Wiki 24:The Situation Room

This is the Situation Room where you can talk about Wiki 24, ask questions, suggest ways to improve the site, or provide general comments. Wiki 24 is always open to new ideas to improve our style, policies and format, so feel free to question things and/or suggest changes and additions. Try to keep the most recent discussions at the top of the page for the ease of browsing. Be sure to read the Help page before posting. If you have found any bugs or technical problems, please report them on the Wiki 24:Problems page and an administrator will try and sort the problem out.

Also, please keep in mind that this is not a site for discussion of the show 24 unless it specifically pertains to the creation of this encyclopedia. There are many other locations on the internet to talk with fans about the show. And of course, off topic discussion doesn't have a place here.

Topics in the Situation Room will remain active for about a month after their final reply, then they will be moved to the Archives. Please timestamp your posts by including four tildes at the end (~~~~).

Logo

The hell happened to our logo? --Proudhug 18:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I sorted that out yesterday. Quite funny in retrospect. I banned the guy though. --24 Administration 20:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorted what out? I don't know what happened. Why is our logo back to the old squished version? --Proudhug 20:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

There was some kind of vandalism yesterday, but it's still not right. Count me in for sorting it back to the way it was a week ago. --StBacchus 21:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone changed it to a communism sign with "Wikipedia is commie" written on it or something to that effect. I wasn't sure about how to change it back so I put that one up. --24 Administration 16:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

How about uploading as a new version the one uploaded by Angela on 11-04-2005? That would probably do it. -StBacchus 17:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how I managed to do it, but I fixed it. Actually, I know HOW I DID it, but I just don't know why it wouldn't let me do it before. But it's fixed now and that's all that matters. :-) --Proudhug 17:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Awesome, it looks good again! Thanks! -StBacchus 18:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming episodes

I vote that the preview summaries for upcoming episodes be removed. First off, they contain spoilers, even if vague ones. Secondly, the text is taken from other sites and not written by our editors. I have no problem creating place-holder articles for upcoming episodes, but including summaries violates our no-spoiler policy, as well as possible copyright rules. --Proudhug 17:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. Someone seems to put up new episodes almost immdeitally after the newest one airs anyway. What is the point of posting possible spoiler information on our site if there is nothing to put there except an image we don't want to use in the end, and things taken from other websites? - Xtreme680 17:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I say clear 'em out. Didn't we have this discussion once before? I was on the other side of the fence initially, but now I think that we should just avoid posting summaries (especially those lifted directly from Yahoo! or other sites) completely. Willo or someone else usually has an episode guide up from the latest episode within a few hours, and I don't think we need to go beyond that. -Kapoli 21:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Policy on Dates

Guys, we need to make a decision about dates. There are now a fair number of pages that include dates that have been extrapolated from some imaginary starting year for Day 1. I've argued on the other side about assuming geography and history, but I think that unless a date was seen or heard on the show/book/etc., it should not be included on any page except the Timeline page (which can discuss the different possible timelines, as there are several). What do you all think? -StBacchus 11:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I 100% agree with you, StBacchus. We can't have it both ways. We can either make assumptions based on what is true in the real world, or not, but it has to be consistent across the board. I hear alot of arguments for 2000 or 2004 being the starting year because those are years of actual Presidential elections, but just because that's the way it's done in real life doesn't mean that's the way they do it in 24. Until someone on the show (or some information from a screen capture) can lead us to a definite starting date, we shouldn't include the information anywhere except the Timeline page. -Kapoli 14:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

This is the major project I've been working on for quite a while now. Placing the first year in 2002 makes nearly every date reference from the show and its ancilliary material fit nicely into a consistent timeline. Once I'm completely finished with the timeline, I'll be posting it for everyone to analyze. Barring any major criticisms, I'd planned to begin incorporating those dates into Wiki 24 afterwards. This is the reason I've ignored most of the timeline information that's already here, since I'd planned to change most of it once I'm ready. --Proudhug 15:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking forward to seeing your timeline, actually. But I have a really big problem with including conjectural dates into the Wiki at large. Your timeline is different and separate from the dates that have actually been given in the show, and people reading shouldn't have to wonder - as I have been - which ones were given and which were made up. -StBacchus 21:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I have no idea where we're getting birthyears, nor do I know how this timeline project works. If there is some source that gives out birthdates, why don't we cite that on the character pages? - Xtreme680 00:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Credit for creation of pages

Do we have a policy on including the author/creator of a page? Since we have so many people who contribute and edit, is it necessary to put who wrote a particular page? It's not really a competition, and the page's history shows who started the page anyway. Most of us list the pages we create on our user pages. Do we need the info on the page itself? --Kapoli 00:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The author of pages should definitely not be included on the page itself. I wasn't aware there were pages like this, but the editor's name should be removed. As you said, the editor's name is there on the history page, should anyone need to know. --Proudhug 01:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Yea, it's incredibly irrelevant and vain. If they want to post the pages they have created on their userpage, that's cool, but I think it's completely against policy for it to be on an article. - Xtreme680 02:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Time stamps

As you can see above, I'm requesting people begin timestamping their posts here so as to make it easier to clean up the Room. I realize most of you do, but some don't. Thanks guys. --Proudhug 23:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip about inserting a timestamp by putting ~~~~. I've been trying to figure out the UTC each time I post, and I think that's been throwing a lot of other people off, too. I certainly didn't know it was that easy, but now I'm sure everyone will timestamp their posts. --Kapoli 05:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Main images

Am I the only person who thinks it's totally pointless to have the main image of an episode be "The following occurs between" text? I mean, honestly, I believe the main photo should be used to give a memorable scene from an episode, or an image that at least gives you an idea of which episode it was. I think that Day 3 12:00am-1:00am Day 5 8:00pm-9:00pm are good examples.

I can see it both ways. 24 is known for the "The following occurs between" screen, but it also would be nice to see a big scene. Which everone is decided, make sure every episode is the same way. -CWY2190 21:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Xtreme680 and I were talking about that on another section of this page. We were discussing the idea of using the picture from the episode lists (tables on the Day pages) instead of "The following occurs..." We think that those pictures would be more appropriate because they coordinate with what's listed on each of the individual Day pages, and they're usually an image from an important scene of the show. -Kapoli 21:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I agree with you guys. The yellow text is iconic and all, but it's not interesting to look at on a page. I don't give it a second look anymore. How about just using it for the premiere episode, day 1? --StBacchus 24 April 2006

That was the idea Xtreme680 had too! I agree with you guys... that's the only place where I would really think it's important/useful to have it. --Kapoli 22:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't even like it being on the first page, let alone the others. The exact text is repeated in the plot summary, so it's pointless. But, if everyone agrees that it looks fine on the first page, I'm okay with that. All of the others, however don't look good at all. --Proudhug 23:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Placeholder Images

Well, I made a new placeholder that's 200px wide, for use with actors and characters. And now I'm not sure if I like it. My question for all of you is, do we even want to use placeholder images when we don't have a real picture readily available? If so, do you like it, or should I try again? Check it out. --StBacchus 24 April 2006

I vote we don't use placeholder images, except on pages like the episode guides and lists of things like books, etc. I think it makes the boxes look kinda ugly. Haha, the images themselves aren't ugly, StBacchus, they're actually quite well done. I just don't like filling in things until you've actually got something to fill it up with. --Proudhug 23:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Capturing Images

I don't know if this is the right place to put this, but can you tell me, and other people that wan't to know, how to capture images? What software do you use? You know, that kind of stuff, thank you. -CWY2190 19:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The DVD program (InterVideo WinDVD) that came on my computer allows me to capture stills from the show. I don't know how other people do it. -- Kapoli 21:14, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If you play files on Windows Media Player, you can pause it when you want to take a picture, and then press control+i, and it will take a motion capture than you can save as a jpeg file. - Xtreme680 02:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I also use WinDVD for screencapping from DVD, although I didn't know the trick using WMP...awesome, now I can do season 5! Anyway, you will probably also want to do some color work on the image before you upload it, because the difference is usually impressive. I just use Photoshop's Auto Color or Auto Contrast and that brightens things right up. Check out Danny Dessler New, with color correction, versus Danny Dessler Old. Maybe they'll come out right for you the first time, but they always look muddy for me. --StBacchus 24 April 2006

Sidebar templates beef

Okay, I've been biting my tongue because they look so nice, but the sidebar templates are actually starting to annoy me. I really only think these are necessary for major articles, such as main characters/actors, episodes, government organizations, etc. For minor things like one-shot characters/actors, locations, weapons, etc. I don't think these are necessary. At the very least, many of them need to to be altered to fit the specific article. It's pretty silly to see:

• First seen: Day 3 - 12:00pm-1:00pm
• Last seen: Day 3 - 12:00pm-1:00pm

For the most part, these have only been utilized for characters and actors, and some episode pages. I haven't seen them used at all for locations, weapons, or anything else. I have no idea what you mean by etc., but I think they look pretty good on the comics, dvds, and novels pages. As for sidebars like the one you mentioned above, well, it's hard to determine if a character/actor is one-shot if you don't even have the information. I can understand maybe taking off the first seen and last seen columns for minor characters, but leave the actor pages the way that they are, there's no reason to change them. I am completely opposed to taking off the sidebars, mainly because the pages without them look stupid and unorganized. When we started using the new sidebars, we used the same information that the old ones had. If you want to add different information, we can discuss it. I know wikipedia has different information than we do. - Xtreme680

Yes, they look fine on pages for comics, DVDs, novels and such. It's mainly the minor characters and actors that bother me, as well as pages like Moira O'Neal, which just look silly. As for actors, if certain information like their birthdate is unknown, it looks nicer to leave those columns out of the table, and if the information is later "discovered" the column can be added back in. This will dictate itself which actors need the template, since there's no point in including a table with only one or two columns; that information can be included in the article proper. I disagree that the pages without the templates look stupid and unorganized. Not every page will have a template anyway, so are you saying all pages without a template are stupid and unorganized? --Proudhug 22:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've thought about it a little more, and how about this. We leave the incomplete sidebars up for actors, indicating that they still need to be worked on, because I think that we all want more information for some pages. Discussion on this page indicates that people like them and think we should have it across the board for categories, including actors, characters, and episodes. I have personally made sidebars for comics, novels, dvds, and soundtracks, and I think that they look good. As for one shot characters and mentioned characters, how about we change the first seen and last seen columns and change them to an "appeared in" column or something to that nature. That way it wouldn't look as silly, but still have a uniform look. - Xtreme680

Yes, the "appeared in" thing is exactly what I'm talking about. It makes a lot more sense than including "First seen" and "Last seen" for people who where only in one episode. Sidebar information seems like Big Deal information to me, so to be redundant there isn't a good idea. --Proudhug 22:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I am definetely not saying that all pages without a template look stupid and organized. Just pages that are in categories where we regularly put sidebars, such as actors and characters. As for removing columns for some actors, I think this is a bad idea. Many actors just don't give that information out, such as Gregory Itzin and Penny Johnson Jerald. I definetely think that those actors need sidebars, considering they play major characters and we have a lot of information on them. If we don't have this "Big Deal" information, I think we need to make it clear that it actually is unknown, not that we were too lazy to look it up. Putting the no image yet jpeg is a way of saying, please put a picture up, I couldn't find one. Not putting a template up makes it look like we haven't tried working on a page, while stating that the information is unknown indicates we have, and need to keep trying to edit the page. - Xtreme680

Unfortunately, I completely disagree with you on this, so hopefully others will chime in with their thoughts on the matter. I don't think that people will see a missing birthdate or picture and think that we were too lazy to look it up. If someone notices a piece of information missing, they may be inclined to look it up and discover why it wasn't on our site.

Obviously the more people we have editing the better off we are, but you have to keep in mind that the purpose of Wiki 24 is to provide an encylopedia of information for people wanting to know about 24, not to gather editors to work on an encyclopedia. Ideally, we want people to come to the site and read it at their leisure and find out all the information we've provided for them, not navigate through cluttered announcements of what's missing and how they can help out. Wiki 24 has an unattainable goal of being "complete" some day and in the mean time, we should try to pass ourselves off as being close enough to that as to be a ligitimate source of information, rather than a fledgling project, because I feel we're past the point of infancy.

Also, I personally think the "No Image Yet" image looks tacky and awkward and only merits use as a placeholder on pages like the Episode Guides. Including an image of the actor in character when no others are available is certainly acceptable. Other wikis do it all the time. --Proudhug 23:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I know it's more than a community of editors. If information is unknown, then we need to tell people who look at the encyclopedia that. Otherwise, they might think the information is out there, but not included for one reason or another. It's definetely NOT a bunch of cluttered announcements about how people can help out. It's honestly saying that this information has not been released, and that's important. As far as using in character images of actors, I think it looks worse, and it's uninformative. No one wants to go to an actor page and see the same picture with a sentence about how this actor played the character they were just looking at. Which brings me back to the idea that if you don't have information on someone, why would you create that page? - Xtreme680

Whoa, there are a lot of points to address here. I guess I'll start at the top. First of all, I don't think it's silly to have the first seen/last seen info for single-episode characters. It's not redundant information just because first seen and last seen happen to be the same episode. Leaving in both rows maintains a consistent style across every single character page, and that makes them easier to read. For the same reason, I think any category that uses sidebars should have them tailored to the category (I like the idea of having a single "Appearances" row for the novel/comic/mentioned characters), but should use the sidebars consistently. It doesn't matter if we don't happen to have all the info every time, the uniform look is important.

Second, I agree with Xtreme680 about putting in Unknown where applicable. Anyone can edit, so it might be true that Joe Random was just too lazy to look it up. If the DOB/POB information isn't out there, it's important to let people know - regardless of whether they are potential editors - that someone has looked for the information already.

Third, the What You Can Do information is a resource that's available for those who are interested, not the front page of the site. Proudhug, if your reference to cluttered announcements means the Stub/Insufficient Info tags, it's also a courtesy to let people know that the information on a page is incomplete. I really don't see where any of this gets in the way of "passing off" the wiki as a legitimate source of information.

Finally, I've been uploading "in character" actor pics, but I see your point, Xtreme680. I designed the No Image Yet pic for use with the episode guides, which is why it looks wrong at 200px. I could certainly make another one for actors. I don't know that it's strictly necessary, but it should be done if we want to use placeholder images for the actors. --StBacchus 21 April 2006

Citations

Another thing... Right now we don't have a lot of articles up pertaining to things besides episodes, characters, actors, and other media such as novels and comics and such. While at some point I do plan on going through and working on much of this myself, I'm kind of glad not much of it has been begun yet. The reason for this is because we need to come up with a means of citing our information. Currently, for actors and characters it's fine to include their appearances at the bottom of the page, along with their first and last in the sidebar, but this won't work for articles such as Chicago, Internet, or Terrorist where most of the information in the article doesn't come from specific "appearances". My proposed solution to this is to do like the Star Wars wiki which simply lists all of the source materials at the bottom of the page. This way it doesn't clutter up the article, like at Memory Alpha, and yet the source material is listed there for those who wish to investigate it themselves. --Proudhug 21:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. My only question is, how detailed should the source information be? For instance, is it enough just to put [[24], Fox.com if the info comes from dialogue on the show and the official website? I don't think it's a bad idea to include source information for some of the characters, since some of them have non-canon profiles on the website. --StBacchus 21 April 2006

Site improvement assistance

I notice at the Homestarrunner Wiki, they have a section dedicated to "What You Can Do". Would you be willing to put together such a thing, Proudhug? --StBacchus 17 April 2006

It probably is a good idea to have a page like this set up. I probably won't have the time to create one in the near near future, but I can get around to it eventually. Or someone else can start it and we can all give input and work it out together. --Proudhug 19:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I know I can think of a lot of good projects that we can all work together on, I just don't know how we would design the page. If you can put up a skeleton page StBacchus, I can add some obvious content we can all get to working on. - Xtreme680

I've put up the page here, but we could definetely add a lot more information. Check out the link. Wiki 24:What You Can Do - Xtreme680

Awesome! Thanks, I'll fill it in as best I can. Everybody else should add when they get a chance, too. --StBacchus 18 April 2006

Voting for 24

I've noticed that on the vote for Featured Wikia, 24 has 5 votes, and Redwall has 14....does anyone else see a problem with this? Wiki 24 is easily one of the best wikis on here and deserves to be Featured Wikia. LOST Wiki won for April with no trouble at all, I think everyone should vote for 24 and make this happen. --ChristianShephard 09:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You know, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. I really look forward to the day that Wiki 24 is the Featured Wikia of the month, but don't want it to happen until I'm fully satisfied that Wiki 24 has really gotten off the ground, so I've been holding off on promoting it too much. While I feel that that moment is very close, I still don't think the site is entirely there yet. There are still a few areas that I'd like to see improved/created before I begin showing off the site to people. These include expanding many of the main episode pages, as well as 24 Inside, incorporating more information from the "Expanded Universe" items, and completing and uploading my timeline information that I've been working on. I do believe the site is already one of the best Wikia in existence, but I personally would rather it be just a little better before it gets the prestigious "Featured Wikia" status. --Proudhug 11:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The more that we promote the site, the more users that we can get to help us with that. Seriously, most of the awesome wikas have a lot more regular editors than we do. We still have a couple more weeks until the end of the month, so I'm sure we could improve the pages a little more until we would be an actual featured wika. - Xtreme680

Are we ready yet? I mean, honestly, we still have a lot of pages that need a lot of info... Don't get me wrong, I love our wiki, but... - Willo

Whatever. Our wiki is awesome, and we've all done too much work to be all "aww, shucks" about it. Besides, featured wika isn't just for the best wika, it's also a spotlight for more promotion where you can attract more users and improve it. - Xtreme680

I totally see both sides of the coin. However, I see the Featured Wiki as best wiki, moreso than a promotion for wikis that need help. I think that at the rate we're currently going, I'll probably personally be ready for us to be featured as the one after the next one. If we make the next one, so be it, but I'm not yet ready to play Show 'N' Tell. Keep in mind that the point of Wiki 24 is to be a resource of information, not a collection of editors working on a site. Ideally, I'd hope that the bulk of our visitors are merely reading the site with little to no editing needing be done. This'll mean that we're approaching completeness, a state which will obviously never be achieved, merely strived for. --Proudhug 19:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Navigation bar

Hey, I was thinking it'd be fun to change up the names of some of the links in the navigation bar on the left. Like, instead of "Community portal" this could be "The situation room", or instead of "Current events" it could be "Latest intel" or something. We could also add or remove some of those links if we feel it should be done. Let me know what you guys think and what you'd want stuff to be called. Keep in mind that we want stuff to remain identifiable and easy to navigate. --Proudhug 16:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Cool, you went ahead and changed it to Situation Room. I like Latest Intel for Current Events, too. --StBacchus 18 April 2006

I love The Situation Room! Great Idea! --24 Administration 08:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I added the What You Can Do page to the navbar, naming it The Bullpen. Let me know what you think. I can't decide if "Latest Intel" should be the name of Current Events or Recent Changes. Any ideas for cool names for some of the other pages? Or any that should be added (or removed) from the navbar?

Latest Intel should be Recent Changes. Current Events? Hmmmm... Status Report? - Willo

Bullpen and Status Report are awesome. I'll go with Latest Intel being Recent Changes. Maybe Main Page could be Welcome to CTU or Executive Entrance or something like that. Meanwhile, the only link I don't use in the navbar is Random page, so please don't delete the others.... -StBacchus 20 April 2006

I like Latest Intel for Recent Changes. Perhaps you could change Current events to something like Division Update or something. Keep random page and perhaps change it to Random Data. I'm not sure what you could change Main Page to. --24 Administration 15:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll change Recent Changes to Latest Intel and Current Events to Status Report. And possibly Random Page to Random Data, I kinda like that. I'm not sure what I think of Division Update. My only problem with all of this is that it has to be relatively clear to visitors what they're clicking on. Obviously, the pages have explanations on them when you click them, but it's probably not a good idea if people are looking at the navbar and thinking, "What does Latest Intel mean again?" or "Dammit, which one of these brings up the Community Portal?" --Proudhug 21:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I've noticed that there is a space where the little arrow-box or whatever image should go, to mark external links. Could someone fix that? I would do it, but I don't know how. It's not a huge deal, but it makes things look less polished. -StBacchus 14 April 2006

I have the same problem when I view the site in Firefox. It's fine with IE, though. I don't know what the problem is. --Proudhug 06:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll be damned, it sure does work in IE. Argh. -StBacchus 15 April 2006

Jack Bauer Kill Count

This may be the ultimate piece of fanboyness, but I was thinking we could have a page, similar to the episode guide lists, where we list the kills Jack Bauer has had over the course of the seasons. It could be divided into sections by season, but I'd prefer it to be one full page. It could be Picture|Name|Episode|Method, which would be a great way to also link to the weapons we have articles for. There are several sites available where we can access the information, so the main work would be going through the episodes for the picture and the editing process. I'm posting this here because
1. I want to know if the administrators think it's a good idea.
2. I'm going to need some help
3. This is going to need discussion. We need to decide what constitutes a kill(Some people are going to die anyway, like Raymond O'Hara in Season 2, plus people like Ryan Chapelle, Habib Marwan, and Paul Raines might be tricky, whether Jack killed them or injured them (he doesn't exactly check their pulse every time), whether Jack killed someone or someone else did (we don't see the trajectory of every bullet). Also, we need to decide what information is relevant. Get back to me, I've done so much tweaking and so much adding of characters no one remembers, that you are probably sick of seeing my name on the recent changes list, but I'm just trying to improve the site. - Xtreme680

I love your idea. In fact, how about a complete encyclopedia of death? There are two people I know of that are keeping track of Jack's specifically: [1] and [2]. That first link goes to a forum thread that also contains a complete body count for season 5. Cinemorgue has also got quite a few. Wiki 24 has the best total list, but it could be better. I think it would be very useful to have a complete list of deadies (and not just because it will help me write fanfiction, LOL).

I would like to see one page for each season, with a table like you suggested, with each row alternating colors (say, between black and gray) to make it easier to read. I like your headings, and I like your idea of integrating the weapons pages. So maybe instead of Method, it could read Weapon - or keep Method and have that column list whether it was a murder or suicide. Since these are all going to be small columns, there could also be a Description column for those deaths that require a little 'splaining. What do you think, sirs? Xtreme680, is all this too far from your original line of thought? -StBacchus 14 April 2006

I was inspired by [3], because that page looks similar to our episode pages, but we would be able to do it better.

I had no plans to make encyclopedia of death, but now that you mention it, couldn't we have both the encyclopedia of death and the Bauer kill count? On the Bauer kill count page, we could have Method, which i think is important because sometimes Jack blows up cars or snaps peoples necks. On the encyclopedia of death, we can have Cause and Killer. On cause, we can put things like suicide, shotgun blast, broken neck, and on killer we can put who killed them. The Bauer Kill Count page can have Picture|Name|Episode|Method and the encyclopedia will bePicture|Name|Episode|Cause|Killer. As for the descriptions, that's why this setup works so well. We can describe the death in the area between pictures, just like in the episode guides. - Xtreme680

Yeah, this IS totally fanboyish. While I don't think it's an inappropriate project, I personally don't see much point to it. We've already got categories such as "Deceased characters" for stuff like that, and besides it seems to me there's way too much ambiguity to much of it, as you pointed out. But feel free to give it a shot if you want. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. --Proudhug 17:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think those are problems that we can't fix. For one, we won't call the article "Jack Bauer kill count". We'd call it, Deaths caused by Jack Bauer, or Confirmed Kills by Jack Bauer, or something to that nature. This makes it sound more official. We do have deceased character categories, but this is something to improve the quality of the articles beyond the simple category pages. As for the ambiguity, well, thats why we have discussion pages. Besides, if there is one thing that will attract new users and be a cool front page article, it will be this. - Xtreme680

Images

I have a question about images. Erm, is there a limit to what we should be uploading? I've been thinking about doing three 15-25kb screencaps per episode, to go on the episode page (one of which can also be used as the image on the season summary page). Is that too much? Not enough? Thoughts? --StBacchus 8 April 2006

Good question... On the last few episode guides I did for Season 4, I've got images lined up on the right and the text for the episode guide on the left. I've been uploading probably like 15-20 images per episode. Should I get rid of some or does it not really matter? --Kapoli 15:53 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Policy/Style

I've taken the liberty of creating a style page and policy page similar to the one for the LOST Wiki. If you haven't seen that Wiki, check it out, it's a good example of the type of organization that I think we want this site to eventually be. However, we're better, because we have a superior show and more dedicated contributors, but they definetely have a very uniform look. Anyway, I added some links in there that we can edit so we have basic templates for character pages, actor pages, etc. This way we can have a set policy for what we already have. Cool. Xtreme680

It's fine, but not 100% true. There are pages for two future episodes up now, which contain little if any spoiler info, just what you'd find in a TV Guide. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Plus, there is not a set style for a lot of things yet, and I think these things need to be discussed before we go any further. - Willo

I for one agree with Xtreme680's stated policy about not creating pages until after an episode has aired. The rule about spoilers needs to be strict. Even including "TV Guide" descriptions is spoiling. The only non-spoiler stuff that could be on a page for an unaired episode is the template and maybe some of the crew (but none of the cast). --Proudhug 04:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

While I understand where you are coming from, I think that you must look at a couple facts here: 1. This information is not hard to access anywhere else. 2. One must actively choose to go to one of these pages. 3. You're not adding information to pages that someone who chose not to watch the preview would see (like the character pages) but rather to it's own page where a viewer could choose to avoid it. While I do not think we should activly posting spoilers (even for our UK friends) on the front page, or posting what happens in future episodes on character pages, I see NO harm in posting seperate pages for upcoming episodes that includes basic plot discriptions and information. - Willo

I agree with Willo about the descriptions of future episodes... I think that listing a summary from TV Guide should be allowed. The descriptions are always very basic and general, they never reveal a true "spoiler" for an episode. I mean, if you think about it... TV Guide, Fox's website, Fox's TV commercials, USA Today, etc. all "spoil" the next episode. The preview alone gives away several main plot points. I agree about not listing the cast, because there are often some characters who are listed (because they're part of the regular cast), but don't appear in the episode. Those are my thoughts, but I'll go along with the majority. I also have a few questions about the episode and character guides, but I'll post those questions on the discussion pages of those items. --Kapoli 04:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, what's the point of an unaired episode article existing if not to provide spoilers? Yes, clearly information from unaired episodes should never be included in regular articles for characters, but don't see why unaired episode articles even need to exist, except to contain an empty template. While it's true that the plot outlines are easily available to everyone, I don't think that means that we should include them on this site. This isn't a news site, it's a chronicle of established facts about 24 that have already aired. --Proudhug 22:16, 5 April 2006 (PDT)

Indeed. If you look at the Spoiler Policy that was last edited in October, near the beginning of the site, it states "In general, information from unaired episodes is not included on Wiki 24. There may be exceptions to this under certain articles that specifically pertain to the future of the show. In these cases, spoiler warnings will be provided." I can't think of a place where we would need to put up pages for episodes that haven't aired, especially when we have so much work to do on previous episode guides, characters, actors, companies, other multimedia, and other things from the first four seasons of the show and the part of season 5 that has already aired.

Anyway, the point of editing our policies and style is that we can have a uniform way that a character, actor, etc. page should look, and that we can use so that our wiki looks well organized. I was hoping we could get some more templates like the one we have for episodes and actors. Xtreme680

Hey, if we can swipe the style of the Lost wiki, can we swipe their episode list pages (like http://lost.wikia.com/wiki/Season_1)? 'Cause those are things of beauty. I would put in the time to reformat ours if you all think it could/should be done. In any case, just about anything is better than having them all listed under "D" for "Day." --StBacchus 7 April 2006

I don't see why not. Their episode pages look amazing. And hey, it's all wiki family, right? Xtreme680

Haha, I'm smrt. What I really wanted was to change the way the episodes were listed under the category, but I'm not sure that can be done. But I redid the list on the Season 1 page anyway, so we could all take a look at it. I could also redo the episode listings on the season pages with a simple table a la Memory Alpha. I like having the number and date there with the "title." What do you think, sirs? --StBacchus 8 April 2006

When I saw your suggestion last night, I thought I'd play around with the page for Season 4 and see how it looked. I really like the new episode layout for Season 1 and Season 4... it's nice to have a brief recap. Instead of putting the production code, which really doesn't mean anything to me, I put the episode number. I guess that doesn't mean anything either! We can change it to the production code. And I put the director's name. I don't know if anyone wants to keep that or not. I'm getting pictures together for the rest of Season 4 also, and I have those sized at 150px instead of 125px. Which size do we want to use? --Kapoli 8 April 2006 9:08 UTC

StBacchus, what would you prefer they be listed under, if not "D"? I don't understand how you'd want them to be ordered. --Proudhug 09:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It's just that, since the episodes don't have real "titles," there will eventually be 120 of them all listed under "D." Plus like four not under D. And then they're only in alpha-numeric order, so the first one listed under Day 1 isn't the actual first episode of that season...what I was picturing was basically what we've got going on the season pages, a list of the episodes in the correct order. But that's going to be on the season pages, so I guess it doesn't matter. StBacchus 8 April 2006

Okay, I've solved your problem. They're now ordered by season number in chronological order. I had a lot of help with the project from Kapoli and CWY2190. (In the future, guys, I think I'd prefer to do something like this myself, so as to make sure nothing gets missed and I don't get confused... but thanks! :D ) --Proudhug 03:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry for just jumping in without checking first, but when I realized what you were doing, I just started doing it from the other end because I figured it would go alot faster. I definitely understand that it would be really easy to miss one doing it that way. In the future, I'll ask first! Sorry! --Kapoli 4:17 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wow. It's even better than I imagined. You turned my vague rambling into a sensible, easy-to-read layout. Excellent job! Between this and the season pages, it should be a snap for anyone to find the episode they're looking for. --StBacchus 10 April 2006

I'm too tired to think of a style right now for the episode pages. They book look amazing, especially Season 4. I'll do one for Season 2 tomorrow, because I have it on my computer and can make the images. I'll try and think of a style later, but I definetely prefer the style of the Lost wiki to the Memory alpha one. - Xtreme680

OK, sudden realization edit. I like the style of the Season 4 page better than the Season 1. Time is better than Time Covered, 150px looks better than 125px, there's no reason for a production code, and Hour can be converted to Episode Number. I think StBacchus will agree. I plan on writing Season 2 in the same style as Season 4, and after that, I will start getting images up and changing Season 1 to fit that style. Great work guys, this has gone a long way into making Wiki 24 look freaking fantastic. - Xtreme680

Yeah, you guys are right. The season 4 page is beauteous! Great choice of pictures, Kapoli - love 'em. I like the addition of the director and total episode number, too. The bigger size of the pictures is fine. I would like to keep the hour number in there, though. Otherwise, by the time you get to 19 or so, you kinda lose track of where you are. Or at least I do, LOL. Also, did you guys want to keep the gray bars between episodes? I like them for clarity. --StBacchus 8 April 2006

Wow, I can't decide which of the two I like more. I think I'd go with a combination of the two. I'd keep the grey bars and use the headings:

Picture | Episode number | Time | Original airdate | Production code

I don't think Director needs to be listed there, and including the Prod Code will help keep track of the hour number as StBacchus said (with some minor mental adjustment for S1). What does everyone think? --Proudhug 11:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I like the grey bars too, I'll add them to Season 4... and I'm on board for changing the headings and removing the directors, but how about:

Picture | Time | Original airdate | Episode Number | Production code

I personally care the most about the time the episode takes place, so maybe that should go in the front? I'm down with whatever you guys want to do! --Kapoli 11:15, 8 April 2006 UTC

I think that the Episode Number looks silly anywhere other than first (after the picture, of course), or possibly last. It's a small column so your eye is still going to go to the blue Time column first anyway (after the picture, of course). --Proudhug 11:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Proudhug, you're right that the smaller column draws the eye. How about Picture | Time | Episode Number | Production Code | Airdate ? That way, the two most important pieces of information - title and picture - are sort of sectioned off by the smaller column. --StBacchus 8 April 2006

Anything we do is fine with me, I mean, pretty much any way we do it is going to look AWESOME. I'll go with whatever idea you guys want, and I'll swap the appropriate columns as I finish removing the director's names. --Kapoli 11:29, 8 April 2006 UTC

I'm feeling a little out of my league concerning some of the editing, I've mainly just been going off of what was originally put there and changing the details to fit Season 2. If someone could help me out, it would be great. I'll continue to put in episode summaries and pictures, but I'll need some help with the new style. Everything on my page is correct except for the directors, but it looks like we're not going to use those anyways. I have no idea where to find the production codes, but I'll put those in too if someone can point me in the right direction. Summary: I need help editing to reflect the current style, but my information is correct except for production codes and director. I will have pictures and summaries very soon. - Xtreme680

I know what you mean, I couldn't figure out the background colors, etc. to make a table, but as soon as StBaccus posted Season 1, I just copied and pasted the info at the top. One thing I forgot to do with Season 4 (which I just corrected), is put those grey bars between the episodes. I didn't know how to, but now I see what StBacchus did. If you want to go ahead and do the same for Season 2, then just copy and paste:

|colspan="5" style="background: #999999;"| <!-- Putting in a nice space between episodes -->

over the top of

|colspan="5" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"| <!-- Putting in a nice space between episodes -->

and you'll have grey bars. I'm going to wait to see what everyone wants to do for the order of the columns before switching anything else for Season 4. BTW, Season 2 is looking pretty good so far!! -- Kapoli 11:51 8 April 2006, UTC

Yeah, I agree that Season 2 looks good so far. Looks like you're doing fine, it's only that we haven't all agreed on quite everything. What do you think about the headings? BTW, there's a list of production codes and airdates at TV.com. That's the easiest way to get them, I think. --StBacchus 8 April 2006

I like your suggestion, StBacchus. I've been swapping the titles and previewing the different layouts, and I think that Picture | Time | Episode Number | Production Code | Airdate looks the best. I say let's go for it. And should we list the original airdate in italic font, or just leave it regular. I've looked at it both ways and I can't decide which looks better. --Kapoli 12:00 8 April 2006, UTC

I like it a little better without italics, personally. But agreed it's close. --StBacchus 8 April 2006

I'm on top of everything, thanks for the help. I don't care about the title layout, but I do want consensus, and since we already have people wanting to do Picture | Time | Episode Number | Production Code | Airdate, I am ok with changing it to that. Xtreme680

I just wanted to say that everyone did an incredible job with redesigning the episode lists! They look great with the images, and if anyone ever needs to find a particular episode from a season, it makes it really easy to find one because of the summaries, etc. Oh and StBacchus, I was thinking about what you were saying about episode titles instead of listing them by time, and I can't figure out a way to do it since the episodes don't have titles, but there's a pretty funny thread on IMDb about possible episode titles.... everything from "Chloe's Got A Gun" to "Flame! Jack's Gonna Live Forever!" Anyway, great job again everyone! --Kapoli 1:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Research files

I was just wondering, is it necessary to have all of the research files from the FOX website listed word for word on the Wiki? If we do it, we should at least have those pages linked as much as we can. it just seems odd to me that we have so many pages that don't link anywhere else. Should we provide a context to the show in them? I don't know, maybe someone should explain it to me, because I'm lost. Xtreme680

I don't think it's necessary to have any of these articles copied from fox.com. Most of them include "real life" information which doesn't necessarily apply to the show at all. I suggest keeping the actual main Research Files page, but rather than linking to individual articles on Wiki 24, just link to fox.com and delete all of the irrelevant information in the other articles. --Proudhug 15:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I guess the task then is to seperate the things we know from the show from the stuff that is just true in real life. In that case, we should go through, take what we know from the show, and delete the information the FOX has provided for "real life". This way, we still have weapons and technology from the show, but only use it in the context of 24. - Xtreme680

Changes to styles

Red links don't seem to appear right. I suggest that they are lightened, and the form boxes to correspond with the page Sceptre 12:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Right now, we're using the style of Memory Alpha in order to provide information about characters. I think the information that we have is good. However, I think that it could look better. The 24 characters page at Wikipedia look really nice. However, I have no idea how to make the templates that they have. Does anyone think a change would be good, and if so, does anyone know how to make them look nicer? - Xtreme680 8:20 April 8, 2006

I asked my fiance what he thought, and he came up with this: Wiki_24:Sandbox. What do you think?

I personally like the way it came out, although the code behind it is a little clunky. There's probably a better way to change the template that involves editing the "wiki-sidebar" class in Monobook.css, but I have no idea how to do that. --StBacchus 10 April 2006

Note: I'm on a different computer, so my IP address won't be the same. I think it looks awesome. I'm knee-deep in midterms, so I won't be able to start changing the pages for a few days, but I think this is the style we should do character and actor pages from now on. Agreed? - Xtreme680

I like the new sidebar too, StBacchus, and I'll happily help swap pages... just let me know what the plan is. And Xtreme680, good luck on your midterms... we start exams at UNC in a few weeks! -- Kapoli 00:05, 11 April 2006, (UTC)

Sweet! I'm glad you guys like it. I'll go ahead and change the template linked from the Style page. Should we also do actors in this style? Maybe that's a project for a later date, LOL. Plan, plan, hmmm. Maybe we could "dibs" a letter of the alphabet. Like, I'll do the T's today, or something. We can use the talk page of the Character category for organizing. Good luck to both of you, by the way! --StBacchus 11 April 2006

I'll do the main characters and some major recurring characters tonight. I have changed the actor style page to reflect this new style. Once we get through the major and recurring characters, I say that we do it like the episode guides and split the work up into days. Thanks for the good wishes, I have 3 more next week, but I plan on goofing off for several days. Sweet. - Xtreme680

Should we do the episode sidebars that way too? It would look like this (sorry, I couldn't figure out how to get it below Tony) - Wiki_24:Sandbox -CWY2190 20:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that the sidebar for the episodes looks awesome. Just so everyone knows, I have gone through and added the sidebar for most of the main characters and recurring characters, as well as every character from Day 1. We really should go through the character pages and make sure every character page is a quality one. If someone would like to help, I'd appreciate it. - Xtreme680

Finished Day 2, starting Day 3 - Xtreme680

You're right, it's really important for all the pages in each category to match. I've been having trouble getting the Wiki to accept my edits the past couple days, but I'll start combing through the Character category alphabetically. Hopefully the problem will fix itself. --StBacchus 12 April 2006

I've had the same problem, either try previewing the edit first, and then saving, or try pressing save multiple times until it works, that seemed to work for me. I've added the templates for most of the characters, all that remains is the Day 4 characters and the actors. - Xtreme680

Character problems

Allright everyone, as soon as I can track down the rest of the character pages, all of the new templates will be up. A new goal I have is making sure that we have every character that has appeared on 24, with both a template, picture, description, and several links from other pages so that they're useful articles. The only problem is I can't find some characters because they're categorized wrong. Furthermore, some of the links on the guest characters and characters by groups pages don't match up or are incomplete. It's mind numbingly boring, but I could use some help. I will not allow that crappy Lost wiki to be better than us. - Xtreme680

Which characters are in the wrong categories? There are some that are uncategorized, but I'll go ahead and fix those right now. ...At first, I was intimidated by the awesomeness of the Lost wiki, but consider: they've only got 1 1/2 years of show, plus a couple of tie-in books. 24 has 5 seasons and a ton of ancillary crap. We've got an amazing amount of stuff for a wiki that's barely been around for 6 months. And our characters sort the right way, by surname. We aren't doing half bad! -StBacchus 14 April 2006

Unnecessary Articles?

Looking on the wanted pages list, I saw links to articles I don't think we realy need to be or should be writing. For example, "Pentagon", or "Secretary of Agriculture". These are real live entities with wikipedia articles. I don't see why the 24 wiki should also have articles about them. Now something like "President" I can understand, since the article goes through the succession of Presidents through the history of the show. But if "Secretary of Agriculture" or "Secretary of Treasury" are positions held by people we see once, do we really need to write articles about them? The same thing goes for terms like "terrorism". --Wydok 05:50, 3 May 2006 (UTC)