Wiki 24:The Situation Room

Forum?
How do you guys feel about having a forum here? They've recently added that feature over at Central Bureaucracy. You can see them at work there or at Memory Alpha. We could even have a couple forums, one for discussing the site and one for discussing the show, like MA does. Aside from being fun, a lot of times it's necessary to discuss what happened on the show, to get the story straight for the wiki. --StBacchus 00:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Episode recaps
I have been adding some of the recap information for a few episodes as it seems the site wants this info. I used a format similar to some other pages having info and bolded the names for a character having their name stamped on screen. I just wanted to know what some people thought. Two I have done are: 4-7 and 4-8. I didn't quite know how to factor in "The Araz Family" though... --Sivak 04:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it looks great! You only have to link to a name once per heading, though. --StBacchus 17:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What exactly is the purpose, though? --Proudhug 17:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Page Templates
I've changed the page templates to have the new sidebar stuff instead of the old complicated one. Just to let everyone know. It should make new users less complicated. --24 Administration 17:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome, thanks for doing that! --StBacchus 03:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Living Characters
J Ripley requested a category for livvies a while back. It would be easy for me to do that now, using the same script that's going to update the sidebars and appearances. Should I do it? --StBacchus 13:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't it be obvious that anyone who isn't deceased is living? Oh well. If I don't have to do it I don't object to it. Wikipedia has a "living persons" category. - Xtreme680 00:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, yes. But if you want a list of only living characters, you can't get one unless there's a specific category for it. You'd have to compare the list of "Characters" to the lists of "Deceased" and "Unknown" characters. There's a cool MediaWiki extension that would make it way easier to do things like that, but it's not installed here. --StBacchus 01:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Objections?
As you guys know, I'm working on converting all our tables to templates for purposes of space saving, etc. Team Bacchus has automated the process, so all we need to do is run our little bot and all the characters will update with the new sidebars and appearances. Since that will deluge Recent Changes with 500+ edits, I've asked Wikia to give me a bot flag. That means I would have a new bot account that can make edits that don't appear in Recent Changes. Presumably, any changes made by that account would appear in its contribs list.

What I need to know is, is there anyone out there uncomfortable with letting me do that? Of course I wouldn't use it for shenanigans. I could use it in the future if we ever needed to do a mass change again, but my only plan right now is to change over the character sidebars and appearances. Otherwise, I'll still do it, but all 500 or so changes will appear in Recent Changes. --StBacchus 09:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have no objections.... go for it. -Kapoli 22:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No problems here. :D --24 Administration 15:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, all! I'll also use the bot account to do my CSS experimenting. Even marked as minor, it's probably annoying for you guys to see 20 changes to my monobook.css all the time. So, unless there are any nays out there, Kryten 2X4B-523P will be a bot whose edits do not appear in Recent Changes. Check out his contribs to see what he's up to. --StBacchus 13:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The flag is set. You can also see see bot edits by clicking the show bots link at the top of recent changes.  Let me know if you need anything else -- sannse (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC) (Wikia community team)

Category change?
I was thinking about changing the category 24: The Game to just Games, the same way we do Comics and Novels and...well, everything. The subcategories (24: The Game Characters and 24: The Game Episodes) would then be subcategories of Games. Yea? Nay? Anybody got a strong feeling? --StBacchus 16:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Works fine for me. --Proudhug 16:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've been tending to treat the game as a series more than I would for a book or any other product. I think that there's so much more stuff we can have for it that it deserves it's own category. --24 Administration 16:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's more like a season. There are only five articles in 24: The Game anyway...the rest are all filed under Characters or Episodes. I guess there are more locations that should be going in there. I'd like to have a general Games category, but maybe we can compromise. Make 24: The Game a subcategory of Games? --StBacchus 18:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I just realized that when you said 24: The Game was a series, you meant series as in season. (>_<) I'm sorry for misinterpreting. --StBacchus 18:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Way to go 24!
Winning 2 of the biggest awards! Congrats to Kiefer and the entire crew and cast. They earned it.--CWY2190 02:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't forget that they received a total of 12 Emmy Nominations and received 5 of them!!! The five were: Jon Cassar for Director of a Drama, Kiefer for Best Actor, Sean Callery for Music Composition, 24 for Best Drama, and some guy (Sorry whoever this is) for Camera Editing. Great job everyone, you all earned it! --BauerJ24 00:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Main Villian?!?!
I noticed some new succession boxes at the bottom of 5 articles - Victor Drazen, Peter Kingsley, Stephen Saunders, Habib Marwan, and Christopher Henderson. The boxes list these 5 characters as the "Main Villian". I don't know if I missed where that was discussed or decided, but I don't like labelling these characters this way. First of all, I wouldn't consider Henderson the main villian in Season 5.... I'd go with Bierko, Henderson or even Logan. Same with Season 3.... Michael Amador and Saunders each had a portion of the season where they were the main baddie. And Max/Trepkos/Kingsley.... I could argue that they were all main villians. I just think that these boxes are a bad idea and I think we should remove them. -Kapoli 08:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is quite silly. I vaguely remember having this conversation a long while back.  "Villain" is a subjective term that doesn't even apply to the real world.  Not to mention, as you say, deciding who is the main villain isn't even clear in most situations.  Henderson considered what he did patriotic, not villainous.  Similarly with Marwan.  As far as Victor Drazen is concerned, Jack Bauer was the "main villain" of Season 1. --Proudhug 10:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't create or add those boxes and I'm not attached to them. However, somebody took the time to find the villain box template (not easy to do) and use it, so maybe this merits some discussion.

Clearly, what is meant by "villain" here is the antagonist - whoever is creating a problem for the protagonist (Jack/CTU) to solve. "Main" means the guy in charge, not the expendable losers dying by the platoon. Using that definition, it's pretty clear who the main villains are and that there can be more than one of them per season. --StBacchus 10:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's quite simple. Character pages are In-Universe pages and this "villain box" makes them become OOU since it is not a term which is used in the real world. These boxes also, I assume, only takes the TV show into account as well. Plus the fact that in many of the days, Day 2 especially, it's hard to say who the main villain really is. --24 Administration 19:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but the character pages have already got OOU stuff on them. Actually, the only parts of the character pages that are IU are the quotes, the description, and the pictures (the pictures are debatable). Appearances, actor, and trivia/notes are all OOU. If we're allowing that much, why not the villain box?

Also, if you're saying that any term not used by the characters is OOU, that means the "Day 1" "Day 2" designations are OOU as well. --StBacchus 11:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the fact that characters are an IU item isn't any reason to exclude an OOU box to the page. You're right, there are OOU sections on IU articles, that's fine.  The reason it doesn't work is simply that "villain" isn't always a clear-cut term with a show like this, especially with seasons two and five.  Also, what do you do if a villain traverses seasons?  There are just too many vague parameters. --Proudhug 14:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's hard to see who the antagonists are, but that's fine. I'll get rid of the villain box templates so no one is inspired to use them again. --StBacchus 16:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

24: The Title Controversy
Okay, we really need to hash this out. Currently, we have some article titles that include "24:" at the beginning and some that don't. There's no rhyme or reason to it, it's just whatever the page creator happened to call it, or what someone felt like moving it to. As far as I'm concerned, it should be all or nothing. This half and half is confusing for editors who want to link to these things, and I think most everyone will agree with me that you shouldn't have to look up which is which for each individual case.

The inclusion of "24:" seems pretty silly since clearly this is a site about 24 so it's taken for granted that it's "24: The Unofficial Companion", not "Laverne and Shirley: The Unofficial Companion". All we're doing is making more work for ourselves (even if it is only four extra keystrokes). One of the goals of our site is to make our articles easy to edit. If we were to go for "all" as opposed to "nothing", then we'd have to retitle novels as "24: Declassified: Veto Power", etc. This creates a hassle that common sense and wiki convention say is unnecessary.

The argument for "24 Stories" was a different issue altogether, of course, as it was claimed to be "24 Stories", not "24: Stories", though evidence indicates that the title of the story is in fact "Stories", not "24 Stories", despite part of it taking place on the 24th story of a building. --Proudhug 03:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Wiki convention? Really? Wikipedia includes the whole title in its article names. I guess Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia lack common sense, because they both include the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" parts of titles in their article names.


 * It's about clarity. Not every single book, comic, game or magazine has the prefix "24". Some of them include the 24 in the title ("24 Inside" and "24 Heaven"). Some include it as part of the title, but not the beginning ("Pure 24"). Some have a different title ("24 Declassified: Trojan Horse" and "A Day in the Life: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to 24").


 * Also, calling something "The Thing" makes it sound like there's only one when there's often several. We know we want a 24-related unofficial companion, but do we want this one, this one, or maybe this one? When a page is called "The Game", is it referring to this game, that game, the other game, or the DVD board game? Adding the "24:" where it rightfully goes makes it clear at a glance that the article is about a specific product, not a category or general topic.


 * I do agree that it should be all or nothing. I would be happy to change all the titles that need changing. Let's spare some keystrokes for clarity. It's really not that hard. --StBacchus 10:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The official title is "24: The Game", of course. Other sites such as Amazon and Wikipedia use that full title in order to distinguish it from things like "X-Men: The Game" or the movie "The Game". We have no need here. Unless someone on the show mentions the Michael Douglas movie, there's never a need to disambiguate.

There may be many 24 games, but only one of them is called "24: The Game". That's the title. Other 24 games have other titles, such as "The Mobile Game" and "DVD Board Game". No one's going to think "The Game" is the page for anything besides the PS2 game.

Wikipedia's article on "The Band" takes you to a page about "The Band". Does that confuse people into thinking that there's only one band in the world? Of course not. If they want "The Steve Miller Band" or "The Dave Matthews Band", they have different articles. The article is titled "The Band" because that's the name of the band, pure and simple. "The Game" is the title of the game, as annoyingly lame as it may be. --Proudhug 13:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You didn't address my argument. No other sites do what you're proposing. Your example with The Band is irrelevant. The point is not differentiating between the products relating to 24 and the products relating to other shows. The point is differentiating between the different products relating to 24 and also to other types of articles.


 * For instance: With your system, an article titled "Conspiracy" could refer to either the episode or the concept (which features prominently in the show). And if I wanted to write an article on the conspiracies on the show, I couldn't call it "Conspiracy" because that name is taken. --StBacchus 06:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess you're right. Until the day comes that we come up with an alternate method of differentiating between two articles with similar titles, we have no choice but to add the "24:" prefix. --Proudhug 14:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You showed me! Why use a complete title when you could arbitrarily cut off half of it and then add a disambig tag? In fact, we should do that for every page title. There's really no reason to have a page titled "Jack Bauer" when everyone knows who Jack is. "The Death of Jack Bauer?" My hands are cramping up just thinking about typing that. "Death" will do just fine. If people think it's a page about death, that's their own problem. It's downright silly to title a page "24: Conspiracy" when it could be called "Conspiracy (mobisodes)". I can't wait to start saving keystrokes! --StBacchus 05:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. So it's settled then? --Proudhug 08:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Seriously, did you have an answer to any of my arguments? I could put them in a bulleted list if that would help. --StBacchus 15:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That might help. I apologize, but I thought we addressed all of the issues. Any unaddressed arguments you still have, feel free to repost, as I can't seem to find which ones I missed. :( --Proudhug 16:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Woah it seems to me that all my arguments today are based on the universe the article is in lol. Books and products are OOU (with books it's the actual book and the title not the story within) and thus should have their full title. The full title of, say, 24: The Game is 24: The Game. --24 Administration 19:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, 24A! --Proudhug 19:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You changed the Manual of Style? Crap, I thought you were just blowing me off! I apologize for misunderstanding. I'll change all the pages that need changing tomorrow morning. --StBacchus 03:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

CTU Layout
I know that this may be difficult and unprofessional, but what do you think on changing the layout? I would think about making it like a CTU Terminal, with the red bubble things on the top and bottom? The top could be the my talk/preferences/watchlist stuff, then the bottom would be situation room/c.events/bullpen. On the side bar, it would say the tree layout of where you were:
 * Latest Intel
 * Counter Terrorist Unit
 * Special Agent in Charge

And on the screen would be the Special Agent page. The side bar would be the links back in case you wanted to go back three levels, but not go all the way to the start page. More CTU looking, but much revamping needed. Opinions? BauerJ24 19:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we started discussing this Wiki 24:The Situation Room. I've been trying to secure some clear screenshots of the "purple parallelogram" display. --Proudhug 21:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it'd look great if we could but we'd have to make it great and not do a half assed job. It'd be amazing if we could but I'm pretty sure it'd be hard. When I changed the wiki to have a black background when it was founded that took me ages to work out but I'm properbly one of the worst people here at understanding all this technical mumbo-jumbo. I know StBacchus is much more proficient in it for example. :D --24 Administration 12:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)