There are many templates (such as the Character Template) which contain prompting fields that will put information into the sidebar, but which require that you select an existing article by title (or create a new article). In the case of the Character Template, Species and Ethnicity are two examples, but there are several others in this template as well.

Existing articles don't alway have a title that lend themselves to inclusion in a list of statistics in a sidebar, and the mouseover information that appears when the titles are hovered over may not have been written with the intention to provide "sidebar information" quickly.

Using Variables could solve this problem. Variables can be prepared to offer an appropriate "title", the tooltip can provide the correct type of information, and even include the link to the actual article, but with author control over what the link text says.

This would require the ability to select either a variable or an article in the template fields under discussion.



Click here for a visual example of the current situation and the proposed solution,