User blog:MakeShift/The Crisis and its impact on the Arrowverse Wiki

After the airing of Crisis on Infinite Earths, some changes were made to the wiki that largely affected how we'd deal with the massive changes to the multiverse experienced in the crossover. We did make an initial announcement, but after some input from you guys, as well as some further episodes airing, helping to clear up a few things, we in the admin team have reached a conclusion on how to handle all of the issues presented to us.

Earth-Prime counterparts
Perhaps the most divisive of the discussion was how to proceed on the multiverse having been "rebooted", for all intents and purposes. After the airing of the most recent batch of episodes, some things have particularly come to light, particularly in ' s  and  ' s  (obviously, mild spoilers ahead). In these two episodes it was confirmed that J'onn J'onzz (and a device that uses similar tech) gave back the memories of the characters from their past lives. Logically, this could only work if they were the same characters, especially with the tech Laurel uses as opposed to simply J'onn's telepathic abilities. For this reason, there will only remain the single for each character, but they will now be native to both Earth-Whichever and Earth-Prime, with their biography featuring overarching sections for the "Original multiverse" and the "New multiverse".

However, we began to consider the implications of anything else in the world, and for that reason we've decided to separate any other pages (eg. locations, objects, etc), unless of course they exist without the confines of the multiverses (such as the Vanishing Point). While characters' consciousnesses can be psychically retained, objects and locations have no such similar comparison, and so as best we can determine this, they require new pages. In line with this, we'll be changing our initial designation of "Prime" to "new multiverse" when it comes to naming pages. Likewise, we'll also include "original multiverse" where appropriate, eg. Earth 2 and Earth-2 (Prime) will be renamed Earth-2 (original multiverse) and Earth-2 (new multiverse), respectively.

We understand that there's some kinks to work out, like the fact that characters from the original multiverse have suddenly appeared on Earth-Prime, but this is the most logical solution we can find thus far. There are bound to be plot holes, it's happened before and it's surely bound to happen again, so we'll treat them as best we can should the necessary situation arrive.

Merging of other media
Merging of other media has been a divisive topic in the past, but we're doing our best to determine which is a best fit and which should stay off the wiki for now.

We have obviously just merged Black Lightning, as it directly ties in, and we will be merging Birds of Prey in due time, due to confirmation that it fully exists in the old multiverse's continuity. Some of the older media like the Batman and Superman films will take time due to inconsistency, but we're figuring out how best to attempt this. Smallville will for now remain off of the wiki, as in its canon there are other Earths, of which we don't have a designation in the Arrowverse, simply known in Smallville as "Earth-2", etc. As this is not so clear, we've decided it best to leave it for now. As for the DC Universe shows, while we are eager to include them, there is some confusion as to whether they take place within the new or original multiverse (especially Titans, which appeared in both). For this reason it'll stay off of the wiki until we get good confirmation. Stargirl, however, as its inclusion was intended as a lead-in to the upcoming series, has potential to join us in the future. We are currently having discussions with their admin team, but out of respect we'll leave any proper final decisions till a later date. Lucifer also has the slightest chance to join us, but given it is a currently airing show with a massive fanbase, any sort of merge in the near future is likely out of the question, just for sanity's sake. Finally, the DC Extended Universe, which is rather tricky. Given that we know the Speed Force is extra-dimensional, it's hard to discern whether Ezra Miller's Barry Allen is from the Arrowverse, or another multiverse altogether. For this reason, it'll stay on its own wiki for now.

'As before, any merges will be done by a bot, so please refrain from creating any extra pages or uploading relevant images during such times. Also, please do not annoy any of the admins of respective wikis on potential merges. Stay patient, and things will be announced at an appropriate time.'

Temporary Universe Designations (TUDs)
In an attempt to make the wiki a bit more tidy and thorough, we've decided to make use of a system that was first brought about by the Marvel Database. For universes that haven't received a designation, we'll be using what we refer to as Temporary Universe Designations (TUDs). These are extra-multiversal, so it doesn't matter whether any of the universes appear in the original or new multiverse, they're simply a placeholder until we get a proper name/designation for the universe. Only those that have actually appeared or been mentioned will receive a proper page, the rest will simply redirect to the policy page. These will have to be pre-approved by an admin, but we believe they'll help with some better clarification on Earth designation. For more info on this, as well as how they fully work, please check out the previously linked policy page.

Please be patient with this in particular, as we will again have a bot automatically doing a lot of the work to lighten the workload for us.

Merging of Actor and Crew infoboxes
While it's not directly related to the Crisis, it felt logical to announce this along with the rest of our changes. While previously we've utilised both the "Actor" and "Crew" infoboxes, moving forward we'll start changing these to be the "Individual" infobox, which you can see already in action on the David Ramsey page. It will essentially be a merge of the two infoboxes, while also incorporating the most common external links (namely IMDb, Twitter, and Wikipedia), completely streamlining the pages. We will also be adding in "First credit" and "Latest credit" values.

The introductions of the pages will also be streamlined, so as to make them a lot clearer and clarified, which can also be seen on the aforementioned page. Additionally, "Crew" and/or "Actors" categories will need to be manually added, depending on which is relevant.

This will unfortunately have to be done page by page, a bot can't do this sort of work, but we appreciate any and all help in doing this.

In conclusion...
It's been a difficult time for we admins in deciding what's best for the wiki, while also taking in everyone's thoughts and feelings on the matter. While perhaps we understand you might not all be happy with the decisions made, we've done our best to both appease the general mass while also keeping the wiki as clean and effective as possible, keeping in mind we strive for both accuracy and SEO. Thanks for bearing with us during this painful time; if you guys have any questions or comments, feel free to shoot them below, or if it's on an unrelated matter then by all means contact any of our friendly admin team.