Television Template‑class

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Quick question! Should it be input as HDTV (1080i) or 1080i (HDTV)? I'm referring to what goes in the parentheses. – Recollected • 03:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, HDTV (1080i). Definition first, then pixel resolution. — Wyliepedia 09:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• In my opinion 1080i (HDTV). Specific resolution first then generalized definition (layman's term). Technical 13 (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have none of you looked at the documentation? It's actually neither - it's "HDTV 1080i", and that doesn't change unless you can get consensus on it. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 16:55, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• DE, you scold us for not looking at some supposed documentation, but you offer no links to said documentation. I would say that without that, this is a consensus building mission in of itself and that even with the existing consensus you claim exists, CCC, so this discussion is still a worthwhile venture. Technical 13 (talk) 17:19, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Technical 13, in case you are actually being serious, here's the link, but I find it strange that you apparently don't know how to access template documentation - especially since you're a template editor: Template:Infobox television/doc#Attributes Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems that the resolution should be in parens for consistency with the other documented resolutions. Might have been an oversight or a typo. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cyphoidbomb, notice that the other HDTV resolution isn't written with parentheses either - in my view, it's clearly because HDTV is the only item on the list that has multiple variants listed and so providing the actual resolution is not merely a matter of convenience. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:43, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Okay, so the documentation is very inconsistent. It states The video or film format in which the show is or was originally recorded or broadcast. (Black-and-white, Film, 405-line, NTSC (480i), PAL (576i), SECAM (576i), HDTV 720p, HDTV 1080i. Do not use "SDTV" as it is ambiguous.)

Apparently some of them have resolution in parenthesis, and others don't. I can see it is very possible, based on this inconsistence to either use or omit the parenthesis based on personal judgment. They all seem to have definition first, then pixel resolution second as CAWylie prefers. Also, so far, Recollected, CAWylie, myself and Cyphoidbomb all seem to agree that parens are reasonable, and only DE has seemed to be against it based on a strict interpretation of the existing (but not apparently consensually gained) documentation. I propose that we update the documentation to The video or film format in which the show is or was originally recorded or broadcast. (Black-and-white, Film, 405-line, NTSC (480i), PAL (576i), SECAM (576i), HDTV (720p), HDTV (1080i), HDTV (1080p). Do not use "SDTV" as it is ambiguous.) to make it consistent. I think we can agree on this without making a big MOS RfC out of it, don't you all? Technical 13 (talk) 18:03, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Technical 13, did you read my explanation above? If so, please address it. (Also, please note that WP:TPO explicitly permits formatting changes.) Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• DE, I had not read it (must have been the edit conflict and I forgot to go back and read it). I see two different 576i resolutions there, and I see no justifiable reason to not put the multiple HDTV resolutions in parens. Also, that policy you just quoted as giving you permission to change the formatting of my posts which are acceptable per Wikipedia:Tutorial (Talk pages)#Indenting starts out by saying It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing/spelling errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Anyways, back on-topic, do you agree that standardizing all of the resolutions by wrapping them all in parens is acceptable and agreeable? Technical 13 (talk) 18:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You bring up a good point regarding PAL and SECAM, but there's a significant difference - the ambiguous term is the one in parentheses in those cases, while in the HDTV cases the ambiguous term is outside of them. (I was not correcting mere typos or spelling/grammar mistakes - if indentation is left uncorrected it can and often does affect the layout of other posts, and indentation is specifically listed as an exception below the statement you quoted.) Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 18:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I did read down through that, and my understanding was it was acceptable if there was no indentation to add it or to correct the number of levels, not to change from bullet points to unmarked indentation and strip whitespace that makes reading the post easier in the edit window. Your changes actually rendered material more difficult to read. and was against the spirit of that section of the guideline. Now, back on topic, unless you are already highly knowledgable in the field of televisions or screen resolutions, there is no significant difference, both terms are actually ambiguous. Also, if you're claiming that HDTV is an ambiguous term, then perhaps it should be disallowed just like SDTV is for the same reason. No? Technical 13 (talk) 18:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

SDTV is indeed disallowed but NTSC, PAL, and SECAM are used instead. I don't think there are any viable alternative terms for HDTV. (If you mix bullet points and unmarked indentation it can easily break formatting.) Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 19:07, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pro-parens. I don't understand DogmaticEclectic's explanation. I tried to find the edit that brought the current version to the page, to see if there were related discussions, but I was not successful. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I suspect the reason for parentheses use is that these are essentially compatibility resolutions. 1080p, 1080i and 720p are all "native" digital HDTV formats so "HDTV 1080i" is an appropriate method of reference. On the other hand, "PAL 576i" is not a format. NTSC, PAL and SECAM are all analogue formats while 480i and 576i are digitised equivalents. Back when I did my colour TV course in 1979, 480i and 576i didn't exist because we didn't have digital TV. Something filmed in PAL back in 1980 would be converted to 576i today to allow for broadcast. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia articles on the digital formats are sadly lacking historical and comparison information, so this is not obvious. --AussieLegend (✉) 03:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What is the difference between House and Banshee, that the House infobox has grey headers and Banshee has the normal purple ones? I can't see any hidden code in there, but the grey is much more presentable than the purple. DWB (talk) / Comment on Dishonored's FA nom! 14:56, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• The color is determined by the show name which is retrieved from Template:Infobox television/colour. Not sure why that template is set up as it is, as it could be much smaller, but whatever works. Technical 13 (talk) 15:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick answer. DWB (talk) / Comment on Dishonored's FA nom! 15:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, Template:Infobox television/colour only provides custom colouring for a few series. The complete list is:

• Angel
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Chuck
• Entourage
• Firefly
• Futurama
• House
• Mad Men
• The 4400
• The O.C.
• The Simpsons
• The Sopranos
• Veronica Mars
• Sex and the City
• The X-Files

--AussieLegend (✉) 17:28, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• AussieLegend, you would possibly be able to expand on why they are colored via that sub template rather than using a |style=color: #RRGGBB parameter in the main template, could you? I'd like to understand this. I'm guessing there was a color dispute over which colors those series should have and /colour is more highly protected to prevent changing those colors, is this correct? Technical 13 (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Custom colouring of individual series is generally discouraged, which is why the colour parameters are not documented. Other than that, all I know is what is detailed at Template talk:Infobox television/colour#Colour eligibility. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's a slow edit war at Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey over the episode count in the infobox. Per the instructions here and reviewing the page discussions, "num_episodes" seems to be mention to only indicate for a running series how many episodes have aired, but here's a case that we know there are 13 completed episodes, it's a miniseries with a fixed end. It does not make sense to say, as of its premiere episode that "num_episodes" is just "1". People have been trying to use "13 (1 aired)" an approach I've seen elsewhere on less-significant TV series where there is a source for the number of episodes that are planned or have been produced, which seems a fair balance for this, but this keeps getting reverted by people citing this page. I think we need more consideration on this field as the "number of aired episodes" is not really a useful detail on its own. --MASEM (t) 14:50, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Episodes aired has always seemed odd to me. In Britain, unlike America, most series are completed before broadcast. Also some countries might not air every episode due to poor ratings, censorship, or local sensitivities if a real life incident clashes with a episode story (This often happens in Britain when an episode is postponed to a later date). As this is English Wikipedia and not British or American Wikipedia I would prefer episodes made. REVUpminster (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

REVUpminster I would respectfully suggest that information about episode production is probably not readily available for most of the world's shows. For children's animated programs, for example, there are rarely even cancellation announcements. Shows are left in limbo quite often, and we're left with no information about how many episodes were produced. The more easily verifiable metric seems to be "aired/released". I do, though, understand your point. There are times when a program will produce 26 episodes, but then pull one for being offensive (for example), so only 25 episodes air. Short of adding a num_produced parameter, I think that the difference between produced and aired could be best explained in prose rather than in the infobox. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:10, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need a num_produced, but I think this num_episodes field needs a bit more flexibility for some shows - or at least what it should not contain as opposed to what's happening in trying to force a conformity to how the instructions currently say. --MASEM (t) 16:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Masem I'm a big fan of adding more specificity for all the parameters. Currently the documentation reads: "The number of episodes released. In case of cancellation a reliable source is required if the total number of episodes produced is greater than the number aired." It seems like we could tack something on to the end that might help: "For programs intended to have a finite set number of episodes (mini-series, etc.) list the total number of episodes produced, along with a reliable source." Or whatever we decide should be the norm. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:10, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello could add a parameter, to place on other channels. I say this telenovela Articles.--GeorgeMilan (Talk) 01:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are some contradictory instructions for some of the important parameters in this infobox. These are (with emphasis added for clarity):

This causes a problem at TV series such as The Tom and Jerry Show (2014 TV series). The series is American but first aired in Canada so Teletoon is a foreign broadcaster and therefore should not be in the |channel= field. Instead this should be Cartoon Network. Similarly, because |first_aired= and |last_aired= specify the "original channel", the US dates should be used in those fields. Including "Canada" in |first_run= per the instructions is misleading as the average reader would expect to see Canadian information, given Canada's location in the middle of the section and since that is where it first aired. The instructions either need to be rewritten, or the parameter relocated so that it's clear that the data is local and the foreign location is just a note. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How I'm reading this, all of this information should relate to the channel that corresponds to its country of origin. But, if this information does not correspond to where it was first broadcast (in Tom and Jerry's case), then we should use the parameters as such. What if we change as so: keep "channel" or "network", "first_aired" and "last_aired" as is, and change instructions for "first_run" to include country, channel and it's air dates, or default to the country of origin if not used. I'm expecting the output to be something like: - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]