Television Template‑class

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As is evidenced by any series recently released on HD-DVD or Blu-ray, most if not all shows are now filmed in 1080p, and then broadcast in 1080i, 720p, 720i, or standard def, depending more on the local television station or cable system than the actual production itself.
So which format should be listed for current shows? I would suggest 1080p, since that is the native resolution before it is downgraded for local broadcast.
Regardless, the documentation should probably be updated to clarify that we want the format the show was filmed in, not whatever format an editor happens to watch it in. —MJBurrage^(T•C) 21:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I feel like it is a useless number to the average reader. Unless you understand what 1080i, p, etc means, you don't care really. Even so, it is hard to prove, verifiably (excusing what IMDb lists), exactly what the format for the show is. We cannot assume that all shows are 1080p, but not every single one is. Personally, I would like to move toward scrapping the section from the box completely. As I stated, it really does not add anything to understanding the show (which is what the box is for), and we cannot assume that the average reader is going to understand what those numbers actually mean.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem rather trivial. I don't suppose there are many instances where the picture format is actually discussed within the article. I'd be happy to see this field go. Flowerparty^☀ 09:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I take it the Composer(s) field is meant for if someone wrote the incidental music but not the theme tune, but this isn't at all clear. Where they both appear, like here, the two fields seem to contradict each other. Flowerparty^☀ 09:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's because one should read simple "Composer" and the other "Theme by".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That wouldn't really avoid the potential confusion, though. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to collapse the theme tune info into a single line and maybe remove the composer field - there's way too many fields in this box. Flowerparty^☀ 14:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is a major difference between a "Composer" and the person that provides the "Theme music" (speaking of course that they aren't the same person doing both). In most cases, the "theme music", for live action shows, is often taken from a pop culture song, while there is a separate person providing the episode to episode music. I wouldn't be for merging these into one cat, as we had that before and we eventually separated them because the roles are typically distinctly different. Are you referring to "Composer" and "Theme music composer"? If so, then I would be for merging those two. They can easily identify each composer (one for the show and one for the theme) inside the box itself. But, I do agree that we have way too many fields in the box, and quite a few are irrelevant (I have renamed the header so that are discussion, which seems to be drifting to "which fields do we really need", will reflect the talk). We talked above about the picture format, you may recall. If I had to list the cats that I think could go, because they are really useless in helping the reader understand anything about the show, then I would say:
Picture format
audio format
Camera setup
Consulting, Associate, and Supervising producers (I think we only need Executive and regular producers, you rarely hear anything from the other three when it comes to who gets the privilege of discussing the show)
Story edit (seems to be the same job as "Editor")
Slogan (This looks like another name for "tagline", and we generally discourage taglines in the film community, as they don't provide any real information without context...something the infobox cannot provide)  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I meant the theme music composer field. I didn't make that clear, sorry. A merge would be better than having the two separate, I think.

As for the stuff you suggest removing, I'd agree on all counts. I'd go a lot further, in fact. The trouble with this template is people have just added piecemeal to it as they saw fit, resulting in a classic horse designed by committee. If it had been protected from the start I don't believe we'd have half the fields we have now. To me it seems like it would be more sensible to decide which ones are absolutely necessary and then eliminate everything else. What would Ockham do? Flowerparty^☀ 10:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would keep the theme music fields, since this is often a notable song otherwise unrelated to the rest of the music on a show. But I would change the wording used from "Theme music composer" to "Theme by"; it would take one line instead of two and allow for the field to be filled by the theme's performer when they are more notable than the theme's composer. I would also suggest moving this field to just after the fields for the names of the theme songs (instead of just before). —MJBurrage^(T•C) 05:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, currently we have "Theme music composer", "Opening theme", "Ending theme", and "Composer(s)" We really only need two fields: "Composed by" and "Theme by". The "opening" and "ending" theme sections can easily be covered by a single "Theme by" section. All you need to do, if they are different, is:
Opening theme
Ending theme.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Line breaks should not be used to differentiate data fields within a table cell, for accessibility reasons. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility? Does not really seem to apply for an infobox, given that you cannot access the different sections in an infobox individually. there is only one "edit" option, so accessibility does not really apply. Unless you know of some other reason. Putting in "Title of song"<br>"Band title" doesn't really create any difficult accessibility.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course accessibility applies to infoboxes. They're rendered as HTML tables, which can be made so that they work in assistive software or, in the manner you propose, do not work. This as nothing to do with "edit" options. See WP:ACCESS for more. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the amount of boxes that utilitize the "br" option, I don't think this issue has been brought up in other projects, especially given film and TV infoboxes where we list "casts" and have half a dozen names. We don't put in "actor1", "actor2", "actor3" as options (which is what your guideline suggests to do), because there is no set number of people that can be placed in the box. This is why we use the "br" option, against the accessibility MOS. This is the same thing. We cannot determine how many viable options for composer will be needed (and we wouldn't put in the option for an excessive amount that would virtually never be filled), thus we use the "br" option that might violate the MOS, but is actually the better choice.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:28, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so where are we with cleaning out some of the unnecessary fields?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there a "bgcolour" parameter?. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 02:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing it's because someone once decided the article about their favourite show wasn't colourful enough, and they figured they could introduce some colour by making the infobox look like the cover of their favourite show's dvd. My question is this: given that there is a bgcolor parameter, why do we also have {{television colour}}? It seems unnecessary - and indeed unwiki - to have the colours for these shows hardcoded into a protected template. Is there a technical reason for this or could we deprecate this colour template and just specify the colours at the individual articles? Flowerparty^☀ 14:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The template makes reference numbering non-intuitive. For example, in Meet The Press the first reference in the main article is (currently) #7, as 1 to 6 are in the infobox. Could this be tweaked? Gerardw (talk) 14:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not on this template. Reference numbering is done sequentially based on the position of the reference in the text. Since the infobox is always at the top, references in it will be numbered first. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 17:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What are the {{{format}}} and {{{genre}}} parameters each for? The descriptions aren't entirely clear, and many or most series (including big-ticket series like Buffy, TOS Trek and The Office) have no {{{genre}}} entry and a {{{format}}} entry which would seem to belong under {{{genre}}} instead. Also, the television-film infobox has differing guidelines for {{{format}}} and no {{{genre}}} parameter. RW Dutton (talk) 17:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Genre is for the series genre, such as sci-fi, reality show, documentary, etc. Format...I agree, what is that for? That description needs some help. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{{format}}} is presumably along the lines of "serial", "one-off" et cetera. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's the technical format. IE. PAL, 1080i, etcetera... — Edokter • Talk • 15:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The technical format would seem to be covered by the {{{picture_format}}} and {{{audio_format}}} entries. I guess that {{{format}}} is either meant to refer to 'format' in the sense described in Television format (presumable example: Dramatic programming) or in the (quite different) sense described in TV program format (example: Big Brother (TV series)). RW Dutton (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just realised that. My bad... — Edokter • Talk • 23:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]