Template talk:Infobox Television

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TV This article is part of WikiProject Television, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to television programs and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
NA This page is not an article and does not require a rating.
Random show

Look, it's Jimmy Wales.
Genre Comedy-drama
Creator(s) Random person
Starring John Doe
Jane Doe
Jim Doe
Jill Doe
Narrated by Random person
Opening theme Random
Ending theme Random
Country of origin Flag of United States United States
Language(s) English
No. of episodes 1
Production
Executive producer(s) Random person
Camera setup Single-camera
Running time 60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel TNT
Picture format 1080i HDTV
Audio format Surround sound
Original run July 2, 2000 – July 3, 2000
Links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary


Contents


[edit] Template name

I guess it's probably because there are (too many) exceptions, but any reason why this infobox not named "Television series"...?  ("Television" alone seems a little vague...)  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 04:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Smaller names are better until it becomes a problem. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Smaller names also more ambiguous and/or less helpful, especially to those not regularly editing code. Regards, David (talk) 09:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
...Just been reminded that there's {{Infobox Television episode}}, so {{Infobox Television series}} would seem logical...?  David (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Num episodes..

It had been bothering me for sometime that the number of episodes was floating a few px below where it should be.. I couldn't see what was up.. it turns out there was a rogue line break, haha! Matthew Fenton (talk · contribs · count · email) 10:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Format vs. Genre

It's confusing to have the infobox say "Genre" but you have to put the information under the header "Format" when you go to edit the box. I don't want to mess anything up so I won't do it myself, but I highly recommend that the coding be changed to the word "genre" too. 23skidoo 00:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Done, format or genre will now both work when called. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 01:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Force consistent style?

OK, so I'm being a bold newbie to this area. I noticed that a couple of shows didn't have infoboxes, or didn't have them fully filled out, so I added them. That led me to have to research what I should put into some of these fields, which in turn led me to record my observations back into the documentation and update the example to match observed common style.

It occurs to me that consistency could be aided by using strongly stylized values, with the template turning them into common presentations. (imdb_id and tv_com_id are good examples of what I mean.)

For instance:

Parameter Comments
format Automatically link. Note that a red link will be a hint that you haven't picked a good value.
camera Automatically link. Perhaps automatically expand to some canonical values.
picture_format Automatically link
audio_format Automatically link
country use ISO 3166 country codes; automatically generate flag template references
language use ISO 639 language codes; automatically generate appropriate link
preceded_by It'd be nice to standardize the formatting here, but I suspect too complex.

I've only got a very little bit of experience with MediaWiki templates, so I don't know how practical those all are, but most of them seem possible. Thoughts?

Jordan Brown 03:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation of code to use in values

It seems to me that if a particular code style is desired for a particular value, the documentation should show the <nowiki> code rather than the as-formatted code, to make it easy to copy-and-paste into your article. language and first_aired show examples of this. I already did this to preceded_by; it seems like it's also appropriate in camera, picture_format, and audio_format. audio_format especially draws my attention, since it seems to want "[[Monaural]] sound" but "[[Surround sound]]". (I didn't do it, because picture_format looked like it would just get gross.)

Note that my standardization comments above might reduce the need for code examples.

Thoughts?

Jordan Brown 03:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Template:Telenovela into this template?

Like the section header says. Telenovela appears to fill the same ecological niche as this template. Thoughts? I suggest discussing it over on Template talk:Telenovela. Jordan Brown 08:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reimplement in modular form?

Over in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television#Infoboxes on articles covering multiple media I've proposed reimplementing this template on top of a modular framework based on the one used in WP:ANIME, and have done some experiments. The intent would be to have a way to support articles that need to have infoboxes covering several "releases" - The Addams Family and Dragnet (series) come immediately to mind. One eventual goal of such a restructuring would be commonality with the anime template set, Template:Infobox Film, Template:Infobox Radio Show, and probably others.

Comments would be appreciated.

Jordan Brown 08:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you provide an example please? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 08:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
{{Infobox animanga}}
He means like that. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Yea, just found an example. My opinion is this: That is way to excessively long, remember an infobox isn't limited to one transclusion. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 08:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. I dislike the anime box, though I will admit its usefulness in regards to its subject. I prefer the divided setup we have now. The anime/manga series tend to be more closely related than regular television. The current divided setup is more appropriate for mediums that don't often intertwine. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
There's definitely room for the anamanga box to be more efficient. But I do see what you're getting at, in that the series should be closely related to share an infobox. Maybe some kind of mini box could be used for different article sections, if there are not separate articles for each part. -- Ned Scott 08:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Or, another idea: the main topic/ part of the series/ article gets a normal infobox module, then additions get modules that are trimmed down to more basic info and don't list as much stuff. -- Ned Scott 08:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

(indentation reset)

Sorry for not giving an example here. Over in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television I'd talked about the proof-of-concept that I've done at User:Jordan Brown/Dragnet (series) and its transcluded templates. (Please discuss that implementation at User:Jordan Brown/Infobox media and User talk:Jordan Brown/Infobox media.)

There are any number of stylistic questions - color schemes, exact layout, et cetera. I don't have any real opinions on those and so at the moment in my proof of concept they're the same as the animanga scheme. My goals here are:

  • Answer the question of what to do for works like Dragnet (series) and The Addams Family where there have been numerous "releases".
  • Reduce duplication between the various templates.
  • Improve consistency between the various templates.

From a stylistic point of view, it would be perfectly fine with me if Template:Infobox Television yielded exactly the same presentation that it does today... but its components were usable in a common way to support multi-release works and were sharable with Template: Infobox Film and others. (Of course, to the extent that the various existing templates yield different presentation, one of the goals would be to move to a common presentation. I don't have any strong opinions on what that presentation would look like.)

Jordan Brown 17:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm in favor of this. I don't think there are enough articles that require these kinds of "crossmedia boxes". What I do see is a general duplication of elements shared by all these templates. I'm not sure however if that can be solved easily. I also think that it's undesirable to make all these different media infoboxes tooo uniform. It would make wikipedia a bit boring I fear. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Possibly, but there's a lot of things we might not have considered yet. I still think it would be interesting just to throw up a big brain storm of different styles for infoboxes. Even if we don't exactly do a modular form there may still be some interesting ideas we can get from our "sister" project infoboxes. -- Ned Scott 20:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, the film box is basically the same as this. As for Jordan's setup, that's the animanga styled infobox, just colored differently. What would be useful, though somewhat unused, would be an incarnations or versions field, identifying if a particular series has several broken apart versions. Alternatively, a Television series infobox could be designed for such purposes, somewhat akin to the channel infobox. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know how many articles would use a "cross-media" infobox. Note that I haven't looked at all that many TV articles, and found two. However, if we did it right, single-media articles wouldn't see any coding change at all - Template:Infobox Television would invoke the modular framework internally. As for "boring", well, one man's "boring" is another man's "consistent". If there's a desire for stylistic differences, perhaps we could make one framework that could be invoked with different options to yield different colors and whatnot. (Perhaps via CSS?)
Surely there are ways that we can reduce duplication. At a minimum we could establish conventions for things like country-of-origin, but we should be able to build templates that are used for various common cases like "put this label and this value if the value is non-empty".
Note that both Dragnet and The Addams Family have not just multiple serieses but releases in multiple media (TV, film, video games, radio) and so a simple extension to Infobox Television might not be sufficient.
Jordan Brown 19:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does the template auto-category?

Does the template automatically add categories, like for genre, when it's entered into the infobox? JQF • Talk • Contribs 02:00, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

No, but it would be possible. -- Ned Scott 02:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
That would be a pain to code, though. Categories names are specific, and genre is often used for multiple entries. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it wouldn't really be a good idea for genres. There might be other types of categories that the infobox could add that are easier. I have nothing specific in mind, just thinking out loud. -- Ned Scott 04:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure seems like a good idea, even if it means some reorganization of the categories. Perhaps the template could put the article into a genre category, and humans could optionally put it into a more specific one. What does MediaWiki do if a page is in both a category and one of its subcategories? Perhaps the genre entry should be expanded to be more specific.
In case it isn't obvious from my previous comments, I almost always think it's a good idea to standardize and automate "usual practice".
Jordan Brown 21:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The only feasable way to implement this would be to make an auto-formatting, auto-catting template series like {{action}}, {{drama}}, etc. Besides, even then the cat type varies. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 21:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking of something along the line of
! Genre
| {{{format|{{{genre}}}}}}[[Category:Television Genre {{{genre}}}]]
|-
That is, have a series of standard-format category names with the standardized genre names embedded in them. It'd require reorging existing categories, but the result would seem to be a win. Jordan Brown 22:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
That would work, but you'd have to resort a bunch of categories and replace all the non-embedded usages. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting on whether this would be a good idea, if there were a genre or other category field, for cross-genre works, editors would still be able to add categories to the article itself, as they do now, so this may not be a significant objection. Avt tor 17:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing external links

I propose that we remove the IMDb, TV.com and possibly the Official website link from this infobox, external links are generally being duplicated in the infobox and the External links section - project wide all external links are kept in their own section ("External links") and so it does seem extraneous to list external links in the infobox when they do generally belong at the bottom of the page. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 12:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No, for consistency with similar infoboxes (Film, for instance, has IMDb and others). If there are a duplicate links, then just remove them! All of the external links for mature articles should be inline citations anyway. The JPStalk to me 12:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I kind of like the links in the infobox, because it provides a simple and consistent way to get this information. OTOH, I sometimes automatically ignore infoboxes and so have trouble finding the information. Regardless, it's worth noting that WP:TV and WP:FILM disagree on convention; WP:TV#External links says to put them only in the infobox, but a response to a question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films#External links and IMDb says that the WP:FILM convention is to put them in both places. Jordan Brown 04:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
An infobox usually is a duplication of the article content, since it's an "at-a-glance" tool. -- Ned Scott 05:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
You mean that as such the links should be duplicated as well ? cause i think they should. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 05:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The way it's done now seems fine with me. -- Ned Scott 05:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a really stong feeling on whether or not to duplicate the information. It does seem like WP:TV and WP:FILM should have the same convention, whichever way it is. Jordan Brown 21:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of seasons?

Surely there should be field to enter the number of seasons the series ran for? Joe King 19:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm failing to see the usefulness to this, it also adds more Americanization, generally it's stated in an article how many seasons OR series the show has had, and it generally is usually on the LOE as well. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I must say I agree with Fenton.--NeilEvans 20:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Number of seasons seems just as relevant as number of episodes. Although, we could probably just note it in the episode number parameter to make it simple, such as "52 episodes (2 seasons)" or something like that. It would not bother me to add a number of seasons parameter. -- Ned Scott 20:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I suppose it is just as relevant as number of episodes. If it does get added, then a field should be added for number of series as well as number of seasons, so the correct field can be used for British TV Series.--NeilEvans 20:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Neil's above comment. I think it could be a useful addition, and it's something that the British version has. Actually, if relevant fields (channel, etc) were added to this then we can lose the British fork. The JPStalk to me 20:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
This template already displays channel anyway. I feel the british template is redundant anyway, as the info provided by that template are covered in this one.--NeilEvans 20:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
So it does! I thought it just said 'network'. Well, I guess if we add the series field then we can start merging them. The JPStalk to me 20:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
In the code it says network, but it displays on the page as channel. The British one really just needs to be redirected to this one.--NeilEvans 22:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
A redirect now would mess up some articles, surely? The JPStalk to me 22:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Optional arguments

Recently i noticed someone made all arguments of the template optional. They i'm not hellbend against it, i do think it's a shame. There is nothing wrong in having a few required arguments to force people to fill in some of the stuff. Where there other reasons that attributed to this change ? TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 00:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sort a whim thing, really. Seemed nice to have consistent code throughout. Plus, if nothing else, it keeps the fields from appearing blank, which I find worse than their simple disappearance. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 00:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I came up with an interesting idea for Template:Episode list a while back that makes it possible to require any option that is listed but left blank. Easy enough to do, yes, but remove the option and it is no longer required, thus no blank space will show. This way you can leave blanks when you want to (to encourage people to fill it out) but still only have the options that are needed for that specific page. Maybe we can do that here? -- Ned Scott 05:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not quite certain what you mean by that. I know that "episode list" can ignore most fields if not included, but I don't see how that would be incorporated here. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Let me put it this way, lets say you want someone to fill out "Narrated by" because you don't know who did, but that someone did. If you do:
{{Infobox Television
| show_name = Name
| image =
| rating = TV-14
| format = Animated television series
|narrated =
| tv_com_id = 3417
}}
It would then make a blank space for "Narrated by", thus encouraging others to fill out that section. It doesn't matter if the parameter has text or not, it will render a field for it. If you don't want the field, then exclude the parameter from the template and no box is generated. -- Ned Scott 06:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Basically it's a step up from normal "#if" statements, because you can still trigger the field without having text. -- Ned Scott 06:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah. That sounds good. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Nice idea Ned. i think that could be used here.... TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit

On the main page, I edited the syntax so that it says "genre" instead of format, mostly because the template uses the input of genre, not format. Also genre is the more common term for the... genre... of the show. Format is confusing. Some other talk page mentions need to be altered as well, I suspect. -Elizabennet | talk 03:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slots nominated for removal

Currently, this infobox has far too many slots - it is unwieldy and very confusing to readers, and is very off-putting to new editors. I feel that the following slots should be removed because they're unnecessary (the information could be better included in a different 'production' category on the page). I'm using the {{Infobox Film}} and {{Infobox Novel}} as the example of a good infobox, by the way. -Elizabennet | talk 03:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

  1. camera, picture format, audio format, opening theme, ending theme, and related shows should be deleted entirely, in my opinion. The information would be better suited for elsewhere in the article.
  2. First run should be removed because it is the same information as in first aired.
  3. preceded_by and followed_by should be removed because they very rarely apply. They're not needed in a universal infobox.
  4. num_series should say something about the number of seasons (possibly as well as the number of series) - wikipedia is meant to represent all english speakers, and in the U.S., we call them 'seasons' instead of 'series'. I think that 'season' is the more common term for it, but I could easily be wrong - Brits, do you use season and series interchangeably?
These sound like good ideas to me. Getting really detailed like format and .. audio format... is not the level of detail for an "at-a-glance" infobox. -- Ned Scott 03:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Second. I don't mind. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Unwieldy is the correct description i guess, perhaps we should specify some "Default set" of options somewhere that shows should have and hide the rest a bit better. Some people seem to make it their mission to fill in every single field of a template, whereas that is not the intention the optional parameters.

  • Personally i think camera and picture format are important production cinemetographic aspects that should stay.
  • Themes and audio format, I don't really care about (even though i think i once added the themes myself)
  • First run in is (i think) for when a show is run first in a country in which it was not produced and was needed to merge the UK infobox into this one. In my eyes it's useless info.
  • preceded_by and followed_by are used for MANY gameshow seasons. The Apprentice, American Idol, The Amazing Race, that type of show.
  • num_series (again from the UK template merge) specifies the total number of seasons the show ran. And NO, not the whole world says seasons, in the UK they say series (because it's often not really a seasonal broadcast schedule).

I agree that the template seems to have gone out of control a bit perhaps. I'm sure it can be condensed a bit, the problem is that every single removal can be a bit complicated, because to do it right you have to merge all that information back into the article again (and i do think that should be done). There is a trick to check which pages use which options, by inserting non visible wikilinks to specially created pages. By checking those pages "What links here" page, you can then see which articles use which options. My personal cleanup lists:

Delete list:

  • theme_music_composer
  • opentheme
  • endtheme
  • first_run
  • related
  • language

Rename:

  • num_series -> num_seasons

Condense (put on one output line):

  • location and country
  • num_episodes, num_seasons

TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 04:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

My response is leave it as it is, if the field is not relevant to the article, leave it blank. If Americans want a "seasons" field then just add it. In the UK "season" is never used, whereas "series" is always used.--NeilEvans 21:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the template to get an idea about the amount of usage of certain params. I started with uses of Location param, uses of first_run param. This should help us determin how useful these options actually are/can be. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 00:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Location is used in 19 articles, first run in 10 articles. So they could be easily eliminated if we want to. Also location is ambigious (location of what? production/setting?). first_run is equally bad defined and underused. Wouldn't it be better to simply include this information in the article ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
First run is there to make an article factual and avoid an edit war, would be better if we had some sort of "auxiliary field" thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I still say that can be detailed in the article. first shown in != country of origin (which it explicitly is called) If needed comments can be added to the infobox to prevent people readding "first_run" countries there. Similar for location. My problem with Auxillary fields is that you never know what's gonna be in it and as such hard to check wether what people use if for is proper stuff for an Infobox. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
"Proper stuff" is a persons definition, you say "first shown in != country of origin", others say "country made in != country of origin" thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
"Location" is there to avoid edit wars, because "country of origin" only refers to copyright and distribution, not production. I think location is intuitive, easy to define, and easy to verify factually. Location is not needed where it is the same as country of origin, which is why it occurs less often, but also why it's very relevant when it is used. Avt tor 23:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think only "theme_music_composer" should go and perhaps "endtheme" too, since often it's same or it's not even heard. I think the "opentheme" field is good, specially is the song is well-known. About the series/seasons field, I think the field is good and sorry, but as neither American or British, I have no personal preference for the name. Either num_series or num_seasons is good to me, or we can even got the nitpicking way with num_series_or_seasons. --Andromeda 13:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking that maybe the problem is not as much the amount of information in the Infobox, but more the way it's presented to the user. So I was toying around a bit and perhaps we should consider something like:

Battlestar Galactica
250px|
Title screen to Battlestar Galactica.
Genre Science Fiction
Drama
Creator(s) Ronald D. Moore
Starring See Cast and characters
Opening theme Gayatri by Richard Gibbs
Country of origin Flag of United States United States
No. of episodes 49 (series to date), 10 (webisodes)
Production
Location Flag of Canada Canada[1]
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Running time approx. 42 min.
Broadcast
Original channel Sky One
Sci Fi Channel
First shown in Flag of United Kingdom United Kingdom[3]
Original run October 18, 2004 – present
Chronology
Preceded by Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)
Links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

--TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks very cool to me. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 19:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
As nobody has replied, would you be interested in implementing your new design DJ? Matthew 15:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Strike my last, you've already done it, excellent work! Matthew 16:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Funny, I only saw your new comment a couple of mins ago :D --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we should loose the external links in the infobox. I can't see why they can't just be in an "External links" section. --Maitch 19:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Well they can, but so can all the information in the infobox be somewhere else in the article... Personally i like having the links available with a quick click on a visible place. But I can't say it's one of the problem areas atm with this template. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The "theme composer", "opening theme" and "closing theme" is what bugs me the most. "Opening theme" maybe, as you could incorporate the composer into that easily by including both the song title and the composer/artist. But how are these three in here without an original series music composer slot? Anyway, there are a bunch of useless categories to this right now. Many of them seem to be catered to a certain genre (in which case, it'd be easier to have a "|Misc =" slot as with Template: Infobox Album. It should be dealt with soon. Pele Merengue 02:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Channel logos

What does anyone think about having small channel logo templates next to the channel name in infoboxes, similar to the country name with flag icon?

Such as, Template:BBC Three

Logo's can't be used like that. They're only fair use in the article they describe. It's the same reason we did away with ratings images. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 21:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Technically the US ones are public domain (not sure about other countries), but the channel logos are fair use. No getting around that. Pacific Coast Highway {The internet • runs on Rainbows!} 16:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flags

What's everybody's opinion on these flags that are popping up all over the place? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 15:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

/me thinks they take up way too much space and deserve to be deleted :X .. Illyria05 (Talk • Contributions) 19:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Your comment took up considerably more space than a 20px flag. Does that mean it deserves to be deleted? And what about the many much larger images used in Wikipedia? Would these then take up way too much space? An infobox is intended to be a summary of the information - flags can convey nationality of a program more effectively than text, and makes the infobox less plain. Flags could be overused, but not in this case since there is only one item (country of origin) for which a flag is appropriate. Dl2000 23:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I see flags being used to indicate nationalities of people in the infobox. Is that appropriate here? And should we enforce that a flag can only appear in the country of origin? Tinlinkin 07:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I think indicating people's nationality by using flags is a bit over the top. Perhaps that's something we indeed should advice against. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 12:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

In most cases, I believe it is a little over the top to have flags next to people's names unless the subject is one where the country is part of the issue (eg: Miss Universe), but I don't see a problem when talking about a flag next to it's country (in infoboxes anyway) when the number of countries listed in that infobox is minimal. Category:Flag templates were designed to show a country with its flag in a simplified manner that is not obtrusive. Since they were created, to my knowledge they have never been TfD nominated. Although a few countries do share the same flag, many don't, and many people when looking at information pick up clues in images faster than in text. Since in infobox summarizes key information in many articles, it seems reasonable that a single flag would not be such a horrid thing to see if someone is looking at key information and a Country of Origin is one of these factors. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 23:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The essay WP:FLAG makes some good arguments against the proliferation of flags, especially in bios --Steve (Slf67) talk 09:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Director vs Creator?

Can we have a Director parameter? I figured that perhaps there is currently no Director paramter because many US series have multiple directors - I'm thinking of Lost, Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood etc etc, though they do have a Creator. In contrast, most UK tv shows don't have a Creator as such - or if they do, the creators are the director and/or principal actor(s). Most UK shows only have one Director per series. Of course there are exceptions, and I'm not suggesting that we scrap the Creator parameter, or edit it to read "Creator / Director". Rather, I think both parameters should be available. Gram123 11:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A director is usually episode specific information. I guess that's why it's not in the Infobox right now. But I'm not sure how much this has been discussed. - --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 15:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Gram123 makes good points. Although it would be episode specific for US shows (a list in that field should be discouraged in those cases), most British shows only have a handful or less. One Foot had Belbin and Gernon, Joking Apart just Spiers, etc. The JPStalk to me 17:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revert template

OK the template needs to be reverted as the Heroes page uses black as the background colour and the text is also black so disappears.--NeilEvans 19:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

No, that means the Heroes template needs fixing, or the idea of how the colours are implemented need fixing. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Colour param

I have started using the {{Television colour}} template here as well, to further unify the colour usage in Television Infoboxes. This should deprecate bg_colour param at one time, but I didn't feel like doing that just yet, simply because we will have to edit quite a few usage cases anyways. I thought we'd better set up a list soon of what needs to go, and what needs to change, so we can do it in one run. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe we should only use colours that suitably go with black text (like the present contained within TV-colour), to avoid "over-usage", if the text has to be modified then I personally believe the colour isn't going to be very suitable (i.e. white text on black). Matthew 19:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems the same hack is in use by todays Featured Article Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Perhaps that's where Heroes got the idea in the first place. Anyways, what should we do ? I tried adding a "textcolor" option or something similar to the colour template, but it makes the usage even more obscure. I didn't really like it so far. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yea, that was me *puts on embarrassed face*. What we need to do is change it to a more subtle pastel colour, or remove the colour call from there until a consensus is reached for that page. Anyway, look at Buffy now, I've converted it to a pastel colour (useful). Matthew 20:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted the colour in the Buffy page as it was chosen to be used in all articles related to the Buffyverse. It should remain that way until consensus is made as to what to do with the parameter.--NeilEvans 20:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure where you pulled that it was chosen to be used on all Buffy articles, if you look at the history's of both Buffy and Angel you will see it was me, Matthew, who implemented them, then you will apologise to the Matthew. HAND. Matthew 20:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presenter/s

Looking at this I see that there is no presenter bit, there is starring but presenter sounds better. Such as BBC News programmes it says 'Starring Fiona Bruce', but she presents it not stars in it, is there anyway to add this. AxG ۝۝۝҈ ►talk►guests 11:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Chronology header

It seems that since recent changes, the chronology doesn work properly. How come, on Scooby-Doo, Where are You! I cannot see the followed_by = The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972–1974) any more ? Dunwich 12:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. I'll try and fix that. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

A fixed version is now at User:TheDJ/SandboxTemplate2. It fixes a chronlogy header logic error, and a channel vs. network logic error. If an administrator can please make that edit. Also, can the admin add the {{protected template}} header to the noinclude part of the template, and also protect {{television colour}}, because that one is a potential CSS hack to this template ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think semi-protection would be best for TV-col to enable it to be edited as and when needed, etc. Matthew 17:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Done —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-10 11:11Z

There is now an error with the template. The Chronology header is now permanently visible, even when it is not used (for example The O.C.). Also, since the template is now fully protected, I am unable to fix the issue. Can someone please fix the issue immediately. Stickeylabel 11:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I have fixed the issue and added the code to my sandbox (see User:Stickeylabel/SandboxTemplate). The updated code allows the Chronology header to only appear when needed. Can an admin please update the template with the code provided as soon as possible. Thanks. Stickeylabel 11:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Your code seems to leave an extra "}}" in the page, please look through it. feydey 15:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, now it NEVER shows. Damn template values suck. I'm a tad out of ideas personally. anyone else ? Stupid difference between a value not being present, and a value being empty. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I believed I've fixed it.. it appears fixed, at least.. Matthew 16:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure? The above Scooby-Doo, Where are You! shows nothing of it's Chronology header now. I previewed both pages with my new SandboxTemplate2, and i think i fixed it by #if'ing all the values in the #expr --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Purge - Cache is out of date. Matthew 16:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, but isn't the #if pipe trick what we had intially ? That's what i tried to fix for the Scooby Doo page --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

{{#ifeq: {{#expr: {{#if:{{{preceded_by|<noinclude>-</noinclude>}}}|1|0}} or {{#if:{{{followed_by|}}}|1|0}} or {{#if:{{{related|}}}|1|0}} }} | 1 |

I was thinking this would work. 16:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Required field visiblity "problem"

I don't yet understand the programming aspect behind creating templates (using "if" statements and triple brackets), so I am pointing this out here so someone else will know to fix it. The template page describes the Show Name as the only required field. If true, the template with only that field filled should look like the first but instead it currently looks like the second. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 21:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

First



Second
Broadcast
Original channel {{{channel}}}
Links
Should be fixed now. See the 3rd example to the right --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Third
Broadcast

[edit] Infobox Links

Discussion proceeded at the WikiProject Television talk section.

I have removed the IMDb profile and TV.com summary sections from Infobox Television. Please do not revert until this issue is resolved. The reasoning is that the infobox should not favour IMDb and TV.com as credible souces. This also violates WP:SPAM, as it not only anti-competitive by supporting these two commercial entities over others who provide a similar service, it also unneedlessly links to them twice, once in the infobox as well as once in the external links section. I propose that these links should only appear in the external links section. There is now reason for these external links to appear in the infobox. Please discuss below. Stickeylabel 12:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I have now also reformatted the Website section, to as can be see here. Stickeylabel 12:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Discuss this, then do', the present format has a hard-consensus and thusly should be discussed first and such a highly used infobox. At present while I don't like the addition of IMDb/TV.com links outside an EL section they personally don't bother me much and so I don't favour any opinion for or against. Matthew
While I agree with your basic principals, having the links there is just too damn handy. I work on soo many articles like this on a technical level (lot of template work and stuff), I can't go buy episode guides for all those series. In 90% of the cases where I need to fixup something, imdb or tv.com helps me out. And having a quick and consistent linkpoint is just saving me hours on the days I fix one of the series related pages. Unless someone shows me a better/more reliable source for 99% of the series we have here, I see no point in removing these two. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 15:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I would say we should remove them. They belong to the external links section and makes the template bigger than necessary. --Maitch 15:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I like them and object to their removal. Perhaps the discussion should be taking place in a more visible arena, such as the project? The JPStalk to me 15:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it should probably be brought to the TV project, both sites are indeed useful (I also edit both as well..), the problem I've always seen with them is that it opens the door to: "TV.com and IMDb are there, why can't my site be there as well!?" (There's an example on this talk page I believe). As I stated I don't strongly favour the removal or keeping of the links, if I had to choose though I'd more then likely be swayed to keep them, these days, as The DJ states "having the links there is just too damn handy". Matthew
I do agree with TheDJ that in some cases "having the links there is just too damn handy", however that personal opinion does not justify their usage. These two links are highly anti-competitive. The amount of traffic that all television show articles receive is large, and linking to commercial entities in infoboxes is just advertising in my opinion. Why should these two commercial websites receive high amounts of traffic via wikipedia, as opposed to other similar services? I do believe they are handy, that is why I support them being placed in the external links section at the bottom of articles, however, there still is no justification for their existance in the main infobox. Please remember that these third party websites are not 100% credible sources, they allow for user input, nor are they official. The official site linkage in the infobox is justified however, as it contains first party official information. I also agree with Maitch, in that it "makes the template bigger than necessary.Stickeylabel 02:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with the links as far as "spam" is concerned, but I would think that such links would be better placed in the external links section of the article. -- Ned Scott 03:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion proceeded at the WikiProject Television talk section.

[edit] last_aired

last_aired is described in the comments as "The last day the show aired. Use Present if it is ongoing". My understanding is that "aired" means the same as "broadcast". In these days of cable, almost any popular show is being shown daily somewhere in the world, so almost everything should say "Present". So far so good, but the template then generates the text: Original run: first_aired - last_aired. This seems to contradict the definition (except for programmes that were never repeated). Which is right? Notinasnaid 13:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

First, first original broadcast. Last, first airdate of the last original episode to be broadcast. Matthew 13:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

So, is the description incorrect? It might be good to fix it, as I have done some highly unproductive editing as a result, and others may do the same. Notinasnaid 13:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Starring/Former stars

I think a few things here: The infobox should say who's currently on the show, their tenure and "key character", if it can be kept to one. People who were previously on the show should, like Template:Musical Artist (talk, links, edit) be in a seperate segment. They should not show when they left the show or their applicable characters, as this info should be in the article itself. If nobody says no, then I'll change this in a couple of days. If you disagree with this, please say it here AND on my talk page and explain your reasons for this. Ta.
--lincalinca 12:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Fiction is written in the present, no distinction should be made between characters and former characters as the creative work exists. Matthew 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Per matthew for one, for another, wherever this is an issue, in most cases it's easier just to have a [[ |See below]] or something link to the relative section. Shows like Lost these days have such large casts that are so complicated, that there is no point in detailing all that information in the infobox. You see the large difference between a band/artist and a TV show, is that one details persons by definition, and the other uses persons to create the work. The cast is not the work itself, a band IS the work itself. As such the factor who plays in the tv series is just not such key an element as who is the artist/part of the band. It's important of course, but there is so much elements to a television show, if we were to detail it all in the infobox, the infobox would be taller then most of the articles they would be put on I fear. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Then, in that case, should it then be frowned upon to indicate years of tenure on the Infobox (in particular, what drew my attention was South Park's list looks cluttered because of cast members passing away or leaving the show and their years of tenure look grubby, to me. As I don't usually dwell in the TV stuff, I wanted a second opinion to make sure turfing the years would be ok.
--lincalinca 05:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
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