Forum:New, single appearances template

Forum: The Situation Room > New, single appearances template

Put this together: Template:Appearances to streamline all those individual Appearances templates; it's currently in use on Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian. Thoughts? --Pyramidhead 06:47, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

This way all the novels and things are at the bottom as opposed to in timeline order. I think its a lot more useful to have stuff in order of when it was supposed to happen in the 24-verse. --SignorSimon _{(talk/contribs/email)} 09:49, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

It's funny: the placement of the EU content at the bottom was the only thing I liked about the new templates. I'm a 24 purist and consider only the shows to be canon, and have always wanted a separate wiki altogether for non-show stuff, like how there is the Memory Beta wiki instead of cramming it all onto Memory Alpha. Anyway, if this gets changed I won't have any reason to support the new templates at all. My reasons for not approving of them now:

1. There are no problems with the current templates. None whatsoever.
2. Cramming all this onto 1 template will force everyone to re-learn how to use the appearances template. Not necessary.
3. There is a huge detriment to all this! You can't navigate to the specific Day's Appearances from the TOC with this new template. If you included edit tabs inside the template, people would be sent over to the template itself, not that spot on the character's page.
4. "Streamlining" onto 1 template will increase the load time as the page scrambles to decide what part of the template gets loaded during a page access/refresh. This is why Wikia has said to put documentation on a separate page: less for the template to load. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 12:02, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

1. I would argue that there are problems. The arbitrary "Xa-Ya" syntax, for one; at this point, I can usually remember episodes by the time of day, but a lot of people, including the people who work on the show, go more by episode numbers, which this new template would as well. Plus, the current system requires you to stick in graphic novels and other non-template entries in between the boxes, which look really ugly in my opinion.
2. It's hardly rocket science to figure out how to use the new template. Again, XxYY is simpler than the time of day parameters.
3. You can, actually. Go check it out.
4. I tested it out, and honestly there's no real difference in load time, or at worst a negligible one. If it's really an issue, it wouldn't be that difficult to separate each season table into separate templates, like it currently is now, but still have them in a single navbox. --Pyramidhead 20:46, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm starting to come around to the idea. They do look a lot neater. At the minute, my concern is that they all are collapsed as default. On pages such as John Adams which have very little information already there's no need for them to be hidden away and for users to have to press to look at the content. As a matter of fact, I don't think that feature would ever be all that necessary - in what situation is it an advantage? --SignorSimon _{(talk/contribs/email)} 10:45, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

Something else I noticed; the Declassified novels are now linked to as "d1", "d2" etc. This definitely will be a lot harder to work with... in 99% of instances we will know which novel we are writing an article about, but won't necessarily know it in order. That one certainly seems counter-productive. --SignorSimon _{(talk/contribs/email)} 10:59, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

By default, they're open if there's only one on the page, and collapsed if there are more. It's also possible to have no option to collapse it at all. As for Declassified, I could change those to initials if you'd prefer. But it's a one-time edit for those characters; not like new characters are suddenly going to show up in them. --Pyramidhead 19:50, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

Maybe its just personal preference, but I think it would be easier if the templates are open as default. With regards to Declassified, its just that it would be a bit of a headache to change all articles as they are at the moment, and personally I don't think its easier for the future. --SignorSimon _{(talk/contribs/email)} 20:29, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

I'll concede to everything about this except for the following points:

• I'm 95% certain that Proudhug would disagree with the EU content being relegated to the bottom. Even though I believe this is a good development, and I defend it, it's worth noting that he almost certainly would speak out against this. I'm just wondering where the heck he is.
• Regarding #3 in the earlier list, don't be a sillypants. You added that functionality after I brought it up! But it's great that it is there now.
• Lastly how will this be implemented? Is there a way the Movebot can accurately switch over everything to the new template?

Blue Rook  talk  contribs 21:02, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

It would probably be possible to automate it, but it'll take some doing. I think we should consider completely removing any kind of appearances table for characters who are only in one thing - it's always struck me as redundant. --Pyramidhead 20:59, March 10, 2010 (UTC)

The full templates are needed for all characters, to demonstrate visually how long and where they were situated in the appropriate season. It doesn't matter if it was just 1 episode.

Also I agree that it is important we un-collapse the box by default. I know the cool thing on Wikipedia is to have the boxes closed, but it's not the same here. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 04:18, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the more I use it the more irritating it is becoming to have to collapse it all the time. --SignorSimon _{(talk/contribs/email)} 10:59, March 11, 2010 (UTC)

Pyramidhead do you have any opinion on the tables being open by default?

Also, I had a suspicion that proved to be true. How come the Movebot added an illegitimate appearance for Jamey Farrell? She did not appear in the final episode of S1. Pyramidhead can you check the coding for Movebot to make sure it isn't adding the wrong episodes. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 11:48, March 13, 2010 (UTC)

That was me logged in as Movebot, actually. And she was in the finale, in the video. I followed the link from this page, which had her in 10 episodes. I assumed somebody forgot to add it on the actual page. --Pyramidhead 03:50, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to make this transition we're going to trust that you will use only the pre-existing appearances templates. Let us know if you used any other source for altering other characters' appearances templates, because the sources you used may not have been accurate. From now on though definitely stick to the current templates though (unless, as with anything else any editor would like to change, you have a rationale for not doing so that you're willing to discuss). Blue Rook  talk  contribs 13:24, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so you both want everything to be completely open by default? Part of the reason I did this was to give readers the choice of just seeing which episodes a character was in for a particular season, or allow them to just skip over appearances entirely, rather than having to scroll past ginormous tables for every character that was in more than two seasons. Why not have the master table open by default (and uncloseable) but leave the sub-boxes collapsed? --Movebot 18:20, March 23, 2010 (UTC)

Bump. I really don't think there's a problem with leaving the sub-tables closed. If anything, it'll make things clearer: you'll be able to see, at a glance, which seasons a character was in, and then with one click open one of them to find out more. A lot less overwhelming than seeing everything just splayed out like it is now. --Pyramidhead 22:22, March 28, 2010 (UTC)

No one else supports closing these and it constitutes a complete change of the way every character page will look. They've been open for years and closing them only forces everyone to take at least one extra step to see each one. I personally can't imagine how any of the tables is overwhelming; they're supposed to be a quick visual for everyone.

The most important matter is making sure that the Audio Only/Corpse Only appearances be fixed asap. Blue Rook  talk  contribs 04:03, March 29, 2010 (UTC)