Talk:1976 in television

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Contents 1 Why change? 2 Use of sub-pages 3 Event star 4 Just to say I like it 5 OK, now... 6 Template 7 Article names 8 Need input 9 Disco Dog 10 Table usage 11 Tables and occasional contributors 12 Update 13 Temp space 14 A personal preference for columns in biographic tables

[edit] Why change?

The main reason for the proposed format change is the massive amount of information in the "years in television" articles, which is not easy to manage. The sheer number of shows in the "Television shows" section makes the article almost unreadable. It was not uncommon to find duplicates of the same show, and the users often added missing shows to the "Debuts" and "Ending this year" sections of corresponding years, altogether ignoring the "Television shows" section for the years in between.

The proposal is to limit the "xxxx in television" articles to the following sections: "Global television events", "Births", and "Deaths". Country-specific information is proposed to be moved to separate articles. Not only would it make the shows information more readable and easier to manage, it would also resolve the problem when a show by the same name is on TV during different time periods in different countries (a good example of such show would be The Office, which had two seasons in the UK in 2001–2002, but only one season (with a different cast but the same plot) in the US in 2005).

Please do not perceive this proposed format as final. This is a rough draft only. There are no plans to apply this new format to current "Years in television" articles until all suggestions and objections have been heard out.

Please add your comments on this page.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:52, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of sub-pages

It's generally frowned upon to use sub pages. I'd link the WP page if I knew where it was stated.

If it's agreed upon spliting country-specific TV events, then I'd recommend starting:

• 1976 in Australian television
• 1976 in Canadian television
• 1976 in Irish television
• 1976 in South African television
• 1976 in British television
• 1976 in US television

OR

• 1976 in television (Australia)
• 1976 in television (Canada)
• 1976 in television (Ireland)
• 1976 in television (South Africa)
• 1976 in television (UK)
• 1976 in television (US)

or some other variant (non-sub-pages). I like the 2nd choice as I could see it as more of a disambiguation instead of a separate "group" of articles. Cburnett 05:11, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

I should have mentioned this above, but I did not. The subpages in this example are there just to avoid creating test articles in the main namespace. Actual articles, of course, should be on their own pages, just like in the examples you listed above. Still, thanks for bringing this up, as it my intent to not use sub-pages was not really all that obvious.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 05:48, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Event star

It looks a good idea to me. However, there may be problems using the {{FA}} template to denote shows that have a related event in the Events section, as when you hover your mouse over the star image, it says 'Featured article' which could be confusing. Instead of the template, try just adding links to Image:Featured article star.png at 16px on the page.

Also agreed with Cburnett's comment about the subpages, with 1976 in television (UK) preferred. BillyH 05:49, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

The FA star was just a quick and dirty way to illustrate the marker idea. It will, of course, not stay as it is now. By the way, if anyone has an idea for a better marker, feel free to post it here.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 16:49, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Just to say I like it

I've long thought that some of the 'Years in Television' pages were a tad US-centric, although of course that's understandable given the number of US users of Wikipedia and the fact that the country has so much TV history to get through. I think that the dividing of the pages into country-specific sections is a good one, and will be very helpful for people searching for TV events relevant to their own countries, or interested in seeing what was happening in other nations rather than it all being lumped together. The layout looks good too, and all-in-all I fully support this idea. Just one minor point - if we're doing major English-language nations, where's New Zealand? Nonetheless, yet again fantastic work on the 'Years in Television' pages from Ezhiki. Give that man a medal! Angmering 10:12, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments, of course, but I've already got a medal courtesy of MikeH :) As for New Zealand, there was nothing New Zealand-related in the "1976 in television" article, so I forgot about it altogether (in a kind of George W. Bush kind of way :)). Also, I wanted to note that non-English-speaking countries can easily be added with this format as well. With the way things are now it would be somewhat problematic.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 16:49, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] OK, now...

...if no one else has any objections, I will start working on the actual format/layout and will gradually start converting the years in television over to the new format. Please continue listing your comments/ideas/objections here, if you have them. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 16:08, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I would highly recommend an additional template for television that links all the countries so that they can stay consistent among the soon-to-be many many years in tv articles. Cburnett 21:18, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

You are reading my mind, aren't you? :) See User:Ezhiki/Temp. It's a very rough draft; I did not have much to play with it today, but it's a start.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 02:46, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article names

Please also see User talk:SimonP#Years in television and User talk:Ezhiki#1976 in television pages for additional views on the article naming issue.

The previous names were inappropriate. On Wikipedia brackets in titles indicates disambiguation, which is not what is intended. You are not pointing to different meanings of "1976 in television" but to subpages. Moreover creating subpages in this manner is also banned because it hard wires hierarchies, see Wikipedia:Do not use subpages. With the previous names the articles could only be a subpage of "1976 in television" but the Canadian one is equally a subpage of 1976 in Canada and the title "1976 in Canada/television" would be just as valid. Using natural language titles, which is policy anyway, helps remove this problem. -SimonP 13:30, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but are you just complaining without offering a solution? Maybe it's too early and I'm glancing right over it, but I'm not seeing anything....not to mention you could have continued the article name discussion above instead of starting a new heading. Cburnett 14:17, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I do offer a solution, I support having "1976 in Canada televions" rather than "1976 in television (Canada)". - SimonP 15:11, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I assume it was "1976 in Canadaian televisions". I, for one, do not like this variant, and I suppose Cburnett does not either (correct me if I am wrong). If you wish to draw a quick poll regarding the naming issue, you are most welcome to do so. Hopefully others would voice their opinions on this as well; it is not unlikely that your variant is going to be the winner, in which case we'll use it.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 15:57, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I did of course mean 1976 in Canadian television. As I outlined on Ëzhiki's talk page putting television in the main title while relegating country to a note ignores that the country/television formation is just as valid. 1976 in Ireland (television) is just as valid a heading for this content as 1976 in television (Ireland). Using your title makes it seem as though the page could only ever be considered a subdivision of 1976 in television ignoring that it will also be a subdivision of 1976 in Ireland. Do you have any reasons you dislike the "1976 in Irish televison" format? So far you have just stated that you dislike it. - SimonP 16:11, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Realizing that not everyone is going to read through the very thourough discussion on my talk page, here is a summary of what I said to this particular argument:

• I do not see anything preventing us from using 1976 in television (Ireland) as the main article location and 1976 in Ireland (television) as a redirect to that article. Or the other way around.
• This naming convention does not really create an impression that "the page could only ever be considered a subdivision of 1976 in television ignoring that it will also be a subdivision of 1976 in Ireland". To deal with these issues, categories should be used, not the article names.
• The only reason I (and only I personally; I do not speak for anyone else here) dislike the "1976 in British television" format is because to me it does not look as clean and consistent as "1976 in television (UK)" (or, for that matter, as "1976 in UK (television)"). In the end, it will all boil down to the preferences of the majority; if the "-ish" format is preferred by most, I am not going to make a fuss out of it or (*cough*) move articles to locations that I like better. I was unable to find anything stating that the parentheses format violates any policies (for more on that, see my talk page).

Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 17:32, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

If it is consistency that is you main concern then shouldn't the pages also be consistent with the other year subpages? It is 2003 in Canadian politics, not 2003 in Canada (politics), 1978 British leaders, not 1978 leaders (Britain), 2004 in baseball, not 2004 in sport (baseball). Not to mention the entire rest of the encyclopedia. We have British television not televison (UK), List of French people, not List of people (France), Demographics of Uganda not Uganda (demographics). - SimonP 18:06, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Good points I can agree with and which did not immediately occur to me. Let's see what others will say. I just wish you came up with this reasoning, about, say, five hours ago.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:04, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I've found a couple other things. The music series has run in to similar size problems and they now have 2005 in music (UK) and 2004 in music (UK). I have raised the naming issue on Talk:Music of the United Kingdom to see if they have a good reason using these names. I also found that there is a pretty explicit prohibition on "using an article names that suggests a hierarchy of articles" in the Naming conventions. - SimonP 22:45, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Would you please not start with the technicalities again? Naming conventions explicitly prohibit article names that suggest a hierarchy of articles, that's true, but they say nothing of the cases other than subpages (such as using parentheses or other means). This particular section only gives a forward slash syntax as an example of what's not to do; I do not see how other cases are implied. By quoting irrelevant policies, all you do is create confusion among the users who would not bother to read the actual policy wordage (especially considering the fact that you conveniently omitted a direct link to the quoted section in an enormous policy document), and I simply fail to see why you do that. You, as an administrator, should probably know better than that. It is one of your responsibilities to educate users, and you are doing just the opposite. I may very well agree that some may see the parentheses as a disambiguator to be avoided, but explaining why they are seen as such is a much better course of action that trying to back your reasoning with policies that describe a completely different set of problems.

As for the subpages that I originally used, I already explained that the use of subpages is acceptable for temporary or draft versions of the articles. Not labeling them as such was my mistake, which I already had admitted.

Apart from this, thank you for checking with the "years in music" folks. Only one person commented so far, but it looks like they do not have a compelling reason for keeping the paretheses-based naming system either.

Finally, as a subtle reminder, how about cleaning up around here a little? So far all I see is you coming in, making a fuss out of minor and temporary issues, and creating a mess with the articles moves. You don't have to do it, of course, but since your contributions show that you've been up to cleaning up lately anyway, how about doing something positive for us, too? I promise that it will be appreciated.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 01:56, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need input

As some of you might have already noticed, I added a template to the bottom of some of the country-specific articles (e.g., 1976 in Canadian television). While the purpose of the template is quite obvious and useful, I am a bit stuck as I cannot think of a good way to handle the countries for which no events exist. For example, the template lists South Africa. National television was not introduced there until 1976, and there was no television at all prior to 1971. As such, the link is going to show up as red on templates of all years before 1971. This is not good, because these unexisting articles (like 1955 in South African television) should stay that way—unexisting.

The only solution I have so far thought of is to create redirects to the main television article for that country (in this case, it would be a redirect to Television in South Africa. This way, all "XXXX in South African television" links (where XXXX<1971) will redirect to "Television in South Africa". The drawback is that the template will be somewhat misleading.

It would be perfect if it were possible to filter the countries for which no television existed for a given year out of the template altogether, but as far as I know it is not possible. Please correct me if I am wrong.

If you have a better solution, by all means post it here. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 21:24, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

A couple of templates. One pre-1976 and one post-1975. Templates have no functional capabilites beyond an extremely primitive printf command. Conditional statements in templates would add huge amounts of versatility, but we just as well jump to full-fledge PHP... Cburnett 04:48, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

South Africa is just one example. With your method, we will need seven templates just for the seven countries listed, and that number will only grow when more countries are added. I am not saying it's necessarily bad, but I certainly hope there is a more optimal solution.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 18:46, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

I had an idea, but can't get it to work. I created Template:TV countries/1976 (and 1976 in television/Countries) and changed the last row of Template:TV countries to:

|align="center" style="font-size: 90%;" | {{TV countries/{{{1}}}}}

but the year in {{{1}}} isn't getting substituted in to pull in the content in {{TV countries/1976}}. Perhaps that gives you an idea to work with. :/ Cburnett 21:30, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

That't actually a pretty neat idea, except that I am going to have one hell of a time figuring out why it's not working :) I'll try anyway. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 22:49, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

It seems that you never actually saved the changes you made to the Template:TV countries. Your idea did not work because you probably looked at the template in the preview mode. When it is saved, it seems to be working quite well. If you do not have any objections, I will delete the 1976 in television/Countries, which is no longer needed. I would also appreciate SimonP commenting on this solution—it does use the subpages, after all. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 15:13, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, I didn't actually save it. I deleted 1976 in television/Countries. Regarding subpages: I don't see a problem with it since it's directly being used for the xxxx in television question and, on it's own, isn't really an article. Cburnett 17:26, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disco Dog

Also, one needs to explain the deletion of the 1974-1978 cartoon TV series in the years of television to 1974 in 1978.

User:Jeff Schiller lied, User: Ezhiki lied, insisting they both never saw the show, or the pictures. Forget it.

See User talk:Ezhiki/2005#Disco Dog? if you are at a loss as to what the anon meant.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:44, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Table usage

I'd like to recommend using tables. Something like 2005 in film. I went ahead and changed the /Temp page to show it.

My basic argument for tables is this: the data is inherently tabular and having them in freeform (just a bulleted list) makes it harder to read. Additionally, to me, it looks more professional/cleaner looking than a page of bullets and dashes. Cburnett 19:23, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I really like the idea of such tables, but not the way they are currently formatted (although I am having trouble coming up with what exactly I do not like about the format currently used—somehow it does not look quite right).—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:42, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well the table style is widely used. See [1]. I think it looks better with more entries (like on 2005 in film), especially the month/day ones. Cburnett 19:59, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Hm. Maybe I am having a problem with it because the right edges are misaligned. But then, you are probably right that it will look better with more entries and without the list. Also, maybe if the month and date are listed in the same column ("July 1" instead of "July" and "1") it would look even better. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:08, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Check out 2005 in film#Deaths. I think if each row had the "month day" notation then it'd be crowded. If there's multiple things with the same date then it reduces repetition (like the months themselves).

Ultimately, I highly suspect people come to a page like this to find something, not browse it or read it (like a normal article). You want to see who died in January or what shows debuted in this specific year. So organization and ease-of-use seems paramount, to me, for tabular data.

Re: right-edges. As the tables fill up they'll push the border to the edge. We could force it to the right by adding a width="100%" though. Cburnett 21:04, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Additionally, I think the table colors don't really match with the colors of the TV Countries template placed below. Which is, to think of it, probably the template's problem.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:10, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Since this page is entirely about trying something new, I went ahead and change it to ccccff. Both are web safe colors. For me, it's a toss-up. Cburnett 21:04, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think it looks better now. I will let know if I find something else to complain about (and I will) :))—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 21:17, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tables and occasional contributors

I have another concern about these tables. Yesterday, I formatted Before 1925 in television using tables, and I can now say that the experience was less from ideal. While the prettytable template certainly helps, there is still too much manual formatting to take care of when entering information. For me, it was just a little nuisance to get used to, especially when the end result really looks better than a vulgar list, and I am sure that most of people working on this project view it pretty much in the same light. I am, however, afraid that this table may turn potentials editors away. Judging from my over a year experience working with the "years in television" articles, quite a few edits/additions come from anonymous or relatively new users. These are often people who have a problem understanding how to format data as a list, yet now we expect them to add lines to a table. Any insights?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) June 29, 2005 13:30 (UTC)

I've seen anonymous users edit tables just fine. I've also seen people just slap a request on the talk page for someone else to fish. I've also seen people attempt it and leave it.

Your concern was the same as that of why 2005 doesn't have tables. I basically refuse to cater to the lowest common denominator on the assumption that people are too stupid to figure it out. That's my take. :) Cburnett June 29, 2005 17:19 (UTC)

Well, that's mostly my take too, but I would hate to see potential editors go away just because formatting style was too difficult for them to understand. I guess let's see how this is going to work then. This is probably more of a general policy question, anyway.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) June 29, 2005 17:26 (UTC)

Look at the flip side: WP is a collaborative effort. Not everyone has to know all of it. Cburnett June 29, 2005 17:48 (UTC)

[edit] Update

The following articles have been converted to the new format: Before 1925 in television, 1925 in television, 1926 in television, and 1927 in television. Country-specific events were carved out into 1926 in American television, 1927 in American television, and 1927 in British television. Please feel free to review, comment, and, of course, expand.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 12:51, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Temp space

I was thinking about moving the 1976 in television/Temp to the main article space, replacing 1976 in television. If you think this should not be done, please let me know A.S.A.P. Histories of both pages will be preserved.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 22:44, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A personal preference for columns in biographic tables

I think the dates in the tables of births and deaths would be easier to read if the month and day columns were merged, but that's just me. --Jacj 06:34, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

The discussion of this format is listed above. After having compared both versions, I personally no longer have a preference for either way, but maybe Cburnett would have something to add to this?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 13:04, August 10, 2005 (UTC)