in the novels, but still of some importance to the Northern storyline. The novels focus more on the North's vassal Houses - in contrast, the TV viewers don't really need to instantly know who the Marbrands and Leffords are in the Westerlands. House Reed...while not appearing as a political faction, last two years we had two characters from it, and they...allude to their presence harassing the ironborn at Moat Cailin.

Stokeworth I put in given their introduction in Season 5.

IF the Manderlys were included in Season 5 I'd have put them in, given how important they are in the novels at this point.

Other options were Clegane, Tarly, Redwyne, Blackwood, Bracken, Mallister....but they haven't really been as active as political factions that casual viewers would need to know about. They've been mentioned in passing (again, Samwell isn't really representative of the Tarlys as a political faction, Olenna is in it but she's really more a Tyrell). Clegane as a faction isn't that important as they're just a knightly House, though top servants of the Lannisters - and with both Gregor and Sandor out of commission, it didn't seem worth it. I didn't include Blackfyre because they've never been mentioned in the live-action episodes, only the animated featurettes.

Otherwise, I don't think there are any other major vassal Houses that would merit being on the front page, unless some other ones start getting mentioned more prominently.

So now we've got 20 Houses in there, 13 are locked in, and we might rearrange the other 7 depending on what focus the rest of Season 5 has.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 16:30, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Don't link to WiC.net
Meanwhile, "Fansided's WinterIsComing.net" remains blacklisted.

See this forum discussion we had some months ago:

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:WinterIscoming.net_is_plagiarizing_Game_of_Thrones_Wiki

Long story short:


 * WinterIsComing.net became one of the premiere fansites for daily news updates and in-depth analysis of the TV series, next to Westeros.org (which has ties with the author himself, and is more based on the books and predates the TV series, and focuses more on in-depth analysis).
 * The owner of WiC.net retired a few months before Season 4 began due to personal life reasons. He sold the site to sports news aggregator/website collective FanSided.com.
 * FanSided proceeded to run WiC.net into the ground, and horribly abused the entire original writing staff - who were all volunteers who worked for free, and never signed any contracts.
 * The original fansite wasn't "for profit", but Fansided wanted to turn a profit on it. So they set unrealistically high, astronomically high production quotas.
 * Fansided...bizarrely, really only wanted to buy the brand name "WinterIsComing.net", and treated the original writing staff (8-10 people, four core writers plus commentators) as unwanted baggage. Nor did they seemingly know how to make a "Game of Thrones News Site" at all.
 * They went so far as to...try to turn the site into a poorly made ripoff of the success of the "Talking Dead" franchise for "The Walking Dead". The original staff were Game of Thrones experts through years of working on this, but Fansided...hired D-list local actors with no particular insight to host a poor copy of "The Talking Dead", which they called "The WiC.net Live Show" (airing "Live" after each episode). They didn't even tell the original writing staff they were going to do this until a week before the Season 4 premiere.
 * As insider reports from the writing staff later said...Fansided genuinely ran a truck off a cliff, and never paused to measure how much "content" they could plausibly produce relative to the astronomically high quotas they had set. Basically, they had...apparently assumed that their Live Show would be a runaway success on the scale of The Talking Dead...granted this TV show is as big, but they're not a cable TV channel! They don't have enough publicity to grow into something that big, that fast...even if they had great commentators, and not just average viewers who appeared on it for a pay check. Now you'd think they'd at least...wait a few weeks to see how it did, if the numbers grew. But apparently the numbers were so bad that by around the second episode of Season 4, they were outright horrified. How high did they assume the ratings would be, and how low did they have to really be in comparison, to justify being shocked by two weeks into it? Pretty low.
 * Not pulling enough revenue in to justify the expense of even making the Live Show, they started frantically producing other "filler" content to meet their website viewcount quotas. To stress: they never planned to do this, the writers who later quit stated that in a blind panic, the Fansided team started frantically producing fluff filler articles. One of these was the "Weapons of Westeros" video series...which was actually ripping off wiki articles (by the end, they were near-verbatim copies). **By the end, they resorted to making stories on "Tyrion flavored martinis, the Tiny Tyroni!" -- what does that even mean, a Tyrion "inspired" drink? Nor were they "reporting" on these drinks...they had the Live Show staff try to come up with alcoholic drink mixing tips. I mean they were just...total nonsequitors.
 * The original writing staff was being forced to prioritize the Live Show over their own written recaps and reviews of the episodes! That is, to police the comments sections, wasting time they needed to write their own material. It's...it's as if they were squatters on their own website. There was no communication between the two groups: the original writing staff, and the FanSided video team, who kept posting filler material because they had terrible ratings...to the point that they were copying from Game of Thrones Wiki.
 * The drinks videos were a real breaking point, the "Tiny Tyrioni" in particular was seen as Ableist and mocking Tyrion's disability...and when the original writing staffers complained they got yelled at. It was obvious they were no longer masters in their own house. Fansided had bought a major fansite, promptly sidelined the skilled writing staff they paid money to "buy", then hired D-list actors who just happened to watch the show, and assume that they could replace the original staff's writing quality?
 * So a few months after Season 4 ended, in August the entire writing staff of WinterIsComing.net - who had been working there since Season 1 - quit en masse and set up a new fansite, WatchersOnTheWall.com -- which is basically the OLD WiC.net in all but name. Direct comparisons were drawn to the Simpsons episode when the Stonecutters reform into the "No Homers Club". NO ONE remained behind.
 * Fansided stupidly abused a writing staff who had built that fansite...who were working for free, with no contract...and also never bothered to make them sign non-compete clauses in any contract. Normally a non-compete clause says that you can't quit and form a rival website. Had they bothered to invest any attention in the original, skilled writing staff, they wouldn't have made such a boneheaded and obvious oversight.
 * It stupidly never occurred to Fansided that all of the on-location reporters, set spies, and local sources in Northern Ireland and Croatia...were contacts the original writing staff personally developed and maintained, who had no loyalty or legal obligation to Fansided. When the original writing staff left, they took all of their unique local sources and contacts with them. Fansided truly never realized how precious the original writing staff was before alienating them by prioritizing their own crappy "Live Show" attempt - and by "crappy" I mean what Fansided admitted privately: it wasn't pulling in nearly enough ratings to sustain itself financially.
 * For the next couple of months through Christmas, "FanSided's WinterIsComing.net" (as we now call it to distinguish it from the original writing staff's previous work)...has gone through a revolving door of staffers and head editors-in-chief. Things have been a bit more stable since new years but...they're just a news aggregator now, repeating stuff other news sites like Entertainment Weekly or People.

HBO's publicity department also considers WatchersOnTheWall.com significant enough to give them advanced screener copies of episodes. The TV writers like Cogman know the writers on WatchersONTheWall.com.

Therefore, given that:


 * WatchersOnTheWall.com actually is the "WiC.net team" from the first four years of the TV show.
 * "Fansided's WinterIsComing.net" are morons, who have no idea how to run a news site and have no particularly insightful Game of Thrones commentary to make, and are now mostly just repeating other news sources anyway (to the point that their new hires have absent-mindedly reported on and linked to exclusive reports at WatchersOnTheWall.com itself).
 * Fansided's WinterIsComing.net has extensively plagiarized Game of Thrones Wiki material, infringing on the copyrights of our intellectual property, and made no attempt to either A - remove the content or B - at least put a disclaimer on it crediting the wiki

Fansided's WinterIscoming.net is blacklisted as a news source. We self-consciously hope that they will shut down entirely, as more and more readers realize that all of the original writers that built that original site simply rebranded as "WatchersOnTheWall.com". They are not welcome here or anywhere anymore. The internet chatter for the past year (on Westeros.org, reddit, etc.) is how Fansided is just a naked corporate grab at buying something they have no idea how to run. This isn't just "tense silence around them" - they are pariahs online and in fandom now. Hopefully soon they'll be just a memory.

So never link to them as a news source, or cite them in any article. If you see something they've linked to, just post the source (if you happen to see a WiC.net post linking to a Vogue article...why not just directly use the Vogue article?)...and it's unlikely they'll ever get exclusives again, the cast members gravitated to giving interviews with the original writers at WOTW.com (who they already knew, through four years of building up contacts!). In the unlikely even that they present some entirely new information, bring it to the attention of an Administrator here via our Talk pages so we can decide what to do.

Otherwise, continue further discussion on this matter at the forum link I posted above. I only made this repost here because I just archived the past several years worth of Talk page discussions on this Talk page for the wiki's Front Page, and I wanted to make sure casual users (who often check here first) would see it.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 22:57, April 12, 2015 (UTC)

Dear Lord, the "revolving door of Editors-in-Chief" continues over at WIC: it turns out that that Rowan Kaiser guy himself stopped working there after around the third episode of Season 5. So how many is that since the original writing staff left? I think Kaiser was the third one? And the other two were in the off season given that the break with the old writers happened after the Season 4 finale? Yikes, three episodes in and the Editor in Chief leaves? This stuff is comedy gold. I've also noticed that the specific commentator who was doing those "Weapons of Westeros" videos ripping off our wiki mysteriously did not return for this season, haha.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:41, June 10, 2015 (UTC)

Front page poll
I wish you hadn't changed the poll. It was more relevant since we finally just got to see the premiere after almost a year. 16:35, April 13, 2015 (UTC)

Ack...you're right, I hadn't thought of this...in the off-season there was so little activity that the poll didn't seem that big, but now we might end up disagreeing on what to make as a new poll. Our traffic is higher in the on-season and we have more to discuss.

Well, the poll I took down was "how would you rate the most recent episode: Good, Bad, or Average?" -- Generally I think that most people who are reading a GOT wiki like the show, and those kinds of polls are kind of bland, compared to a specific question about the most recent episode, such as "Was Robb Stark right to execute Rickard Stark"? etc.

So I figured for the first episode of Season 5, given how unprecedented it is to have a flashback, why not ask, "what do you think of them using flashbacks? Was it too confusing or do you want more?"

...Every Sunday night in Season 5 we would probably need to discuss on the Talk page here what the next poll should be, before we change it. Yeah, I didn't think this through I was just jumping to get it changed.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:47, April 13, 2015 (UTC)

I think the episode 2 poll should be "Who would you have voted for in the Night's Watch election?


 * Alliser Thorne
 * Denys Mallister
 * Write-in candidate

Maybe. I mean originally I thought the election would last more than one episode, leaving us on a cliffhanger.

Any other poll ideas?

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 16:32, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if Jon declines Stannis' offer in this episode, but if not, it could be "Should Jon accept Stannis's offer about the thing it is about." Or something like "What were your first thoughts about Dorne and Prince Doran?" But I like yours, we should use it. I don't think we need a third option for that, unless the show has more candidates. --Gladiatus (talk) 16:58, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, spoilers reveal that whatever happens, it's not a cliffhanger left over for the next episode.

Er...what about "Should Daenerys show mercy to the insurgents in Meereen?"

Open ended question with no real "correct" answer, those are always good. Needs better phrasing.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 17:01, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, just saw the episode. I think the question about Dany and mercy would be good, or the one "who would you have voted for in the Night's Watch election." --Gladiatus (talk) 13:28, April 20, 2015 (UTC)

...I'm leaning towards "what should Dany have done" more now.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 18:08, April 20, 2015 (UTC)

I made this week's about greyscale following episode 5. I'm sorry but I couldn't think of anything obvious for episode 4.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:53, May 11, 2015 (UTC)

This week's poll something about Sansa and Ramsay's wedding night? --Gladiatus (talk) 14:32, May 18, 2015 (UTC)

...I hadn't thought about it; options?--The Dragon Demands (talk) 14:43, May 18, 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I wanted to run these poll options by everyone first:

"Sansa marrying Ramsay is an invention of the TV series, in the novels she never even meets the Boltons, but remains in the Vale and out of the main plotlines. Do you think:


 * If they couldn't do Sansa's storyline from the books, they should have just had her not appear in Season 5 at all, the way they did with her brother Bran.
 * It was better to condense Sansa with the Bolton subplot so she actually gets important stuff to do in Season 5 - even if Sansa is being terrorized by Ramsay
 * It was better to condense Sansa with the Bolton subplot so she actually gets important stuff to do in Season 5 - and I suspect that Sansa is only pretending to be frightened by Ramsay, to lull him into a false sense of security.

Thoughts on this? --The Dragon Demands (talk) 13:42, May 20, 2015 (UTC)

The Gift
The episode airs today, not 31st of May. --Gladiatus (talk) 16:48, May 24, 2015 (UTC)

Administrator from Lithuanian GOT Wiki
Hi! I am writing to you with request to add Lithuanian language interwiki link in your's main page.

Ačiū! (Thanks!)

Lithuanian GOT Wiki Administrator

--Controlnet (talk) 19:57, October 28, 2015 (UTC)

Season 6 Teaser Poster
I have noticed that on the main page of this wiki that underneath the heading "Welcome to the Game of Thrones Wiki" is a poster for Season 6 that isn't the newest teaser poster, which is under the sub-heading "Next Episode". I am unable to change this, but I was wondering if someone else could.

Thanks!

SparkySparkyBoomWoman (talk) 10:15, December 9, 2015 (UTC)

Season 6 promo images and slider update
Ah, the first wave of Season 6 promo image has arrived:

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/exclusive-pictures-season-6

I'm going to be updating the 4 slots in the news slider on the front page now (also I'm getting back to other updates, I've been away for a few weeks due to family medical emergencies).

I'm freeing up all four slots by taking out the iPhone one (Staff said it's inactive now), and I'm going to take out the video game one at least until the Season 6 premiere because they're a bit inactive for the moment, already have a space further down on the front page, and we kind of need all four slots to handle all of the big Season 6 news.

Anyway, what's a good image for a "Season 6" slider photo? That is, the first photo will be a link to "Season 6!" My current choices out of the new batch of images are:


 * 1 - Jaime reuniting with Cersei
 * 2 - Bran and the Three Eyed raven in a greensight vision (walking round as he did with Jojen in past ones)
 * 3 - Blind Arya

Not going to use the Greyjoys for Season 6 because I'm just updating the Kraken sigil slider to the Yara one.

Any thoughts? On this and other stuff?--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:57, February 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * Alright, I went with Bran and the Three-eyed raven (it's a two-fer; we haven't seen Bran in a full year, and also deals with role being recast with Max von Sydow); then Yara image for Greyjoys; then 3rd slider image of Blackfish Tully pointing out that the Tully/Frey Riverlands subplot is back.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 22:23, February 11, 2016 (UTC)

Major Front page updates for Season 6
I'm going to be updating the front page dropdown navboxes for Season 6.

I just finished a quick update to the open Character navbox. This is just a stop-gap update, we'll know more after the first Season 6 teaser trailer tomorrow night.

The changes I made were: Stannis replaced with Davos, Myrcella replaced with Yara, Shireen replaced with Bran, Loras replaced with Brynden Tully.

Otherwise, I'm on the fence about still including Doran, Ellaria, and the Sand Snakes (at least, all three of these). But we'll get a better idea after the Season 6 teaser - these three are subject to change (i.e. if we find out Loras is actually featured prominently next year, he's top of the list and will replace Ellaria).

All of the character navbox artwork needs to be updated with new ones. Some of them don't fit squarely into the box proportions. Again, this was purely a stopgap measure to quickly update the navbox - function over style for now.

Okay I just finished a MASSIVE new update to the front page, I don't anticipate needing to update the front page to such an extent again:


 * Added a "Seven Kingdoms of Westeros" dropdown menu.
 * Added another full row to "Organizations"
 * Added another full row to "Religions"
 * Added another full row to "Beyond the Wall"
 * Added another two full rows to "Beyond Westeros"
 * Added another two full rows to "Locations"
 * Added another three full rows to "Culture and Society"

Might need to play around with the font sizes and centering of the menu titles some tie in the future, etc., but all of the functionality is there now for expanding the dropdown menus.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 05:54, February 14, 2016 (UTC)

Season 6 front page character navbox
If anyone wants better images please just better images of these characters up and I'll add them in - I'm busy updating the other menus.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 17:02, February 13, 2016 (UTC)

"All of the character navbox artwork needs to be updated with new ones. Some of them don't fit squarely into the box proportions. Again, this was purely a stopgap measure to quickly update the navbox - function over style for now."

I can do this. Xanderen (talk) 11:22, February 14, 2016 (UTC)

So, yay or nay? I don't want to tread on any toes, or anything... Xanderen (talk) 10:48, February 15, 2016 (UTC)

Well yeah, load up new files and we'll see what we get.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 04:16, February 19, 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, done. I've uploaded new files that all have a uniformed format, are all the same size, and all have the same file extension. Previously it was a bit of a jumbled mess, and now it should be easier to edit. I was also wondering if the High Sparrow could be added... maybe in place of the Sand Snakes? He's much more significant than they are, and Doran is already representing for the Martells. The Crow's Eye should also be added when an image of him becomes available. Xanderen (talk) 10:52, February 19, 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I put in all of yours with a few exceptions: On Row 1, I kept the old Jon photo because it was a good closeup of his face (yours was in profile from the side). Row 3 the only new one I used was Brienne: I think the old Daenerys, Margaery, Samwell, and Varys ones were just clearer (and did form neat squares already). The new Samwell Season 6 preview photo you took this from, for example, just wasn't a very high resolution image of Samwell's face. Not like Arya or Bran whose appearance changes a lot between seasons. Row 4, similarly, I stuck with the old Melisandre photo because it was a better closeup of her face compare to the Season 6 promo image which was a wider shot.

Otherwise great, I fully used all of what you made for Row 2 and Row 5.

One request for change: The Arya image from Season 6 is a good choice, but in the final version it kind of cuts off the top part of her forehead. Can you resize the cropping to include her whole head, then re-upload it under the same image file name? (thus I won't even have to change the name of the image file used in the table).

...Yeah...two out of three Martells were up for grabs, probably better to use the High Sparrow...

As soon as we get a good promo image of Euron we'll switch out Ellaria for it.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 19:59, February 20, 2016 (UTC)


 * Cool, I've adjusted the Arya one for you. Next task? Xanderen (talk) 10:31, February 21, 2016 (UTC)


 * Ack, now the Arya image is too zoomed out; keep the topline what it currently is (keeping the top of her head in), but crop it square so that the bottom line stops just below the bottom of her hair.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:34, February 21, 2016 (UTC)
 * How's that? Xanderen (talk) 08:41, February 23, 2016 (UTC)


 * Vertical cutoff is perfect, but now it isn't perfectly square to the frame. Crop the left and right sides a bit to make it best fit, and we should be good to go.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:19, February 26, 2016 (UTC)


 * Oops, sorry, my mistake. I got the dimensions wrong, it should be okay now. Xanderen (talk) 12:55, February 26, 2016 (UTC)


 * You did everything I asked, and it was perfect. However, looking at it finished, I realize that showing all of her hair zoomed it out too much - I want to show off those creepy blind contacts she's wearing. So I actually got up and invested the time to play with it myself to get the proportions right. Should be working fine now...--17:15, February 26, 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, but now it doesn't fit in the box perfectly... you'll notice that there is more black space on the right hand side on Arya's box than any of the others. Also, the file you've uploaded is massive... the rest are all the same size: 122 x 90. That's the size they need to be in order to fit correctly. Yours is 1,176 × 882. Xanderen (talk) 19:53, February 26, 2016 (UTC)

Blast, I'm bad at this. Well can you re-crop yours to match the proportions I did? (Including the top of Arya's head, and ending in the middle of her neck - including all of her hair made her overall head smaller in the finished box.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 19:55, February 26, 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, check it. Xanderen (talk) 20:07, February 26, 2016 (UTC)

Ah, now it's perfect. And now we wait for a good Euron image (which will replace Ellaria).--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:30, February 26, 2016 (UTC)


 * Cool. Next task? Xanderen (talk) 09:04, February 27, 2016 (UTC)

Dunno - some of the images for other menu bars aren't squared but what I could find at the moment. More generally, other articles need screenshot updates from Season 5, particularly Meereen, Winterfell, etc.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:06, February 27, 2016 (UTC)


 * Consider it done. I'll start with the noble houses and work my way down. Xanderen (talk) 20:51, February 27, 2016 (UTC)

Hmmmm....High Sparrow image is kind of worrying me; because he's leaning forward part of his face gets covered up by the "High Sparrow" text; may need to swap out for another.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 07:28, March 2, 2016 (UTC)

Doran should probably be replaced with Euron. He should make his first appearance next episode, so maybe wait until then, as we don't have a good picture of him at the moment. --Gladiatus (talk) 18:44, April 25, 2016 (UTC)

Front page navbox images Season 6
Can I make a request/suggestion? That the Tarlys be added, since they're due to appear this season. The Stokeworths really aren't that significant... neither are the Florents. Xanderen (talk) 21:21, February 28, 2016 (UTC)

Ack, I thought they were in it. Let me see...--The Dragon Demands (talk) 22:00, February 28, 2016 (UTC)


 * Not meaning to interrupt, but I would also recommend the Whitehills, since the Forresters are up there, it would make sense. - InGen Nate Kenny (talk) 23:13, March 1, 2016 (UTC)


 * I put them in the box in sets of five, you see, to make even rows. Yes I've considered the Whitehills but we don't really have another set of five major Houses. Let's see now. Tarly, Whitehill....three others would be needed. Blackfyre probably.


 * You see the "Noble Houses" section idea is for "Houses as factions that TV viewers need to know"; House Redwyne is important but has not really been mentioned by name or had characters with speaking lines. House Clegane? Not really a faction so much as a character. Blackwood and Bracken similarly haven't been introduced prominently...


 * Some other "Houses as sub-factions" will appear in Season 6; I'll expand to another row if and when they introduce the Manderleys and everyone else. Hopefully some ironborn? Right now it's a bit premature. It's not supposed to be every House, just the important ones in the storyline.


 * For the moment I'm switching out Stokeworth with Tarly. The next row will be Whitehill, Stokeworth, Blackfyre...maybe Clegane...probably Manderley.....I'm hoping for updates...--The Dragon Demands (talk) 07:00, March 2, 2016 (UTC)


 * I would recommend dropping Stokeworth entirely. There isn't a clear enough image of their symbol. It just looks like a brownish blur, and the family aren't significant to the plot at all. I would suggest Hornwood in their place. While not massively important, at least we know they're going to be included this year. Xanderen (talk) 09:35, March 2, 2016 (UTC)

Season 6 character navbar update
I'm updating the top navbar's "Characters" tab for Season 6:

The first four have only minor changes:
 * Stark - no changes
 * Lannister - I swapped out "Bronn" for "Gregor Clegane"
 * Bolton/Frey - I removed "Reek" and added in Harald Karstark as a placeholder - there wasn't really another prominent tenth entry we haven't put in already, unless something more important comes up in Season 6 itself.
 * Targaryen - I sadly took out Barristan and Drogo (being dead), in order to add in Varys and Jorah Mormont.

The other three we had were more complicated: Baratheon, Martell, and a mixed grab-bag I threw together called "At Court" - which isn't accurate anymore given how widely the characters in it moved apart. We also left out the Greyjoys entirely given how little they were being featured (in fact, not at all in Season 5) but they're coming back with a vengeance this season.

We are physically limited to no more than 7 columns (and the names have to fit).

Therefore, I have recreated "Tyrell" as a character tab: because we're using the tabs for "House Tyrell as a faction", not just the family but including vassals. Now House Tyrell of itself only has four major characters (Mace, Olenna, Margaery, Loras), raising the problem from past seasons that it doesn't work well as a standalone tab with so few entries -- but this is entirely solved this season, in which we're getting introduced to the rest of House Tarly, who are their vassals. Plus I had to move Samwell Tarly out of another list.

And the numbers worked out perfectly with another six entries: "House Tarly", Randyll, Melessa, Samwell, Dickon, Talla.

With so many characters reshuffled, however, the next two were more tricky: I removed the "At Court" catch-all category, and everyone is so spread out at this point, that I instead created a tab generically called "Allies & Enemies". Problem was that this was simply too long and wouldn't fit on the bar, so I had to rename it to the slightly more clunky "Allies & Foes": even that was too long, so I shortened it to just "Allies".


 * Brienne of Tarth
 * Ser Bronn
 * Pycelle
 * Melisandre
 * Lyanna Mormont - purely a placeholder (we've she's in Season 6)
 * House Baratheon - generic link, purely because they are/were another Great House
 * Davos Seaworth
 * Gendry
 * House Arryn
 * Littlefinger

Really just a catch-all for "important" secondary characters that couldn't fit into other lists due to their length limitations (we can only have seven columns with ten entries each).

Lastly, I shoved together "Martells & Greyjoys" into one dropdown menu - they are UNRELATED, this was purely due to space limitations - Greyjoy is only half as long as the rest, while Martell could be plausibly shortened. The goal is to ease your navigation so you can just hover and click a link instead of having to type the name into the search bar.

The tab link is to "House Martell", then it lists Doran, Oberyn, Ellaria, Trystane, and the Sand Snakes (three for one). The remaining five spots are "House Greyjoy", Theon, Yara, Euron, and Aeron Damphair.

I think this should suit our needs better in Season 6.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 14:31, April 23, 2016 (UTC)