Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 April 27

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April 27

Displaying Filmography or Discography

Is there a standard format for displaying the movies or TV shows an actor has been in or albums a musician has released? Because every time I look at an artist's page, I see a different formatting used. It seems like it would be pretty simple to just decide upon one kind of format and promote the use of it throughout Wikipedia. I think once a standard was adopted, it would be easy and straight-forward to change the more eccentric listings of credits. But without knowing what is the norm, I'm not sure which articles to change and which to leave alone. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 23:07, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Filmographies are pretty standard: The Title (year) with occasional comments afterward, in reverse chronological order. I like to put them in two columns when the lists are long. See for example Allan Jeayes. Some add character names, though I don't see the point unless the reader can be expected to know them, e.g. Captain Bligh. Also, the section title should say Partial filmography if it is incomplete. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarityfiend has made some good suggestions. But to give another answer to your question there really isn't a norm in practical terms. You will find several different kinds of table out there - some sortable and some not. Many of these have little quirks to the way that you use them and if you get one thing wrong the whole table can get messed up. Thus, it does get very confusing. If you have not worked with the tables before I can recommend that you proceed with the example given as it is the easiet to deal with. MarnetteD | Talk 00:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

There is WP:FILMOGRAPHY but that is not a policy or guideline. While it would be great to standardize everything, it's a monumental project considering how many actors there are on Wikipedia. A script could be written to switch them over but it would have to be one hell of a smart script to be able to deal with the many variations that are already out there to handle them as inputs. For example, some have year listed, some don't. Some have dots between the title and the role, some just have a dash. So, automating it would be tough. The other option is manually converting everything. That takes people who know how to make tables. With only 127 active members, that WikiProject doesn't have near enough people to keep up with all the filmographies. Dismas|^(talk) 00:38, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

A script that smart AAAIIIEEEYYY would put us wikignomes out of a job. I feel sure that there would be industrial action. Thanks for your input Dismas they are quite correct. My remarks are purely for entertainment value :-) MarnetteD | Talk 02:23, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your polite responses. Sometimes, film and TV credits are put together (like on IMDb), sometimes they are separated, TV guest appearances are separate from TV lead roles, I even saw one musician's page that listed every.single.appearance. the man had made on TV (including talk shows and variety shows). I think filling in tables with colors should be abandoned, personally. It looks very Web1.0.

My goal is not to go back and change every single page for actors, directors, writers, musicians, more the adoption of some very simple template for artistic works that can be referred to from here on out. Perhaps I should post to WP:FILMOGRAPHY and see if there is any consensus there. To be honest, I don't even know how a simple decision like this would be made on Wikipedia. I think it would greatly enhance Wikipedia Entertainment Pages. Thanks, again. ; )69.125.134.86 (talk) 00:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. --Michig (talk) 07:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC)