Television Template‑class

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I have added error tracking for unsupported parameters. See Category:Pages using infobox television with unknown parameters. A red error message appears when you Preview the article, between the edit screen and the rendered preview. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:40, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the category, the articles are sorted by the name of the parameter that is unsupported. You will notice that there are a lot of articles listed under "S" that use the |status= parameter. I saw a few mentions of that parameter in the talk page archives, but you might want to determine whether this parameter should be part of the template before a helpful gnome removes it from all of the articles.

Let me know if you would like the template, or the error check, to be modified. I will watch this page for a while. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:59, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I almost wish you hadn't done that. Not knowing how many infoboxes are wrong made things less scary. No, status is a deprecated parameter, but it was never actively removed from infoboxes. It might be useful to implement Module:Check for unknown parameters at {{Infobox television season}}. Do you use a script to sort parameters alphabetically? --AussieLegend (✉) 17:40, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I know, ignorance is bliss. I do use a script. It's in my vector.js file if you want to take a look at it. It is not fully automated and does not always work, so tread carefully if you use it.

I have added the check to the television season template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:59, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there are at least 2,500 articles that use |status=. You might want to file a Bot request to remove that parameter and its value. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:17, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to just have AWB go through all of these articles to adjust, possibly with @AlexTheWhovian: and @EvergreenFir:'s attempt to update all to the new granularity parameters? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:51, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95 and Favre1fan93: I've still got a lot to go through but I can add a regex line to remove |status=. Bot might be easiest in the long run though as I'm not moving all that fast. Just to be clear, the task is to remove the parameter |status= and its content from the infobox, right? Any chance you know if that parameter is unique to the infobox and not contained in, say, the citation template? Knowing that makes the coding easier. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:19, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I edit a lot of citation templates, and I've never seen |status= in any of them, so you should be clear there. If you're looking for a way to prevent false positives, you could look for values of the |status= parameter that appear on the (outdated but probably useful) list at this discussion. Using those values will probably allow you to fix 70–80% of the articles without false positives. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:27, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is indeed useful! I've yet to figure out a good way of getting regex to stay within a particular template (if you know of a way, I'm all ears... sick of |title= getting hits in wikitables and citation templates). I thought [^FOOBAR] would help, but it only considers single characters). Let me whip up the regex real quick. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:38, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like |setting= is another one being caught by that maintenance category. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:48, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at User:Jonesey95/AutoEd/unnamed.js for a regex that limits replacement to Cite templates. It will fail (safely, proposing no changes) if the template contains another template, e.g. a {{plainlist}} inside of an infobox, but it works well otherwise. You still have to supervise it, but it helps.

Something like this may work for you:

Find this: ({{\s*[Ii]nfobox television(?:[^}{]*(?:\{\{[^}{]*}}[^}{]*)*))\|\s*status\s*=\s*[parameter value]\s*([\}\|])

Replace it with $1$2 or \1\2, depending on your regex processor. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:09, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, thank you for that! The one I cobbled works well so far (see Special:Contributions/EvergreenFir). Was using \n\s*\|\s*status\s*\=\s*(?:ended|canceled|cancelled|ongoing|returning|airing|new\sseries|on\shiatus|in\sproduction|current|upcoming|finished|running|completed|continuing\sseries).* and replacing with null. Skipping pages that do not contain \|\s*status EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:18, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: I tried out your code and came up with (\{\{\s*[Ii]nfobox television(?:[^}{]*(?:\{\{[^}{]*\}\}[^}{]*)*))(\n\s*\|\s*status\s*=.*) and replace with $1. Seems to be working so far. Think it's a safe bet to just remove the entire parameter line. Do you see anything wrong or potential false positives with it? If not, I think we could request a bot to do the rest of the category. Could also have it search for other deprecated params ((status|setting|FOOBAR)) and just have it run a few times on each page until there's no changes to me made. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:47, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I always prefer to have a backstop of ([\}\|]) to detect the next parameter or the end of the template. You could so something like \|\s*status\s*=[\da-z\s_-\(\)\[\]]+([\}\|]) to capture any value of the status parameter containing numbers, letters, underscore, hyphen, parentheses, or square brackets. I'm not a regex wizard, but I prefer to have a few null edits rather than a bunch of erroneous changes. If you want to make your life easier with AWB, you could turn off general changes so that the proposed edits are very easy to spot. I think you can also have multiple regexes so that you could remove |setting= and other common unsupported parameters all at the same time, as I have done with my unnamed.js script. As for a bot, I think there is too much weird stuff in infoboxes, and I would recommend AWB or manual fixes only. It won't take that long. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:09, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Alright! Thanks for the input! I'll add the ([\}\|]) as a fail safe. And yeah, multiple rules makes sense. Cheers! EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: I finished my first pass through the category. Removed about 4000 pages from it. Will make another page to keep whittling it down. I refined my regex coding as I went along and as I noticed more common param issues. Hopefully I can get the category under 1000 pages. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:14, 10 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, great work! I have done the same sort of thing with error categories: create a regex, run through the category with it, refining as I go, and then run through again with the improved regex. Keep refining and running, and you should be able to clear out the vast majority of junk, leaving a few hundred unusual cases that need to be dealt with manually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:51, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Second pass and now down to 1,324 pages in the category. I'm sure I've made a few errors (if you catch them, just revert me and I'll fix it). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:41, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

•  Done Category cleared. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:45, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please add a num_cycles parameter option to be used in addition to num_seasons and num_series. The term "cycle" is synonymous with series and seasons in some countries. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:13, 10 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir: The change is feasible, but this is the first time I ever heard "cycle" being used for "season"/"series". Are folks who work on TV shows or WP Television aware of this and also feel a need for it? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 01:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Through Google, I found several sources that use the term. We also use it in a few major articles, such as America's Next Top Model. ~ Rob^Talk 01:21, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that America's Next Top Model uses cycle, but when I did a search I couldn't find other programs that did so, and reliable sources referring to America's Next Top Model even use season. It's a little strange that after 11 years and 37,000 uses of the template, we've never discussed this. --AussieLegend (✉) 02:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Revert - this "cycle" usage is not in line with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television). Needs more discussion. -- Netoholic @ 02:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

 Reverted — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:05, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Netoholic: I'm a bit confused by your comment. While the naming convention uses season and series as examples, it never says those are preferable terms, and it also only applies to article titles. What do you see this use of "cycle" in the infobox not being in line with? ~ Rob^Talk 03:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13: "Cycle" seems to be a term that that America's Next Top Model uses to refer to itself. It isn't, though, an industry term nor used in any other case that I can find. Even the show's press release for the upcoming episodes uses "season" throughout, and "cycle" not once. That term seems to be limited to use only within the narrative of the show, and also, since it is only one show we're talking about, that term shouldn't be integrated into this template where its presence can confuse or complicate matters. (03:21) Added: As I look more into this, it seems that "cycle" is a term pulled from the fashion industry ("fashion cycle", denoting the rise and fall of trends) and integrated into the narrative of these Top Model shows. This makes me even more convinced that this isn't a television term appropriate for this infobox, nor article titles. -- Netoholic @ 03:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A quick look reveals some pretty screwed up articles. I found some season articles using this infobox instead of {{Infobox television season}}. Although they cover a single "cycle" they were using num_cycles, with the data in the field not making any sense at all. These same articles included some of the parameters from Infobox television season that obviously don't work in this infobox. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:09, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Number of episodes is currently "Number of episodes (aired so far)". Some editors not familiar with Template:Infobox television (uh, me) intuit that as "Number of episodes (scheduled)." which can be confusing (to me and maybe to others too). Did I overlook an Episodes scheduled tag or equivalent? --Naaman Brown (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CRYSTAL may apply. There's no hurry to talk about what might happen in the future. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If a limited series (miniseries) has announced a scheduled number of episodes, isn't that expected to happen rather than might happen? Does WP:Crystal apply if it has been announced and is anticipated rather than merely speculated? --Naaman Brown (talk) 04:46, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The episode numbers get updated once an episode has aired. Only in special cases, does the number indicated produced episodes, such as a case in which the series was scheduled but got pulled or canceled. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 05:04, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it applies. The infobox is a place to list what has happened, not what will happen. You can, however, add the scheduled number of episodes into the article in prose format (for example: The first season of Wolf Creek will consist of six episodes, and it is set to premiere on 12 May 2016). Alex|The|Whovian^? 05:06, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We really don't need to discuss WP:CRYSTAL here. The instructions for the parameter say that num_episodes should be "The number of episodes released. This parameter should only be incremented when new episodes air or when a reliable source can confirm that an episode has finished production. An inline citation is required if the total number of episodes produced is greater than the number aired, such as in the case of a show being cancelled." Even if there is an announcement that x episodes will air, if only 4 episodes have aired, you need an inline citation that explicitly confirms episode 5 has finished production before you can add episode 5. Such sources are rarely available. Note that an announcement that x episodes will air is not a source you can use, without resorting to WP:SYNTH. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:41, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that the current wording of the documentation and the wikitext comment in the example box puts an undue emphasis on the broadcast of episodes in contrast to their public release. In particular, "The number of episodes released" vs. "the number aired" are often different for mixed on-demand and broadcast releases. Sometimes only temporarily as released episodes are broadcast later, and other times permanently, when episodes are not burned off after cancellation . Also, as it reads now, every Netflix series requires an inline citation for this parameter because they have zero aired episodes. –Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 11:13, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was just alerted to this, due to AussieLegend's edit over at Supergirl (TV series) here. Why is the parameter only allowed if it is different than the country of origin? For example (still using Supergirl), Supergirl is an American (United States) production, that filmed in Los Angeles for season 1, and will move to Vancouver for season 2. Los Angeles =/= the United States. I think I understand why this wording was here, because we don't want to duplicate country of origin, if a specific location can't be obtained. So I think the documentation for this parameter needs to be updated to the following, or the like (changes in bold): "Production location, i.e. where the show is/was shot. If the location is the same as country of origin above, and a more specific location is unknown, leave blank." - Favre1fan93 (talk) 05:47, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The normal assumption is that the filming location is in the country of origin, so there is no need to specify it if the filming location is in the country of origin. In the past, for TV series that are filmed in multiple locations, we've had long lists of locations in the infobox. Including an address in the country of origin is unnecessary minutiae, but your proposed wording would allow that. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

True, but knowing where in that country is also helpful. The US is a big place (as with other countries), so that can't really define the location used to film. And you know I don't mean adding a specific address Aussie. To solve that, here's new wording: ""Production location, i.e. where the show is/was shot. This field should include the most prominent city or cities where the show was filmed. If more exist, they can be noted in the article's production section. Leave blank if the field is simply the same as the country of origin field."

There has been plenty of past discussion about this in various venues. It's probably best to raise this at WT:TV. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:03, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Once on this page, over four years ago. I am in support of Favre's suggestions of change. Alex|The|Whovian^? 08:27, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Once on this page, but as I said, there has been discussion in various venues, which is not limited to here. Discussing this at WT:TV and gaining more input won't hurt. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the interest of uniformity, I'll drop a line at WT:TV to direct users here to discuss. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:12, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Notifying some regular editors of the TV project to this, if they choose to comment, so it doesn't go by the wayside. @Bignole, EvergreenFir, Cyphoidbomb, Geraldo Perez, Robsinden, AngusWOOF, Dark Cocoa Frosting, Adamstom.97, and Drmargi: - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The current description says "Production location, i.e. where the show is/was shot. Leave blank if same as country of origin above." Why would that need to be tweaked? And Supergirl would be like MacGyver, listing both primary locations of filming (Los Angeles, Vancouver). Also if a production is held primarily at a certain studio locale, this can be specific as with The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 16:28, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Because, as I mentioned above (again using Supergirl's first season as an example), it is a United States CoO, and it films in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not the United States. How is listing "Los Angeles" in the production field inappropriate? I understand if a series can't source a specific location and that is the same as the CoO, not to list it, because that is overkill. But if you can list the specific city, I don't see how that is wrong to do so. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:33, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I see this field used all that much. I wasn't even aware of it. Why is it that we need a "location" field? I mean, most shows have a central filming location, yes, but they also film is various other locations. For instance, Smallville filmed in LA and Vancouver, as well as other parts of Canada. Just seems odd and a good way to end up with a giant list of filming locations. That's just me and not wanting bloat in an already large infobox.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:18, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, if it stays, then I would assume you would include a specific location. The idea of "filming" being in "United States" doesn't make sense for how it corresponds with Country of Origin. You film in cities, not just a country.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:57, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I explained above, the normal assumption is that the filming location is in the country of origin, so it doesn't need to be mentioned. The location field is just supposed to capture the "unusual" situation where filming does not occur in the country of origin. It's not supposed to capture specific addresses. For Supergirl, while Los Angeles is not the United States, it is in the United States, so it doesn't need mentioning. However, filming in Canada should be mentioned. That said, I really don't see the need for the parameter. It's not as if filming somewhere else is unusual. --AussieLegend (✉) 22:49, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see what the issue is. Per the description quoted by Angus above, if you actually know the filming location (rather than just the country of origin) then you add it. We know the filming location for Supergirl season one (LA), which is obviously more specific than the US, so we should add that. And now that it is moving to Vancouver, we should add that as well. I don't see why this needs to be discussed. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:19, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I mean if you want to remove the field altogether, I'd be okay with that. Because any filming location information would in theory be sourced in the article already. As a comparison, the film infobox (which we at times share reasoning and overlap with) doesn't include anything like this. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:29, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

if you actually know the filming location (rather than just the country of origin) then you add it - It has always been the case that the field is just for the country of filming, not for a specific location. As an example, an anonymous editor tried back in 2012 to add something implying that specific locations were OK but it was quickly reverted.[1]

As a comparison, the film infobox (which we at times share reasoning and overlap with) doesn't include anything like this. - I always assumed that the field was a carry-over from {{Infobox film}} but this doesn't seem to be the case. I'd support removing the parameter. --AussieLegend (✉) 02:50, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Joining the conversation late just to say I'm rather indifferent about it. Location param doesn't add much, and some shows are shot in far too many locations to list out in the infobox. But at the same time, I'm not eager to remove it entirely. (Though I could easily get awb to remove it quickly enough). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fanofbfolders (talk) 13:30, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Marked as done, since there was no request. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:36, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The parameter |released= is shown in the example and the doc, but not used in the template itself. Should it be removed or replaced?--Auric talk 16:10, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

| data41 = {{#invoke:Infobox/dates|dates|{{{first_aired|{{{released|}}}}}}|{{{last_aired|}}}}} --AussieLegend (✉) 16:27, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is merely implemented as an alias. The problem is that it doesn't display any information in the Original release of the infobox if there is also |first_aired=, in the case where the original release of a series begins before the first broadcast.–Dark Cocoa Frosting (talk) 11:22, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the episode count is now showing up as "n/a" at Bizaardvark, as the |num_episodes= parameter is not filled in because no episodes have aired yet. I'm not sure when this change was made, but I don't think this is really useful, as in most cases when it's not filled in, it's because no episodes have aired yet, and in most cases, there is an "Episodes" section in the article anyway, which either contains a list of episodes or a link to it. nyuszika7h (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was added in April 2015, but I agree, it should just not be included if the number of episodes isn't set, and just include the link. Alex|The|Whovian^? 17:17, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions for list_episodes say "If a Wikipedia 'List of' article exists for the show's episodes, put its name here." List of Bizaardvark episodes does not exist, so there should be nothing in the field. If that were the case, n/a would not be displayed. The problem here is that list_episodes is not being used in accordance with the instructions. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:14, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, list_episodes should never be #Episodes, you're saying? I believe that the documentation should most definitely be updated. Many one-season series use this format; I see nothing wrong with it. Alex|The|Whovian^? 02:02, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the parameter |show_name=, please allow for an alternative parameter name of |name=. The |name= is used on {{Infobox film}} and when editors change the infobox from film to television (e.g., in this edit), the parameter becomes broken and appears in Category:Pages_using_infobox_television_with_unknown_parameters. I encountered this issue a large number of times when originally clearing out that category with AWB and allowing for the alternate parameter name seems like an easy solution to the issue.

Please ping me in reply or if there are questions. Thank you.

EvergreenFir (talk) 02:20, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir:  Done Alex|The|Whovian^? 02:28, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What are we supposed to do with the First_aired/Last_aired parameters if a TV show airs on one network for, say, one season, and then aired on another network or in syndication for a second season? The specific example I'm referring to here is Finders Keepers (U.S. game show). TIA. --IJBall (contribs • talk)