Template talk:Johnny Cash

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[edit] Proposed versions of template

The Johnny Cash template which was created by through collaboration between me and User:Alcuin (as was the grand majority of Cash-related articles, primarily albums) has seen a few minor changes, but now a bit of an edit conflict has arisen. 155.94.62.221 restructured the template a bit, transferring section titles (Studio albums, Live albums, etc.) to the left, eliminating the title of the "Related articles" section and creating a separate section for the American Recordings series. Of course, my intention is not to start an edit war, but I think the old version should stay for several reasons, namely:

  1. Size. True, the two versions do not differ greatly in this respect, but still, the difference is noticeable. The size of the font also seems a bit inappropriate (too large), considering this is a template, and a huge one at that.
  2. Eliminating the Discography section with appropriate subsections seems like a bad idea to me. True, this version does give a clear distinction, but such is also the case with the previously accepted version; in fact, I'll risk stating that the older one was clearer in that it visibly separated albums of all sorts and other sections.
  3. The American series. True, it was, as far as albums go, probably the most distinctive phase in Cash's long career. However, despite the fact that the majority of Cash fans might think otherwise, they were still studio albums, and anyone looking for them can find them easily in the older template. In short, creating a separate section for the American albums is POV. Plus, with that logic, At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin should also be given special treatment, considering Cash's other live albums were nowhere near as popular. By the way, Unchained was in fact titled Unchained; calling it American II is not entirely correct.
  4. Minor things, like capitalizing "Albums" (ex. Studio Albums, Live Albums). But I'm not going to nitpick. However, Wiki links for all these must be included; especially "Family" linked to a page with a lot of detailed information, and adding a link makes it easier for all Wikipedians to get to that page directly.
  5. Above all (yes, I know this is also POV ;), I just think the previous version was slightly more aesthetically pleasing. Despite having more or less the same content, this one seems overabundant and would look strange on Cash-related pages. Also, a stable template for an extremely well-known band was used as a basis for the Cash template designed by myself and Alcuin, and it has worked well for some time now.

I noticed that Alcuin posted a message on your Talk page, 155.94.62.221, and seems to be in agreement with me on this one. If anyone else wishes to express their views on the matter, go right ahead. I apologize for any sloppiness in my arguments. Cromag 10:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'll take the liberty to revert once again. Of course, the template could be improved upon, but I don't think restructuring it is the way to go, as I mentioned. Cromag 15:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
You know, instead of reverting to your own version numerous times, you could try to discuss the issue on this talk page, which would be easier for all involved. Cromag 09:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think either of us object to changing the template. We just don't like such sweeping changes without discussion. You might prefer a different style, but the current template was the result of discussion and collaboration (and a lot of work by Cromag). We'd appreciate your input, but there are more effective ways of influencing the way things look here. --Alcuin 14:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] size

dude, this thing is WAY too big to be helpful - it should be more parsimonious. can this be cut down? JoeSmack Talk 23:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Eh, I was thinking about that the other day. The bulk of Cash's work is enormous and the template reflects that, but it might indeed be too large. Not sure how to solve this problem though. It's mainly the albums that are causing the problem, but then again, I'd find it annoying to have to go back to the same old Johnny Cash discography page every time I want to jump to a specific album from another album's article. And the font can't be made much smaller, either. So what, the songs? Eh, that would be a better suggestion, but the same pretty much applies to them. Does anybody have any suggestions? Cromag 13:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion: i can picture a world where the Johnny Cash template did not have Songs, Family, and Related articles sections attached to it. Those can be 'see also's in the article itself if they are relevant. As for the MASSIVE discography section, i might cut the soundtrack and compilation sections. To break down the rest of the size, cause Cash did have many albums, is have a 60's discography template, then a 70s, etc. If there are too many in one, you could do a '65-'70 too.
Any template that is a page long is 3/4ths of a page too big. Many articles don't have the size of this template with their entire content! JoeSmack Talk 01:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, for starters, I don't think it would be a great idea to go adding a titanic "See also" section to the Cash article, which in any case is already a victim of former featured status syndrome. The majority of the articles in the two sections are relevant, but can possibly be found in the article on Cash himself. In any case, this would, in effect make the this a "Johnny Cash discography" template; I'm not saying that's bad, but it would also involve removing it from dozens of pages on which it has been included.
I'm not sure about the idea involving removing the soundtracks and compilations. The Gospel Road, for example, is quite a well-known record and should be easily accessible via template. The compilations are perhaps an even better example: Unearthed and Personal File most definitely should remain in the template, as they're essential to the man's discography. I think breaking up the discography template into sections is a pretty good idea, though again, one couldn't jump from an earlier album directly to a later one.
As for the last thing, well, what can I say, Cash was a musically prolific man ;). Cromag 15:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well just like not adding a titanic 'See Also' section to the Cash article, every other article with the template doesn't need a huge 'Related Articles' section. That goes for any other article; if i'm at the Carter Family aticle, i don't need to know about Sam Phillips, and vise versa. This is a reason this template is so big; instead of being efficient and contextual with knowledge supplied by the template, it is just lumped all in at the cost of being friggin huge so one doesn't need to be picky. Removing it from dozens of pages can be done, it'd take like 10 minutes or loading up AWB.
I think the solution here is to have a separate template for all the stuff; a soundtracks template, a family template, a famous songs template, etc. Attatch the Soundtracks template to Soundtrack articles (and why would you need to know about Family articles in a Soundtrack article?) It needs to be CONTEXTUAL and PARSIMONIOUS, otherwise its just one glob of a template that is only 100% truly relevant to Johnny Cash, and it is linked to a whole lot of articles.
You could solve splitting up the Discography jumping problem by making the title header of the years 1965'-1970' template: "60'-65' 65'-70' 70'-75'" etc, linking to each time period template to each other. JoeSmack Talk 16:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Touché, you raised some pretty good points. However, even though perhaps not every article in the "Related articles" section is essential, I daresay they're still quite handy and it would be a shame to completely wipe it out, regardless of the fact that – as you correctly pointed out – some of them have to do solely with Cash as a person, not his albums or his work. And so, I think it would be a good idea to *retain* a general Cash template and strip it of its currently huge size, but simultaneously keep the "Related articles" section on the Johnny Cash page and only there.
Actually, when it comes to the discography, I don't think it's absolutely necessary to create separate templates for individual years in Cash's career. Heck, that would make things worse and more complicated than they are now. A template for studio albums would not, in actuality, be too large (OK, OK, in most cases it would still cover half the screen, but it's bearable) and one coherent template for all of those would be useful. Of course, the same applies to the other types of albums, which would all have their own templates (as would be the case with the songs). Cromag 20:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm fine with a separate Related Articles template. Separating the Studio Albums from other types of albums sounds good; even if it isn't as small as spliting them all by year, the template is still smaller and that makes me happy. :) JoeSmack Talk 20:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the best thing to do would be to lose the last three sections, perhaps splitting them off to separate templates. Ideally, we could split the discography into separate sections or templates, but cleanly splitting his career by era or genre is easier said than done. An American Records template would work, though. Do whatever yall like, since I'm not terribly active on WP lately anyway. Alcuin 03:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. See Template:Johnny Cash, Template:Johnny Cash studio albums, Template:Johnny Cash live albums, Template:Johnny Cash soundtrack albums, Template:Johnny Cash compilations and Template:Johnny Cash songs. I'll be modifying the pages with the original JC template shortly. Cromag 14:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, awesome, awesome job. I'm impressed. My only suggestion is moving Template:Johnny Cash to Template:Johnny Cash and related articles (the and is because there are links other than 'related articles' there on the template). But really, thanks for putting the time into working this thing out - good work! :) JoeSmack Talk 17:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice work. What about some javascript show/hide (see Template:Calculus footer)? Sorry for the late suggestion. Pomte 21:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I tried and failed; it's just too complicated for me. Do you know how to do it? Something like this would definitely be useful, though I think the other templates should still remain. Cromag 15:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I made a draft at User:Pomte/Template:Johnny_Cash with the default look and colours. The top "Johnny Cash" bar probably doesn't need its own show/hide link. If the Discography section itself is still too big it can be further divided into the 4 album categories. For your subtemplates I could add the other categories hidden by default. For example, Template:Johnny Cash songs would list all the songs as it does now, and have hidden at the bottom Discography, Family, Related Articles. Pomte 18:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Can you make one open by default (like when you visit a Johnny Cash song article, have the songs section only open?) JoeSmack Talk 18:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes that is what I tried to say. Since Cromag has already made all the separate templates, they can each have their own section open by default. Pomte 19:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Fantastic! I'd add the Highwaymen albums to the studio albums section in the discography, but that's my only complaint, because the rest looks just great. I agree with you both that open sections in individual templates would be a great idea. In any case, if this were the final look of the template, that would be more than fine with me. Cromag 21:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I have created a base template that generates templates identical to this one. I have converted this template to that base template ({{Navigation with collapsible groups}}). Everything looks fine, but let me know if you see any issues.↔NMajdan•talk 00:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with template

I used this template as a base for the rewrite of several other templates (including {{University of Oklahoma}} and {{University of Texas at Austin}} with more universities hopefully coming soon). About a week after I redid those two, they changed the way dropdowns were handled. Soooo..... as some of you may have noticed, the template no longer opens the section that is called in the parameter. I was finally able to look into the issue and I think I got it solved. I will fix this template sometime within the next week or two unless somebody else wants to take a stab at it beforehand. You can see the discussion at the Village Pump here or you can see the changes I made to the University of Oklahoma template here.↔NMajdan•talk 19:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Done.↔NMajdan•talk 14:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of link on "Family"

I removed the link on the word "Family" which is a section header in this template. I removed just the link, not the header itself, nor any content in the family section of the template. The link directed to the Johnny Cash family article, which after much discussion on that article's Talk page, I am vacating and merging out into three other articles. This article (i.e., JC family) will probably be left as only a redirect page. This would have produced a faulty link (the section header) in all instances of this template. Hult041956 22:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)