<p>Well, I'm trying to eliminate the "secret/public" part, which happens in the current version at "| Identity". Is that the "dual" part? Because this gets rid of that. Trying also to replace the "| CurrentAlias" and "| Alias" thingies with a sequential series of identities, thus not compel the editor to decide which secret identity is the "real" secret identity. </p><p>Here's a worst-case example:
| RealName = Kal-El (New Earth)
| Identity2 = Clark Joseph Kent
| Identity3 = Superboy
| Identity4 = Superman
| Identity5 = Clark Smith
| Identity6 = Clark White
| Identity7 = Commander El
| Identity8 = Gangbuster
| Identity9 = Nightwing
| Identity10 = Superman Red/Blue
| Identity11 = Kellel
</p>

<p>Stress on "worst". </p><p>As for alias, I'm actually working on a way to change the parameter's name from CurrentAlias to MainAlias, but it's something that needs to be changed on 27000+ pages so I want to extra sure before I break things. </p><p>It's not uncommon for wikis to have a tabber with multiple images in the infobox, for example unmasked, and all major looks. That's not something I'm willing to dismiss off-hand but it's going to take a lot of work. </p>

<p>Supey wasn't just picked at random for this example; he's got the longest and therefore complicatedest history of all. After Black Canary, of course. And Hawkman. </p>

<p>I would guess that Earth-One Superman would be even worse. How about an H-Dialer? </p>

<p>I hate all of this discussion and I want it to die in a fire. The problem isn't "when is it secret and when is it not," the problem is "is the infobox the most current information for this version of the character, or the information most representative of their cumulative history?" </p><p>Neither is ideal. </p><p>Suffice it to say, the infoboxes aren't designed for nuance. Anything about "it was public but now it isn't" is information best left to Notes sections or larger, more detailed sections within the character history. </p><p>If we want to get into thresholds as to when an identity is secret and when it isn't: </p>

• It seems most reasonable that an identity is <i>always</i> Public for people who don't <i>have</i> a secret identity. This "non-dual" thing is garbage. I might not know who any of you are in real life, but your identities are public, in as much as you are not intentionally keeping them secret. Perry White's identity is public. Lois Lane's identity is public.
• For the sake of clarity, I think it makes most sense to only list a secret identity as public if the "outing" of their identity was a plotpoint. For example, any of the recent stories where Superman's ID was made public, that story where Oliver Queen outs himself as Green Arrow, etc.
• The fact that other super-heroes/friends and family know someone's identity is not enough to make it public. Ostensibly, the other heroes/friends and family are expected to keep the identity secret.
• While logically, in the real world, supervillains who get arrested couldn't have secret identities, it doesn't seem practical in terms of cataloguing the information, that we would change their identities to public as soon as it is revealed and they're caught.

<p>So, again, I think the real question is, do we want to keep the infoboxes most-up-to-date with current events, or most representative of character history? If we're going to do both in the same infobox, we should probably clearly indicate/decide <i>somewhere</i>, which fields are which. </p>

<p>The main problem with the infobox is that it automatically categorized everything, so it has limited input. But it doesn't actually <i>need</i> to categorize anything. The categories are so big they're innavigable. Noone's going to see "gee, which heroes have a public identity". The overreliance on categories is just annoyinh. It was interesting in 2006, but it's overkill. Categorizing characters by identity, marital status and hair color is pointless. Not to mention the bad portability and the SEO drain. </p><p>With SMW and maybe Cargo too, we could at least use Concept: for listing specific template parameters, but alas we're not getting that. </p>

<p>I could get behind ditching the categorization on that field, and using them to link to concept pages for secret identity and public identity. With the caveat that those pages be more about what those concepts are than lists of examples. In theory, we could manually maintain lists of <i>notably</i> secret/public identities using the existing categories (which would consequently be empty, after ditching the infobox categories). </p><p>I'm thinking an obvious reference point for the content of concept pages would be Identity Crisis... </p><p>But then that leaves a whole lot of room for people to enter undesirable structureless crap into the field, same as "Origin". </p>

<p>Note: "Concept:" in my post did not refer to our Concept template, but to Concepts, a feature in Semantic MediaWiki. Example. </p><p>But I think it's a good idea to expand Secret Identity with notable cases, like the GA/BC revelations in Brightest Day, John Stewart's decision, and Superman's revelation. </p>

<p>Yeah, it's something that could be on the page but not categorized. By someone that knows lua. There may be I can think of a simpler solution, just getting rid of that module section altogether and use some format tags instead. </p>

<p>And I really want to get rid of Staff members by nationality, now we're at it. German has more army brats than actual Germans. </p>